THE link between smoking and lung cancer was discovered by two researchers in
Nazi Germany, seven years before Richard Doll’s famous 1950 study in Britain.
But because of the war, British researchers were unaware of the work. After the
war the work was tarnished by its association with the Nazis—Adolf Hitler
made a personal donation to help finance the research. The pioneering paper, by
Eberhard Schairer and Erich Schöniger, has now been published in English
for the first time (International Journal of Epidemiology, vol 30, p
24). Writing in the journal, Doll says the article “marks an important…
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