Smokeless Tobacco Raises Oral Cancer Risk Up to Tenfold — Not Fiftyfold

As more smokeless-tobacco products hit the market, scientists are calculating — and in some cases, revising — estimates of how dangerous these products are, both in and of themselves and in relation to smoking.

The Wall Street Journal reported April 24 that the American Cancer Society (ACS) recently announced that it would no longer cite a 50-times risk of oral cancer for smokeless tobacco users. The National Cancer Institute and the ACS have used that figure in the recent past, but critics have pointed out that the number is based on a study of use of inhaled dry snuff, which very few Americans use.

Other studies have estimated that smokeless tobacco increases the risk of oral cancer three to 10 times.

The American Association of Public Health Physicians claims that using smokeless tobacco increases the risk of premature death by only 2 percent of the increase associated with smoking. This group and others contend that many lives could be saved if smokers switched to smokeless tobacco, as seems to have happened in Sweden since the 1970s.

However, researchers note that the smoking rate is higher among smokeless-tobacco users than the general population.