Getting the facts into the open.

[tigerbob]

Michigan just started the process to get smoking banned in most public places. The momentum for this, as usual, comes from the fact that secondary smoke is a killer. But is it?

The majority of people seem to think 'yes'. Others are unsure but the media carries so many reports that say 'yes' that it almost drowns out any reasonable conversation, particularly when combined with the screams of the anti smoking lobby, who seem in most cases to feel that anyone who says no, is unsure, or maintains an open mind must be either a closed minded smoker, a tobacco lobbyist / big tobacco employee, or a simpleton. To be clear, none of the above describes me (with the possible exception of simpleton).

So, I thought I'd start a thread to find out what facts people have about tobacco and the health impact it has on non smokers.

For clarity, (and for the reference of one or two posters in particular), I'm not talking about how it smells. I'm not talking about it making your eyes sting, or your clothes or hair smell. And I'm not asking for personal anecdotal evidence (which is no evidence at all). I'm talking only about whether or not secondary (not primary) smoke is the indiscriminate killer it is said to be, and that there is a sound statistical basis for this conclusion.

I'll take a while, look into any 'facts' provided and respond as soon as possible.

In the absence of any facts, I will have to assume that the anti lobby are unable to prove the basis for the current swathe of legislation. If it can be proved, I will be the first one to agree with a ban on smoking in public places. At present, I maintain an open mind on this issue.

So, with that in mind, can anyone give me a fact about the health impacts of secondhand smoke?

 

[elvis]

Michigan just started the process to get smoking banned in most public places. The momentum for this, as usual, comes from the fact that secondary smoke is a killer. But is it?

The majority of people seem to think 'yes'. Others are unsure but the media carries so many reports that say 'yes' that it almost drowns out any reasonable conversation, particularly when combined with the screams of the anti smoking lobby, who seem in most cases to feel that anyone who says no, is unsure, or maintains an open mind must be either a closed minded smoker, a tobacco lobbyist / big tobacco employee, or a simpleton. To be clear, none of the above describes me (with the possible exception of simpleton).

So, I thought I'd start a thread to find out what facts people have about tobacco and the health impact it has on non smokers.

For clarity, (and for the reference of one or two posters in particular), I'm not talking about how it smells. I'm not talking about it making your eyes sting, or your clothes or hair smell. And I'm not asking for personal anecdotal evidence (which is no evidence at all). I'm talking only about whether or not secondary (not primary) smoke is the indiscriminate killer it is said to be, and that there is a sound statistical basis for this conclusion.

I'll take a while, look into any 'facts' provided and respond as soon as possible.

In the absence of any facts, I will have to assume that the anti lobby are unable to prove the basis for the current swathe of legislation. If it can be proved, I will be the first one to agree with a ban on smoking in public places. At present, I maintain an open mind on this issue.

So, with that in mind, can anyone give me a fact about the health impacts of secondhand smoke?

I am pretty sure it has been determined that it is not as dangerous as "first hand" smoking.

 

[Annie]

Michigan just started the process to get smoking banned in most public places. The momentum for this, as usual, comes from the fact that secondary smoke is a killer. But is it?

The majority of people seem to think 'yes'. Others are unsure but the media carries so many reports that say 'yes' that it almost drowns out any reasonable conversation, particularly when combined with the screams of the anti smoking lobby, who seem in most cases to feel that anyone who says no, is unsure, or maintains an open mind must be either a closed minded smoker, a tobacco lobbyist / big tobacco employee, or a simpleton. To be clear, none of the above describes me (with the possible exception of simpleton).

So, I thought I'd start a thread to find out what facts people have about tobacco and the health impact it has on non smokers.

For clarity, (and for the reference of one or two posters in particular), I'm not talking about how it smells. I'm not talking about it making your eyes sting, or your clothes or hair smell. And I'm not asking for personal anecdotal evidence (which is no evidence at all). I'm talking only about whether or not secondary (not primary) smoke is the indiscriminate killer it is said to be, and that there is a sound statistical basis for this conclusion.

I'll take a while, look into any 'facts' provided and respond as soon as possible.

In the absence of any facts, I will have to assume that the anti lobby are unable to prove the basis for the current swathe of legislation. If it can be proved, I will be the first one to agree with a ban on smoking in public places. At present, I maintain an open mind on this issue.

So, with that in mind, can anyone give me a fact about the health impacts of secondhand smoke?

An interesting article from a couple years ago:

The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke
Gio Batta Gori
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; 12:00 AM

Smoking cigarettes is a clear health risk, as most everyone knows. But lately, people have begun to worry about the health risks of secondhand smoke. Some policymakers and activists are even claiming that the government should crack down on secondhand smoke exposure, given what "the science" indicates about such exposure.

Last July, introducing his office's latest report on secondhand smoke, then-U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona asserted that "there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure," that "breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion," and that children exposed to secondhand smoke will "eventually . . . develop cardiovascular disease and cancers over time."

Such claims are certainly alarming. But do the studies Carmona references support his claims, and are their findings as sound as he suggests?...


...Some prominent anti-smokers have been quietly forthcoming on what "the science" does and does not show. Asked to quantify secondhand smoke risks at a 2006 hearing at the UK House of Lords, Oxford epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto ¿ a leader of the secondhand smoke crusade ¿ replied, "I am sorry not to be more helpful; you want numbers and I could give you numbers..., but what does one make of them? ...These hazards cannot be directly measured."

It has been fashionable to ignore the weakness of "the science" on secondhand smoke, perhaps in the belief that claiming "the science is settled" will lead to policies and public attitudes that will reduce the prevalence of smoking. But such a Faustian bargain is an ominous precedent in public health and political ethics. Consider how minimally such policies as smoking bans in bars and restaurants really reduce the prevalence of smoking, and yet how odious and socially unfair such prohibitions are.

By any sensible account, the anachronism of tobacco use should eventually vanish in an advancing civilization. Why must we promote this process under the tyranny of deception?

Presumably, we are grown-up people, with a civilized sense of fair play, and dedicated to disciplined and rational discourse. We are fortunate enough to live in a free country that is respectful of individual choices and rights, including the right to honest public policies. Still, while much is voiced about the merits of forceful advocacy, not enough is said about the fundamental requisite of advancing public health with sustainable evidence, rather than by dangerous, wanton conjectures.

A frank discussion is needed to restore straight thinking in the legitimate uses of "the science" of epidemiology -- uses that go well beyond secondhand smoke issues. Today, health rights command high priority on many agendas, as they should. It is not admissible to presume that people expect those rights to be served less than truthfully.

Gio Batta Gori, an epidemiologist and toxicologist, is a fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda. He is a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, and he received the U.S. Public Health Service Superior Service Award in 1976 for his efforts to define less hazardous cigarettes. Gori's article "The Surgeon General's Doctored Opinion" will appear in the spring issue of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine.

Gio Batta Gori - The Bogus 'Science' of Secondhand Smoke - washingtonpost.com

 

[Annie]

And towards the beginning of the 'ban the smoking':

Bestselling author and syndicated columnist Michael Fumento reports: "Second-hand Smoke is Harmful to Science."

Lots of links:

Second-hand Smoke is Harmful to Science
By Michael Fumento

Scripps Howard News Service, Sept. 11, 2003
Copyright 2003 Scripps Howard News Service



Looking for a surer method of being ripped apart than entering a lion's den covered with catnip? Conduct the most exhaustive, longest-running study on second-hand smoke and death. Find no connection. Then rather than being PC and hiding your data in a vast warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant, publish it in one of the world's most respected medical journals.

That's what research professor James Enstrom of UCLA and professor Geoffrey Kabat of the State University of New York, Stony Brook discovered last May. That's when they reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that their 39-year study of 35,561 Californians who had never smoked showed no "causal relationship between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and tobacco-related mortality," adding, however "a small effect" can't be ruled out.

At this writing there have been over 140 responses on bmj.com:, and if made into a movie they would be called "The Howling." Many are mere slurs several grades below even sophomoric.

Some demanded the BMJ retract the study because, as one put it, the "tobacco industry will use it." (It didn't). Another made the rather draconian call to ban all use of statistics in science, lest they be put to such wicked purposes as this.

"It is astounding how much of the criticism springs from (personal attacks) rather than from scientific criticism of the study itself," observed one of the few supportive writers. Said another: "As a publisher of the leading Austrian medical online news service, I feel quite embarrassed following the debate on this article. Many postings look more like a witch hunt than a scientific debate."

Sadly, one of the most pathetic responses came from Dr. Michael Thun, vice president for epidemiology and surveillance research at the American Cancer Society. The ACS started the study and formerly collaborated with the authors. Thun claimed that since there was so much exposure to smokers back in the 1950s and 1960s that essentially everybody was a second-hand smoker.

This logic puts the wife of a two-pack-a-day husband in the same category as somebody who once stumbled into a smoky bar. It negates all ETS studies based on spousal exposure including those serving Thun's purposes. But based on the subjects' own recollection decades later in the UCLA study, spousal smoking was indeed a good indicator of their total exposure to second-hand smoke.

One refrain running through the attacks is, "Why take seriously a study that contradicts what everyone already knows?" But "what everyone knows" is wrong. It's the UCLA study that's very much in the majority....

 

[dilloduck]

Why is something that supposedly makes you ill somehow more of a danger than things that destroy you mind ?

 

[wvulax]

Cancer Trends Progress Report - Secondhand Smoke

this is the report they reference when they SHS kills. all it says is that there is conclusive scientific evidence. it neither cites a specific report or gives one diagram like the report does for smoking.

 

[Phoenix]

Michigan just started the process to get smoking banned in most public places. The momentum for this, as usual, comes from the fact that secondary smoke is a killer. But is it?

The majority of people seem to think 'yes'. Others are unsure but the media carries so many reports that say 'yes' that it almost drowns out any reasonable conversation, particularly when combined with the screams of the anti smoking lobby, who seem in most cases to feel that anyone who says no, is unsure, or maintains an open mind must be either a closed minded smoker, a tobacco lobbyist / big tobacco employee, or a simpleton. To be clear, none of the above describes me (with the possible exception of simpleton).

So, I thought I'd start a thread to find out what facts people have about tobacco and the health impact it has on non smokers.

For clarity, (and for the reference of one or two posters in particular), I'm not talking about how it smells. I'm not talking about it making your eyes sting, or your clothes or hair smell. And I'm not asking for personal anecdotal evidence (which is no evidence at all). I'm talking only about whether or not secondary (not primary) smoke is the indiscriminate killer it is said to be, and that there is a sound statistical basis for this conclusion.

I'll take a while, look into any 'facts' provided and respond as soon as possible.

In the absence of any facts, I will have to assume that the anti lobby are unable to prove the basis for the current swathe of legislation. If it can be proved, I will be the first one to agree with a ban on smoking in public places. At present, I maintain an open mind on this issue.

So, with that in mind, can anyone give me a fact about the health impacts of secondhand smoke?

What about third-hand smoke? Is that up for factual debate or would you prefer to limit it to second-hand smoke discussion?

 

[wvulax]

They clump the two together in one term, "Environmental Tobacco Smoke"

 

[dilloduck]

Can we demand reparations from the Indians ?

 

[wvulax]

we would have to pay them back first.

 

[dilloduck]

we would have to pay them back first.

I already have at their casinos.

 

[wvulax]

I read somewhere that most of those casinos are financed by foreign business and that the seminoles are the only tribe really gaining any wealth and power

 

[dilloduck]

I read somewhere that most of those casinos are financed by foreign business and that the seminoles are the only tribe really gaining any wealth and power

fine--have the seminoles pay me back

 

[tigerbob]

Michigan just started the process to get smoking banned in most public places. The momentum for this, as usual, comes from the fact that secondary smoke is a killer. But is it?

The majority of people seem to think 'yes'. Others are unsure but the media carries so many reports that say 'yes' that it almost drowns out any reasonable conversation, particularly when combined with the screams of the anti smoking lobby, who seem in most cases to feel that anyone who says no, is unsure, or maintains an open mind must be either a closed minded smoker, a tobacco lobbyist / big tobacco employee, or a simpleton. To be clear, none of the above describes me (with the possible exception of simpleton).

So, I thought I'd start a thread to find out what facts people have about tobacco and the health impact it has on non smokers.

For clarity, (and for the reference of one or two posters in particular), I'm not talking about how it smells. I'm not talking about it making your eyes sting, or your clothes or hair smell. And I'm not asking for personal anecdotal evidence (which is no evidence at all). I'm talking only about whether or not secondary (not primary) smoke is the indiscriminate killer it is said to be, and that there is a sound statistical basis for this conclusion.

I'll take a while, look into any 'facts' provided and respond as soon as possible.

In the absence of any facts, I will have to assume that the anti lobby are unable to prove the basis for the current swathe of legislation. If it can be proved, I will be the first one to agree with a ban on smoking in public places. At present, I maintain an open mind on this issue.

So, with that in mind, can anyone give me a fact about the health impacts of secondhand smoke?

What about third-hand smoke? Is that up for factual debate or would you prefer to limit it to second-hand smoke discussion?

Passive smoke, secondary smoke and ETS are all, I believe, broadly synonymous, though there are differences between those and, for example, sidestream smoke.

Either way, I'd prefer to limit it. It's hard to keep people on topic as it is. If there is a difference, perhaps a different thread?

 

[wvulax]

soooooooooooooooooooooooo
do you have proof ETS kills?

 

[tigerbob]

soooooooooooooooooooooooo
do you have proof ETS kills?

Is that to me?

If yes, no.

 

[tigerbob]

And towards the beginning of the 'ban the smoking':

Bestselling author and syndicated columnist Michael Fumento reports: "Second-hand Smoke is Harmful to Science."

Lots of links:

Second-hand Smoke is Harmful to Science
By Michael Fumento

Scripps Howard News Service, Sept. 11, 2003
Copyright 2003 Scripps Howard News Service



Looking for a surer method of being ripped apart than entering a lion's den covered with catnip? Conduct the most exhaustive, longest-running study on second-hand smoke and death. Find no connection. Then rather than being PC and hiding your data in a vast warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant, publish it in one of the world's most respected medical journals.

That's what research professor James Enstrom of UCLA and professor Geoffrey Kabat of the State University of New York, Stony Brook discovered last May. That's when they reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that their 39-year study of 35,561 Californians who had never smoked showed no "causal relationship between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and tobacco-related mortality," adding, however "a small effect" can't be ruled out.

At this writing there have been over 140 responses on bmj.com:, and if made into a movie they would be called "The Howling." Many are mere slurs several grades below even sophomoric.

Some demanded the BMJ retract the study because, as one put it, the "tobacco industry will use it." (It didn't). Another made the rather draconian call to ban all use of statistics in science, lest they be put to such wicked purposes as this.

"It is astounding how much of the criticism springs from (personal attacks) rather than from scientific criticism of the study itself," observed one of the few supportive writers. Said another: "As a publisher of the leading Austrian medical online news service, I feel quite embarrassed following the debate on this article. Many postings look more like a witch hunt than a scientific debate."

Sadly, one of the most pathetic responses came from Dr. Michael Thun, vice president for epidemiology and surveillance research at the American Cancer Society. The ACS started the study and formerly collaborated with the authors. Thun claimed that since there was so much exposure to smokers back in the 1950s and 1960s that essentially everybody was a second-hand smoker.

This logic puts the wife of a two-pack-a-day husband in the same category as somebody who once stumbled into a smoky bar. It negates all ETS studies based on spousal exposure including those serving Thun's purposes. But based on the subjects' own recollection decades later in the UCLA study, spousal smoking was indeed a good indicator of their total exposure to second-hand smoke.

One refrain running through the attacks is, "Why take seriously a study that contradicts what everyone already knows?" But "what everyone knows" is wrong. It's the UCLA study that's very much in the majority....

Thanks for those Annie. I was already very familiar with the UCLA piece (and the story behind why the ACS jumped ship), but the Gio Batta Gori piece is new to me. Very interesting.