Politics and Secondhand Smoke

[flacaltenn]

Well there it is.. The religious environmental zealot end game. This is where we left off a year ago about water purity.. You failed to show a medically acceptable level of harm -- so you're off on fictional tales of death and destruction based on the flawed ZERO level of exposure theorem from your bible.

Forget the numbers in those studies you collected. You just want to be a non-scientific idealogue and junk the quantization of risk. Because society should be free of ALL risk.. That's a political argument or a religious argument -- not something in the Science section.

Despite your wailings to the contrary -- I stand by the statement. No doctor is gonna TREAT for a blood lead level of 2.0uG/dL. Especially because we didn't even get into the lab accuracy of such readings. And the established normal limits are STILL 10uG/dL. Go lobby to get them lowered based on EVIDENCE that public is endangered.

For instance -- I provide you with a link BIASED towards your beliefs. THESE FOLKS also parrot the "there is no safe level of lead" gospel BUT ----- Note their recommendations on pediatric exposure...

Blood Lead Level Chart - American Lead Poisoning Help Association, Inc.

Class Blood lead concentration (µg/dl) Comment

I <= 9 Re-screen in 1 year. No additional action necessary unless exposure sources change.

IIA 10 - 14 Your child is lead poisoned. Nutritional and educational interventions and morefrequent screening are required.


IIB 15 - 19 Nutritional and educational interventions and more frequent screening are required.An environmental investigation and intervention should be done.

III 20 - 44 Pharmacological treatment of lead poisoning may be required. Your child shouldreceive an environmental evaluation and remediation, and a medical evaluation.

IV 45 - 69 Your child will need both medical and environmental interventions, including chelation therapy.

V >= 70 This is a medical emergency. Medical and environmental management must begin immediately. Levels over 70 can cause convulsions, coma, and death.

So even the anti-crusaders don't want you running for medical intervention until verified testing indicates levels almost 10 times higher than ANYTHING associated with ETS...

Guess we're done. Unless we want to take up those pediatric asthma studies now.. I'm sure we could clarify the numbers for you and put things in a much less hysterical perspective..

.....or maybe not..

 

[Bfgrn]

Well there it is.. The religious environmental zealot end game. This is where we left off a year ago about water purity.. You failed to show a medically acceptable level of harm -- so you're off on fictional tales of death and destruction based on the flawed ZERO level of exposure theorem from your bible.

Forget the numbers in those studies you collected. You just want to be a non-scientific idealogue and junk the quantization of risk. Because society should be free of ALL risk.. That's a political argument or a religious argument -- not something in the Science section.

Despite your wailings to the contrary -- I stand by the statement. No doctor is gonna TREAT for a blood lead level of 2.0uG/dL. Especially because we didn't even get into the lab accuracy of such readings. And the established normal limits are STILL 10uG/dL. Go lobby to get them lowered based on EVIDENCE that public is endangered.

For instance -- I provide you with a link BIASED towards your beliefs. THESE FOLKS also parrot the "there is no safe level of lead" gospel BUT ----- Note their recommendations on pediatric exposure...

Blood Lead Level Chart - American Lead Poisoning Help Association, Inc.

Class Blood lead concentration (µg/dl) Comment

I <= 9 Re-screen in 1 year. No additional action necessary unless exposure sources change.

IIA 10 - 14 Your child is lead poisoned. Nutritional and educational interventions and morefrequent screening are required.


IIB 15 - 19 Nutritional and educational interventions and more frequent screening are required.An environmental investigation and intervention should be done.

III 20 - 44 Pharmacological treatment of lead poisoning may be required. Your child shouldreceive an environmental evaluation and remediation, and a medical evaluation.

IV 45 - 69 Your child will need both medical and environmental interventions, including chelation therapy.

V >= 70 This is a medical emergency. Medical and environmental management must begin immediately. Levels over 70 can cause convulsions, coma, and death.

So even the anti-crusaders don't want you running for medical intervention until verified testing indicates levels almost 10 times higher than ANYTHING associated with ETS...

Guess we're done. Unless we want to take up those pediatric asthma studies now.. I'm sure we could clarify the numbers for you and put things in a much less hysterical perspective..

.....or maybe not..

WOW, not only are you beyond a moron, you are a lying piece of shit.

Selectively edited out, the very first paragraph from:

Blood Lead Level Chart - American Lead Poisoning Help Association, Inc.


What do the numbers mean?

Lead does not occur naturally in a human body. There is no safe level of lead. Often children have no visible symptoms, however, visible symptoms can mimic other childhood illnesses and include anemia, stomach pain, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, headaches, poor appetite, nausea, vomiting, irritability, hyperactivity, and aggression. In every instance, the source of lead should be discovered and removed.

Well, in THIS instance, we have discovered one source of lead. ETS.

HOW do we know ETS is a source?

By the FACT that elevated cotinine levels, which can only occur by ingesting nicotine from tobacco smoke correlates to elevated blood lead levels. So we KNOW that tobacco smoke is NOT only harmful to smokers.

So now that we KNOW ETS is harmful, there are 249 other toxins, poisons and carcinogens besides lead that are entering the body of children exposed to secondhand smoke.

Do you have 249 more charts Einstein?

 

[flacaltenn]

I find that folks with REALLY POOR reading comprehensive often get frustrated and lash out in anger for no reason at all...

I CLEARLY stated that the link I provided was sympathetic to your "zero tolerance" views. I even SAID they endorsed the concept that "there is no safe level of lead".. Didn't hide anything. Didn't selectively edit.. YET --- when it came to their clinical recommendations for supervision and treatment, the blood lead levels indicated in those ETS studies merited NO MEDICAL RESPONSE. It's not unique to these lead nazis.. Let's try another..

What Your Child's Blood Lead Test Means

Same SOUND medical and public health guidance here -- isn't it? Stranger still -- ETS is nowhere to be found on the page.. WHY? Because it's not a cause of clinical intervention for lead poisoning compared to all the other ACTUAL risks. (That -- or the smoking nazis were asleep at the switch.)

But here's another SCIENTIFIC point. At the LOW lead levels found in ETS, intervention could be as simple as Michelle Obama's Arugula Campaign...

Serve foods that have calcium, iron, and vitamin C.
&#8226;These foods help keep lead from being stored in your child's body.

&#8226;Foods with calcium: milk, cheese, yogurt, tofu, and green, leafy vegetables.
&#8226;Foods with iron: beans, lean meat, fortified cereal and peanut butter.
&#8226;Foods with vitamin C: oranges, orange juice, grapefruit, tomatoes, green peppers.

CERTAINLY -- those studies finding TRACES of lead from ETS didn't all control for diet. And since the MAJORITY of serious lead exposures requiring med. care occur in "underpriveledged" communities due to NON-ETS sources, there is even more reason to DISMISS those trace findings..

But common sense SHOULD be all that's required here. Scientifically, you must ask the question, where is the demonstrated harm? Which is more significant at those levels -- diet or ETS exposure? And why would anyone believe that burning small amounts of a vegetable is a significant source of lead poisoning?

Gee -- If burning vegetable matter is a LEAD poisoning catastrophe -- then why is burning BIOMASS still high on your list of Clean and Green "alternatives"???

 

[Bfgrn]

Well there it is.. The religious environmental zealot end game. This is where we left off a year ago about water purity.. You failed to show a medically acceptable level of harm -- so you're off on fictional tales of death and destruction based on the flawed ZERO level of exposure theorem from your bible.

Forget the numbers in those studies you collected. You just want to be a non-scientific idealogue and junk the quantization of risk. Because society should be free of ALL risk.. That's a political argument or a religious argument -- not something in the Science section.

Despite your wailings to the contrary -- I stand by the statement. No doctor is gonna TREAT for a blood lead level of 2.0uG/dL. Especially because we didn't even get into the lab accuracy of such readings. And the established normal limits are STILL 10uG/dL. Go lobby to get them lowered based on EVIDENCE that public is endangered.

For instance -- I provide you with a link BIASED towards your beliefs. THESE FOLKS also parrot the "there is no safe level of lead" gospel BUT ----- Note their recommendations on pediatric exposure...

Blood Lead Level Chart - American Lead Poisoning Help Association, Inc.

Class Blood lead concentration (µg/dl) Comment

I <= 9 Re-screen in 1 year. No additional action necessary unless exposure sources change.

IIA 10 - 14 Your child is lead poisoned. Nutritional and educational interventions and morefrequent screening are required.


IIB 15 - 19 Nutritional and educational interventions and more frequent screening are required.An environmental investigation and intervention should be done.

III 20 - 44 Pharmacological treatment of lead poisoning may be required. Your child shouldreceive an environmental evaluation and remediation, and a medical evaluation.

IV 45 - 69 Your child will need both medical and environmental interventions, including chelation therapy.

V >= 70 This is a medical emergency. Medical and environmental management must begin immediately. Levels over 70 can cause convulsions, coma, and death.

So even the anti-crusaders don't want you running for medical intervention until verified testing indicates levels almost 10 times higher than ANYTHING associated with ETS...

Guess we're done. Unless we want to take up those pediatric asthma studies now.. I'm sure we could clarify the numbers for you and put things in a much less hysterical perspective..

.....or maybe not..

There we go...the right wing polarized argument. A sure sign you are being pummeled in this argument.

All the science supports the FACT that tobacco smoke is harmful to human beings. Even your beloved tobacco companies finally admit to that FACT (after being sued and convicted of violating racketeering laws and misleading the public for years about the health hazards of smoking).

What the lead studies reveal is that secondhand smoke is not passive. Even heavy elements like lead are transmitted to non-smokers who inhale someone else's smoke.

You accuse me of being a 'religious environmental zealot'. If I am a zealot about anything related to this issue, I am a zealot about rights. As I stated in an earlier post:

"It is your body. If you want to smoke, go for it. BUT...do the people in the room with you have the same right? OR, do YOU alone have the right to breath in smoke, and the rest of the people have to forfeit their right to breath clean air?

Isn't it a right ONLY if it doesn't infringe on the rights of others?"

If you want to smoke, go for it. Just take it outside.

 

[Obamerican]

Carcinogens are carcinogens. Introducing them willfully into the air that someone else has to breathe is a matter of ethics. Something that 'Conservatives' seem not to understand.

Using your line of reasoning then making a camp fire is unethical?

 

[flacaltenn]

<BFgRN>

You accuse me of being a 'religious environmental zealot'. If I am a zealot about anything related to this issue, I am a zealot about rights. As I stated in an earlier post:

"It is your body. If you want to smoke, go for it. BUT...do the people in the room with you have the same right? OR, do YOU alone have the right to breath in smoke, and the rest of the people have to forfeit their right to breath clean air?

Isn't it a right ONLY if it doesn't infringe on the rights of others?"

If you want to smoke, go for it. Just take it outside.

I don't accuse you of being an 'religious environmental zealot'-- you've proved that point to me over and over on USMB with your "precautionary principles" and "zero limits on toxicity" in our past meetings.

And since this is in the Science forum -- I'm not gonna indulge in the political.. But the choice to "Take it outside" or "Use it in your own backyard" are also being challenged on the basis of ASTROMICALLY smaller scientific evidence of harm "to others". See the original perverted science LEADS to perverted public policy where even "radical environmentalists" like you have to admit -- It's gone WAAAAY too far.

And to claim it's based on science takes bigger and bigger delusional drugs....

 

[flacaltenn]

Carcinogens are carcinogens. Introducing them willfully into the air that someone else has to breathe is a matter of ethics. Something that 'Conservatives' seem not to understand.

Using your line of reasoning then making a camp fire is unethical?

Forget the carcinogens, you've committed a level III felony by killing a living carbon sink and releasing sequestered carbon.. They're gonna put your ass on a reduced exhale program for nine months to pay your carbon credits..

 

[Bfgrn]

<BFgRN>

You accuse me of being a 'religious environmental zealot'. If I am a zealot about anything related to this issue, I am a zealot about rights. As I stated in an earlier post:

"It is your body. If you want to smoke, go for it. BUT...do the people in the room with you have the same right? OR, do YOU alone have the right to breath in smoke, and the rest of the people have to forfeit their right to breath clean air?

Isn't it a right ONLY if it doesn't infringe on the rights of others?"

If you want to smoke, go for it. Just take it outside.

I don't accuse you of being an 'religious environmental zealot'-- you've proved that point to me over and over on USMB with your "precautionary principles" and "zero limits on toxicity" in our past meetings.

And since this is in the Science forum -- I'm not gonna indulge in the political.. But the choice to "Take it outside" or "Use it in your own backyard" are also being challenged on the basis of ASTROMICALLY smaller scientific evidence of harm "to others". See the original perverted science LEADS to perverted public policy where even "radical environmentalists" like you have to admit -- It's gone WAAAAY too far.

And to claim it's based on science takes bigger and bigger delusional drugs....

The only radical is you. It is not radical to believe we all have a right to breath clean air and drink clean water. That 'law of the commons' concept goes back to the Magna Carta.

Your argument is based on SOME violation of that right is OK...by YOU. Something YOU have no right to decide. You ONLY have the right to decide what you do to your body. NOT someone elses.

"We didn't inherit this land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
Lakota Sioux Proverb

 

[flacaltenn]

<BFgRN>

You accuse me of being a 'religious environmental zealot'. If I am a zealot about anything related to this issue, I am a zealot about rights. As I stated in an earlier post:

"It is your body. If you want to smoke, go for it. BUT...do the people in the room with you have the same right? OR, do YOU alone have the right to breath in smoke, and the rest of the people have to forfeit their right to breath clean air?

Isn't it a right ONLY if it doesn't infringe on the rights of others?"

If you want to smoke, go for it. Just take it outside.

I don't accuse you of being an 'religious environmental zealot'-- you've proved that point to me over and over on USMB with your "precautionary principles" and "zero limits on toxicity" in our past meetings.

And since this is in the Science forum -- I'm not gonna indulge in the political.. But the choice to "Take it outside" or "Use it in your own backyard" are also being challenged on the basis of ASTROMICALLY smaller scientific evidence of harm "to others". See the original perverted science LEADS to perverted public policy where even "radical environmentalists" like you have to admit -- It's gone WAAAAY too far.

And to claim it's based on science takes bigger and bigger delusional drugs....

The only radical is you. It is not radical to believe we all have a right to breath clean air and drink clean water. That 'law of the commons' concept goes back to the Magna Carta.

Your argument is based on SOME violation of that right is OK...by YOU. Something YOU have no right to decide. You ONLY have the right to decide what you do to your body. NOT someone elses.

"We didn't inherit this land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
Lakota Sioux Proverb

Yeah, Yeah. Next time BFgrn.. Unless you want to discuss more hysterical claims about ETS and the "actual measurable harm", we'll just save the invocational native prayers for later..

 

[MuadDib]

Carcinogens are carcinogens. Introducing them willfully into the air that someone else has to breathe is a matter of ethics. Something that 'Conservatives' seem not to understand.

Using your line of reasoning then making a camp fire is unethical?

Forget the carcinogens, you've committed a level III felony by killing a living carbon sink and releasing sequestered carbon.. They're gonna put your ass on a reduced exhale program for nine months to pay your carbon credits..

That's not the half of it. Our legal code is now so complex, convoluted, and over reaching that the average citizen unknowingly commits three felonies a day.

 

[flacaltenn]

Using your line of reasoning then making a camp fire is unethical?

Forget the carcinogens, you've committed a level III felony by killing a living carbon sink and releasing sequestered carbon.. They're gonna put your ass on a reduced exhale program for nine months to pay your carbon credits..

That's not the half of it. Our legal code is now so complex, convoluted, and over reaching that the average citizen unknowingly commits three felonies a day.

It's obvious that when you legislate everything from the size of sodas to power plants that only work sometimes, that people are gonna get stupid. The judgement muscle starts shrinking in size -- resulting in an inability to connect with self-preservation instincts. The result is Idiocracy.. And a population who can't behave unless a sign is posted every 20 feet..

Been to California lately? Every door you walk thru is posted with a cancer hazard warning, while the 4 bins for recieving your trash are overflowing with crap that people have abandoned on top because they don't know how to sort "organic waste" from plastics.

 

[Bfgrn]

<BFgRN>



I don't accuse you of being an 'religious environmental zealot'-- you've proved that point to me over and over on USMB with your "precautionary principles" and "zero limits on toxicity" in our past meetings.

And since this is in the Science forum -- I'm not gonna indulge in the political.. But the choice to "Take it outside" or "Use it in your own backyard" are also being challenged on the basis of ASTROMICALLY smaller scientific evidence of harm "to others". See the original perverted science LEADS to perverted public policy where even "radical environmentalists" like you have to admit -- It's gone WAAAAY too far.

And to claim it's based on science takes bigger and bigger delusional drugs....

The only radical is you. It is not radical to believe we all have a right to breath clean air and drink clean water. That 'law of the commons' concept goes back to the Magna Carta.

Your argument is based on SOME violation of that right is OK...by YOU. Something YOU have no right to decide. You ONLY have the right to decide what you do to your body. NOT someone elses.

"We didn't inherit this land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
Lakota Sioux Proverb

Yeah, Yeah. Next time BFgrn.. Unless you want to discuss more hysterical claims about ETS and the "actual measurable harm", we'll just save the invocational native prayers for later..

Interesting how the 'Godwin' police are asleep whenever you right wing morons use the 'nazi' screech. And dismissing tobacco smoke as 'burning small amounts of a vegetable' is pure ignorance. Even your beloved tobacco criminals disagree with you. YOU were the one who provided R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company | Tobacco Use & Health

Why don't you try this novel idea...READ the fucking thing.

From the site YOU posted:

Tobacco Use & Health

• Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States.

• Cigarette smoking significantly increases the risk of developing lung cancer, heart disease, chronic bronchitis, emphysema and other serious diseases and adverse health conditions.

• The risk for serious diseases is significantly affected by the type of tobacco product and the frequency, duration and manner of use.

• No tobacco product has been shown to be safe and without risks. The health risks associated with cigarettes are significantly greater than those associated with the use of smoke-free tobacco and nicotine products.

• Nicotine in tobacco products is addictive but is not considered a significant threat to health.

• It is the smoke inhaled from burning tobacco which poses the most significant risk of serious diseases.

Tobacco Consumers

• Individuals should consider the conclusions of the U.S. Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and other public health and medical officials when making decisions regarding smoking.

• The best course of action for tobacco consumers concerned about their health is to quit. Adults who continue to use tobacco products should consider the reductions of risks for serious diseases associated with moving from cigarettes to the use of smoke-free tobacco or nicotine products.

• Minors should never use tobacco products and adults who do not use or have quit using tobacco products should not start.

• Adults who smoke should avoid exposing minors to secondhand smoke, and adult smokers should comply with rules and regulations designed to respect the rights of other adults.

 

[preetim22]

Tobacco is uncompromised "Destroyer" of human health, proved disastrous effects on all body systems.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Tobacco is uncompromised "Destroyer" of human health, proved disastrous effects on all body systems.

1.So...why isn't it banned or made illegal?
Caught on in every nation in which it was introduced....has a fascinating history intimately related to commerce and exploration.


2. In 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew were the first non-Americans to see indigenous people of the Americas smoke, though Amerigo Vespucci gets the credit for making the first reference to tobacco in print, in 1505. Jacques Cartier tasted tobacco in 1535. Champlain observed tobacco in 1599, describing it as “a kinde of herbe, whereof they take the smoake.” And when Indians feted the French in 1603, he offered them tobacco: Champlain called the gathering a ‘tabagie’.

3. Native tobacco had a nicotine content many times higher than what is now smoked, and induced psychotropic effects and trances, and was thought to ease a wide variety of complaints. The analgesic properties of tobacco were thought to give smoking medicinal as well as religious properties, realms that overlapped in seventeenth-century pharmacology.

4. Tobacco moved along the webs of trade, Europe first. And with smoking went religious, medical, social and economic practices. Transculturation is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in 1947 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. Wherever tobacco showed up, a culture that did not smoke became a culture that did. Continuing the connection with the spiritual, the Christian clergy- with the exception of the Jesuits, became avid smokers. So much so that the Vatican told priest that they could not smoke in church. Sailors, soldiers, and priests were the first European smokers.

5. The first botanical entry on tobacco to appear in a medical text was by Rembert Dodoens, 1553, and this evidenced that the tobacco plant itself had arrived in the Low Countries. He didn’t know what to call the plant, so he borrowed the name of a plant with a similar flower, and some narcotic properties with which he was familiar: henbane. In Portugal, Damiao de Goes claimed that his kinsman was the first to bring tobacco from Brazil prior to 1553. Tobacco traveled to France when de Goes gave Jean Nicot seeds from his garden, and he brought it to the Queen, Catherine de Medici, in 1566. Thus the scientific name for tobacco: Nicotiana.

6. In 1591 in Mexico, Juan de Cardenas listed the medicinal properties of tobacco based on the reports of Spanish soldiers who used it to stave off hunger, thirst and cold, stating that it kept them ‘warm and healthy.” With this understanding, it fit in well in England’s cold, damp climate. By 1597, every English apothecary was prescribing tobacco!

7. At the turn of the century, Virginia tobacco was but a novelty, yet smokers were willing to pay its weight in silver. High duties and high prices for Virginia tobacco set the scene: control of the supply. Europeans began to set up plantations, and by about 1610, colonization was no longer speculative, but affordable and profitable. As beaver pelts funded French exploration in the north, tobacco gave the English impetus to transplant themselves to Virginia and dispossess Natives.

8. But tobacco farmers found that the supply of labor was sorely lacking. Indians would not do the work, the solution was to find those who had to work- slaves. Starting in the 1630’s, the Dutch West Indian Company bought slaves in Africa, sold them to plantation owners in the Caribbean and Brazil. The new system of trade that emerged was tobacco and sugar from the Americas, slaves from Africa worked plantations in the Americas and silver mines in South America, and this paid for goods from Europe and the Americas to Asia. So, it was on the trinity of silver, tobacco, and slaves that the colonization of the Americas rested.
For a fuller and much more interesting telling of tobacco’s influence on history, read “Vermeer’s Hat,” by Timothy Brook.

 

[Katzndogz]

Has it ever occurred to you that the people who complain the loudest about second hand smoke and pass the laws against it will pay a couple of hundred dollars for a Cuban cigar if they can get one smuggled in?

 

[Old Rocks]

Has it ever occurred to you that the people who complain the loudest about second hand smoke and pass the laws against it will pay a couple of hundred dollars for a Cuban cigar if they can get one smuggled in?

Has it ever occured to you that many that want nothing to do with second hand smoke are asthmatics, and would throw the Cuban cigar in the trash? Damn, Katz, you are moving down to Frankie Boys level.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Has it ever occurred to you that the people who complain the loudest about second hand smoke and pass the laws against it will pay a couple of hundred dollars for a Cuban cigar if they can get one smuggled in?

Has it ever occured to you that many that want nothing to do with second hand smoke are asthmatics, and would throw the Cuban cigar in the trash? Damn, Katz, you are moving down to Frankie Boys level.

Has it ever occured to you that many that want nothing to do with second hand Rose???



[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLyk0uSULwI]Barbra Streisand - Second-Hand Rose - YouTube[/ame]

 

[9thIDdoc]

Follow the money.
Who gets the big money from cigarettes? The goverment at all levels.
It has a large vested interest in them being unhealthy.

 

[jquizzix]

Political Chick, I wanted to add this one thing to your list of interesting tobacco history tidbits:

9. Lung cancer was a virtually unknown disease until the invention of the cigarette machine around 1880. As smoking rates increased due to increased production and sales of cigarettes, so did rates of lung cancer.

Too interesting to leave off the list.

 

[flacaltenn]

Political Chick, I wanted to add this one thing to your list of interesting tobacco history tidbits:

9. Lung cancer was a virtually unknown disease until the invention of the cigarette machine around 1880. As smoking rates increased due to increased production and sales of cigarettes, so did rates of lung cancer.

Too interesting to leave off the list.

Prior to 1900 lung cancer was diagnosed at AUTOPSY. No X-rays, No knowledge of metasis, No means to generally diagnose or discrimate between other diseases of the chest. Not surprising it was MORE rare than it is now. Not disputing the link, but there's no need to attribute correlations that can't be quantified.