The filters of common commercial cigarettes incorporate microscopic, needle-shaped shards of glass wool (like fiberglass insulation) which escape into the mouth and throat, and then lodge with tobacco tar in the lung tissue, surrounding the alveoli (tiny air sacs) and lead to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), emphysema and ultimately lung cancer.
A physician’s assistant (PA) and an intensive care nurse at a major hospital reviewed the broken lung tissue of several cigarette smokers and mentioned the x-rays looked identical to those of sufferers exposed to asbestos, and that diagnostic imaging revealed what looked like “ground glass” which settled in the soft tissue near the bottom of the lungs (GGO – ground glass opacity). The interviewed nurse said, “When lung tissue is broken over and over, it develops lesions, and the cancer plants itself in there like seeds.”