Excellent!
Excellent analysis Dr. Siegel. I would like to add and reemphasize something though.
Even *IF* the Helena figures were accurate and apaplied elsewhere (something that has now been pretty conclusively demonstrated NOT to be the case by the larger state figures), but even IF those figures were accurate...
They show NOTHING about secondary smoke.
The authors COULD have honestly argued that PERHAPS some of the observed reduction was due to lower exposures, but since they refused to analyze (or even make public) their data on heart attacks among nonsmokers that's all that could possibly be said.
Of course you'd never know that when you see the posturing and blathering and muzzamarole spread all over the landscape about Helena and Pueblo showing the dangers of secondary smoke unless you went and carefully read the studies themselves (not even possible in the case of Pueblo, but they did mention a lack of nonsmoker data collection in their presentation/press release).
The studies may have been honestly done, but their presentation to the public has been fraudulent.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com
Michael-
One example that highlights your point is a press release issued by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids following the publicization of the Pueblo study (not a published study). As I pointed out, this release indicates that the Pueblo study confirms the evidence that secondhand smoke is harmful: "The Pueblo study adds to the mountain of evidence that secondhand smoke poses a serious threat to human health."
As you correctly point out, it does nothing of the sort, even if one ACCEPTS that there is indeed a 27% or 40% drop in heart attacks immediately after implementation of the smoking ban.
I actually have little problem with the studies themselves - my problem is more with the way the results have been used (or misused).
It is important to note that the New York City Health Department did not try to assert that the reduction in heart disease deaths were attributable to the smoking ban. In their press release they said:
"The reduction in cardiac deaths accounted for most of the overall decrease. The decline reflects a continuing improvement in medical care, including better control of blood pressure, cholesterol and management of patients with cardiac events. A more rapid decline in cardiac deaths in 2003 and 2004 is consistent with a decrease by 200,000 in the number of New Yorkers who smoke."
News!
A new study by Enstrom and Kabat, who analyzed the relationship between ETS and Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), found that the relation has been overestimated (Inhal Toxicol, March 1, 2006; 18(3): 199-210.):
"When all relevant studies are included in the meta-analysis and results are appropriately combined, current or ever exposure to ETS, as approximated by spousal smoking, is associated with roughly a 5% increased risk of death from CHD in never smokers. Furthermore, there is no dose-response relationship and no elevated risk associated with the highest level of ETS exposure in males or females. An objective assessment of the available epidemiologic evidence indicates that the association of ETS with CHD death in U.S. never smokers is very weak. Previous assessments appear to have overestimated the strength of the association."
See Medline abstract
Commenting by HaloScan
