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Air pollution may contribute to development of lung cancer in never-smokers

(today.ucsd.edu)
142 points gmays | 1 comments | 04 Jul 25 18:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.239s | source
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thaumasiotes[dead post] ◴[04 Jul 25 19:59 UTC] No.44467406[source]▶
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cs02rm0 ◴[04 Jul 25 20:10 UTC] No.44467500[source]▶
I don't think that's implied in the quote? Lung cancer in non-users is on the rise is the point, presumably the decline in tobacco is mentioned as falling lung cancer due to tobacco use can mask rises in lung cancer from other factors.
replies(1): >>44467940 #
1. thaumasiotes ◴[04 Jul 25 21:15 UTC] No.44467940[source]▶
The quote says that as tobacco use has fallen, lung cancer that is not caused by tobacco use has become a larger proportion of all lung cancers, tobacco-related or not, than it used to be. That's what the word "proportionally" means.

This is the only possiblity that exists, so it's disturbing that the PR guy characterizes it as "a troubling trend". Not only is it not a troubling trend, it was an outcome we did a lot of work to bring about.

If you have an urn with some white balls in it and some black balls, and you take out some black balls, and then you put in some white balls, is the set of balls in the urn proportionally more or less white than before?

Would it bother you if someone called it "troubling" that that sequence of operations made the urn's contents more proportionally white?