Michael,
I can see that indeed you've had a rough time lately as you stated. Your home page is so incredibily long it would take someone a week to read it all - and you've written all of it just in the last 3 weeks!
As a health advocate, I wonder why you are expending so much energy pointing out "flaws" in the antismoking movement, rather than trying to help people. You are a medical doctor, your time is valuable. You can spend your life making sure that ASH never over steps their boundaries, or doesn't ever exaggerate a health claim. But why would you want to? Tobacco kills hundreds of thousands a year, ASH kills no one.
Please don't say ASH is weakening the tobacco control movement. No fewer than 5 states passed smoking bans last year, the movement is literally stronger than ever!
As a medical doctor your priorities are disturbing. I wouldn't want you as a doctor for anyone in my family.
I suppose Steve, you would prefer Dr. Mengele to be your physician, as he kept the faith.
It seems keeping the faith is what is important, not that the information being presented to lawmakers, legislators and the public is correct, credible and not misleading.
I've seen zero counter argument to the stipulation Dr. Siegel has presented here, concerning ASH's claim that a mere 30 minute exposure raises the risk of heart attacks in healthy individuals to that of a smoker.
Zip, zero, nada, nil zilch!
There was one attempt by the legal beagles, to assert that agreeing to 3 out of four points constituted some form of agreement. But this was an argument over form, not substance.
Maybe this example will hit home a little better for those with the tobacco control blinders on.
Bill agrees employers should be able to hire based on smoking status.
Bill agrees non smokers should not be involuntarily exposed to tobacco smoke.
Bill agrees second hand smoke is a hazard to non-smokers.
But I doubt Bill agrees with the 4th point: There are no need for smoking bans in bars which hires only smokers.
So in summary and all bans should be rescinded because involuntary exposure has been eliminated.
Therefore since Bill more or less agrees with our strawman's summary, he should consider how much time he has wasted promoting smokefree bars.
Now if Philip Morris was presenting the argument that "A guy who spends at least 30 minutes smoking on the beach has not raised his risk of a heart attack to levels much more above those of the healthy non-smoker on the next towel over, so says the CDC."
The cries of fowl, deception, and bogus health claims would be deafening from the tobacco control corner.
By the way Steve, I'd much rather have a physician that was honest, and ethical, than one with would sacrifice these values for an agenda. I'm afraid ethics and tobacco control are like oil and water. Confidence has turned to Callousness, and it is becoming quite apparent.
From your comments, it is quite obvious you have lost any semblance of objectivity.
"Tobacco kills hundreds of thousands a year, ASH kills no one."
ASH might as well yell FIRE in a crowded theater.
ASH is creating an environment of fear and panic. This creates stress, and stress kills as surely as smoking. And I'm not talking about stress within smokers, I'm talking about stress in non-smokers fearing a life threatening danger and anxiety from a few wisps of smoke which might drift their way, where smoking is still permitted.
How many people have been killed because they have been victims of denormalization?
There was a school kid that hung himself because he couldn't face the bad thing he did. It was smoking.
British gentleman killed his wife because of her smoking.
Now in Canada there was a gentleman that hot shot in his apartment hallway. All because of the danger of second hand smoke in the hallway!!
Would you like to hear how their methods can put so much fear from exposure, to cause death within 30 minutes?
Neighbours who smell nicotine from a half finished cigarette (in pocket)confront smoker; not due to health, but due to smell. Afterall its not the nicotine thats danger, but all the other chemicals you can't smell. I would hate to see how many times it may be dangerous in this gun slinging society.
I can understand when you feel danger you take action. Although I also realize that its the "education" from sources such as ASH, not the reality, that is creating this feeling of danger from the smell of nicotine.
Steve Baggins claims, "ASH kills no one."
And l.duquay already answered that with some examples of how factually untrue that is because the anti-smoking crusaders have brainwashed the public that it's perfectly okay for it to be open season on smokers.
When private life intruders (no longer will I call them "public health advocates") strive to "denormalize" an activity it translates into painting the person who engages in it as abnormal. And when the mob gets together there's no better sport than torturing the "abnormal" by ridiculing and bullying (one of the most distinctive personality traits of anti-smokers -- professional or otherwise) the person in any way possible.
I'd like to add one more example to l. duquay's list that occured in the UK:
Dad, 50, bullied to death
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/
...6050616,00.html
February 3, 2006
A DAD killed himself after being bullied at work for two years, an inquest heard.
Anthony McDermott, 50, left a letter explaining his factory floor ordeal before hanging himself.
He worked for the same firm for 14 years but the hearing was told that at the end he found a bullying campaign “soul destroying and demeaning”.
The final straw came when a colleague took a photo of him having a cigarette outside the factory, which operates a no-smoking policy.
The father of four was said to have been ridiculed after the picture was circulated on the firm’s computer network.
He complained to his manager but was issued with the firm’s first warning for breaching the no-smoking policy.
Coroner John Pollard read a short extract from the handwritten note found in Mr McDermott’s shirt pocket following his death.
It said: “The reason for this is for the last two years I’ve been bullied at work by management and this includes a photo of myself being taken.”
So the man's apparent last straw was the anti-smoker mentality promoted and sanctioned by the professional anti-smoking groups.
No matter how the antis will want to slice this, he felt that making fun of him for smoking was another form of bullying he had to endure (or rather, couldn't endure). That's what matters.
Guys, you spared me the time for a post. Hate and intolerance kill lives in many ways. Your words could have been my words.
BTW, did you notice that Bilb Steve Baggins did post twice the very same commentary, word by word, on 2 different blog posts? This is usually called spamming.
He's a Sackville-Baggins. Don't insult Bilbo!
Oh. You're right. My sincere apologies to Bilbo (bows down and repent) 
ASH is most certainly killing people. Ichiro Kawachi has been quoted numerous times stating the negative effects on health and mortality created from poor social cohesion, job stress, and poverty may be as high or even higher than smoking itself.
ASH promotes creating stress on the job and taking more money from smokers through higher taxes.
Job strain as important as smoking and lifestyle on ill health
The impact of social capital on health
More abstracts of Kawachi's work can be found here.
Some excellent articles Frank, thanks for the links.
Sure looks to me like it's been proven how ASH et al's techniques are provable harm to others, yet they keep claiming that SHS is killing x number of people per year, so where is this proof? I've seen most of the reports they link to trying to 'prove' the point, but ib all of those, the best that could be said was the usual dogma, May be linked, associated, could be a factor, etc, etc, never any one, let alone three bodies to prove the argument, and with the X number it supposedly kills, you would think they could find one, or three, or the supposedly thousands, that are being 'killed' by this 'menace', where are they?
Frank Koza wrote:
"ASH is most certainly killing people."
That's nonsense.
Thanks to ASH and other public health advocates, tens of millions of cases of lung cancer, heart disease, empysema and other deadly diseases have been prevented in the US during the past thirty five years.
After spending so much effort trying to stop the tidal wave of increasingly popular state and municipal smokefree laws, it is understandable that Frank Koza is very frustrated.
But falsely accusing a smokefree advocacy organization of killing people isn't going to stop the enactment of smokefree laws, and only exposes the desparation and sillyness of the right-to-smoke advocates.
Falsely accusing smokers of killing non-smokers, when thbey can't produce even a single body, only exposes the desperation and sillyness of the smoke-hating advocates.
Bill, Bill, Bill. You are claiming to have proved a negative when you state your gang of thieves and liars has prevented all those cases of disease. You have absolutely no evidence of that achievement beyond assertions based on statistcal games.
Bill, air bags in cars are good, but even air bags kill people. I know it's hard for you to comprehend, but it's the same with ASH and even your organization. Anti-smokers always phrase things as "lives lost" or "non-smokers killed prematurely". You're just too much in a state of denial to understand such concepts that ASH lobbying and reckless claims can and do actually help cause deaths or that smoking may actual increase longevity in some people.
I once had a young lady working her way through college as a waitress in a truck stop give me a lecture about drinking too much coffee and smoking. I told her that I was hauling 6000 gallons of flammable chemicals and I was more concerned over the immediate risk of my falling asleep behind the wheel after a long day. I may be alive writing this to you today because I had smoked back then. Doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that tobacco may be the reason we're able to share this lovely time together today?
BTW, it was Jerry Thomas who told you on the other thread that a national SIDS organization "asked repeatedly for groups such as this to quit publishing the lie that SHS, ETS or any other form of tobacco exposure CAUSES SIDS". That was the SIDS Alliance spokesperson Phipps Cohe who wrote to John Banzhaf of ASH. Yes, ASH press releases over the years may have caused non-smoking parents to fail to heed other warnings from the SIDS Alliance because they may have been lulled into a false sense of security that SIDS primarily happens to those "awful, disgusting smokers".
Walt Hanley asked Dr Siegel in another blog entry earlier about years of potential life lost (YPLL), well there is also YPLS (years of potential life saved). Well, you "saving" a 20 year old from a death by lung cancer 50 years from now at the age of 70 does not add up to an infant dying because the mother did not heed a SIDS organization warning to not let an infant sleep on its stomach.
We've already seen that with lung cancer and Laurianne's story, Lynda's non-smoking sister. It's a tragedy to see a young girl of 25 not get better diagnostics due to doctors not believing that such a young non-smoker who was not normally exposed to ETS could have such a terrible disease.
You guys kill with your shrill rhetoric, plain and simple. Get over it.
Bill wrote:
"Thanks to ASH and other public health advocates, tens of millions of cases of lung cancer, heart disease, empysema and other deadly diseases have been prevented in the US during the past thirty five years."
Guys, can't you see the enormous absurdity of such a thing? It is clearly a provocative post. We'd better limit to point out such absurdity and move on. All this Bill-bashing is distracting the attention from the things being discussed in the blog.
True enough, tR1cky, but every moment we keep Bill at his keyboard exposing his mediocre intelligence is a moment we take away from his assault upon the liberties of his fellow citizens. Well worth it!
While this doesn't implicate ASH, it is indicitive of a problem with denormalization, and a false sense of perceived threat. This is another reason that ASH's comments on outdoor bans and 30 minute exposures are irresponsible.
I was reminded of these from the Op-Ed piece in the Phily or Pitsburg paper of Sam's where he said he would beat up someone smoking.
These are all clipping from articles I've read. While I don't have links, I've tried to include the source.
Boy, 13, dies in beating on street
By Charlene Hager-Van Dyke and Rich McKay | Sentinel Staff Writers
Posted September 21, 2002
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A 13-year-old New Smyrna Beach boy was beaten to death Friday by a 15-year-old boy who thought the victim had given cigarettes to the older boy's little brother, authorities said."
-- Orlando Sentinal
Want more? How about attempted murder and assault?
"Pregnant woman shot over cigarette, 18-year-old refused to stop smoking 10/05/02 By Michael Perlstein Staff writer/The Times-Picayune
Most people cringe at the sight of a pregnant woman smoking. Some people feel strongly enough to say something in protest. But one local man took matters into his own hands early Friday when, according to police, he shot an expectant mother who refused to put out her cigarette.
The bizarre scene unfolded about 12:40 a.m. when the 18-year-old woman walked out of a convenience store in the 1500 block of Forstall Street, New Orleans police spokesman Juan Barnes said. The woman, in the ninth month of her pregnancy, had a bag in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.
As the woman made her way to the sidewalk, an unidentified man began railing against her for smoking while pregnant. The woman railed back, Barnes said, telling the man something akin to "mind your own business," except using more colorful language.
At that point, the man pulled out a handgun and aimed it toward the sky. He tried to fire a shot, but the gun jammed, Barnes said. That prompted the man -- known to the woman only as a strange character from the neighborhood -- to examine his weapon to figure out what went wrong.
Suddenly, the gun went off, striking the woman in the left shoulder, Barnes said. " -- From the Times Picayune.
"Cabbie shoots Smoker," AP 2/18/97 A 57 year old man tried to enter a taxi in Manchester, NH with a cigarette in his hand. The driver sain No...and then shot the fellow to death, though whether or not the pistol then smoked, we don't know.
The High Pt (IL) Enterprise, 12/19/95: "pregnant Smoker is Attacked." An 8 1/2 month pregnant woman was assaulted by a man who simply "became enreaged because he was bothered by her smoke" as she sat outside a shopping mall. The arresting officer said that the assailant wasn't concerned about the effects of the fetus, "he was worred about himself."
New York Post, 2/14/95; 4/6/95. A 60-year-old patron, forcibly "bounced" from a New York City restaurant ("set upon by five waiters...kicked, punched, thrown out into the street") for the crime of smoking, remained in a coma ever since the attack. The office of the Manhattan District Attorney defended the restaurant's right to "use physical force...to eject abusive customers." Besides, the DA said, there was "insufficient evidence that excessive force was used [since] the only physical injury was to the back of the man's head."
Mineola NY - United Press International, January 12, 1998, "Officer accused of hitting smoking teen": "A Long Island police officer has been charged with harassment for allegedly slapping a 15 year old who didn't put out her cigarette quickly enough.
According to the Nassau County district attorney, Chester Nakelski approached the teen who was standing outside and off the school grounds of Schreiber High School in Port Washington and asked her to stop smoking.
When she failed to put it (sic) the cigarette out as fast as he wanted her to, Nakelski allegedly hit her with his hand.
HA HA! I just thought I would show the few people above who applaud anti-smoking movements with some information.
On the other side will be anti-smoking crusaders, including city Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, who said secondhand smoke kills up to 11,000 New Yorkers every year. "Call me naive, but I really do think that telling people the truth works," said Frieden, who has prepared an 18-page briefing book on secondhand smoking for City Council members.
Thomas Frieden
Commissioner Frieden says that 11,000 people in new York die of ets (secondhand smoke). He says that its TRUTH. Let's see, New York City contains a bit less than three percent (.02
of the population of the United States. Using the statistic Frieden made up, a bit over one tenth of one percent (.0014) of New Yorkers are killed each year by secondhand smoke. Extrapolate that to the population of the United States and Frieden is asking his employers, the citizens of New York, to believe that 397,600 Americans are killed by secondhand smoke each year. Over one hundred times the number set up by the EPA, (3,000) which many scientific organizations such as the congressional research committee claims is way to high to begin with!!
Speaking of the FLAWED EPA- in the case of 93, (yes I am familiar with it and read nearly an eight of the bogus 400 page report conducted by the EPA)
The judge was disgusted with the EPA. Here is a direct quote from his 92 page response "In this case, EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun; excluded industry by violating the Act's procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion, and aggressively utilized the Act's authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiffs, products and to influence public opinion. In conducting the ETS Risk Assessment, disregarded information and made findings on selective information; did not disseminate significant epidemiologic information; deviated from its Risk Assessment Guidelines; failed to disclose important findings and reasoning; and left significant questions without answers. EPA's conduct left substantial holes in the administrative record. While so doing, produced limited evidence, then claimed the weight of the Agency's research evidence demonstrated ETS causes cancer. Gathering all relevant information, researching, and disseminating findings were subordinate to EPA's demonstrating ETS a Group A carcinogen."
A direct quote. The EPA did NOT ANSWER ONE CRITICISM. As undoubtedly imagined, it was not deemed a class A carcinogen. The EPA fought to have Osteen's decision overturned on technical grounds. They succeeded in 2002 on the narrowest of technicalities. The fourth circuit court of appeals ruled that because the report was not an official policy document Osteen's court did not have jurisdiction.
Carol Browner, the former head of the EPA, still insists that this study is valid!
A piece of information disregarded in the report was that children "exposed to ets" had less chance to develop lung cancer then those in non smoking enviorements. Statistically and even scientifically for that matter, by the world health organization and by the EPA report of 93 as well. It was mentioned as a footnote.
IF YOU STUPID SCUM ARE GOING TO WRITE ABOUT ETS PLEASE DO SO INTELLIGENTLY AND USE REAL SCIENTIFIC STUDIES!
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