Conservative radio personality and controversial political commentator Rush Limbaugh has been diagnosed with the advanced stages of lung cancer. On his show on Monday, the often-confrontational Limbaugh told listeners that he would be seeking treatment for the illness and that he would likely miss some episodes of his show as he battled cancer.
Many have pointed out that Limbaugh’s diagnosis is ironic, given his long insistence that smoking’s dangerous side effects have been “overblown.” For years, Limbaugh has made claims that both secondhand and firsthand smoke aren’t as bad for people as medical professionals insist they are.
In 2015, while addressing a caller on his radio show, Limbaugh claimed that secondhand smoke is completely harmless. Limbaugh has long argued that society should be grateful to smokers, primarily for the taxes collected on the products they are addicted to. The caller asked Rush how he defended the practice in light of the cancer dangers of secondhand smoke.
“That is a myth. That has been disproven at the World Health Organization and the report was suppressed,” Limbaugh insisted, offering no direct evidence of his claim. “There is no fatality whatsoever. There’s no even major sickness component associated with secondhand smoke. It may irritate you, and you may not like it, but it will not make you sick, and it will not kill you.”
Limbaugh even made the bold claim that firsthand smoking isn’t as dangerous as medical professionals insist it is. “Firsthand smoke takes 50 years to kill people, if it does,” Limbaugh told the caller. “Not everybody that smokes gets cancer. Now, it’s true that everybody who smokes dies, but so does everyone who eats carrots.”
The radio show host then questioned why tobacco would even be allowed on the market if it was so dangerous, a strange line of thinking that ignores numerous dangerous substances that are sold legally in the US. Limbaugh then insisted that smokers’ taxes went to funding children’s healthcare programs, and, finally, stating “I would like a medal for smoking cigars, is what I’m saying.”
In a surprise move at last night’s State of the Union address, President Trump gave Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom.
