Dr. Siegel, This is very well written article. Its clear, convincing and well referenced. It is clear that you are concerned about the inaccuracies that you believe you see in SmokeFree Ohio's Fact Sheet.
But I am perplexed by what appears to be hypocrisy on your part. You have many links to FORCES on your website. Yet, FORCES states outright ETS is harmless. NO DANGER! they say on their site. I posted these quotes earlier on the UTAH thread. You haven't answered.
Doctor, Are you concerned about being associcated with a group who blatantly denies the health consequences of ETS? Please explain!
Let's just make it a nano second or pico second and be done with it .A wisp of smoke at 20feet will cause instant death in Calabasas because they know it's nothing to do with car exhaust fumes!I'm taking bets as to the next anti smoking outfit making the lead time 15 minutes talk about trying to be outdone !
>It is important to point
>out that air pollution
>also decreases heart rate >variability, in a very
>similar way to the
>findings observed
>due to secondhand smoke.
Interesting. If you believe that there are more pursuasive studies, such as the ones you cite, that establishes the dangers of second hand smoke, why not email them and let them know?
You have made a number of studies yourself on the matter. If you believe they make a stronger or more credible case, I am sure they would appreciate it.
Wonking:
A tactic used over the last decade to quote statistics and studies so fast That the legitimate reporter will appear un professional by questioning the wonkers. Twististicks are reported every day in the legitimate media because the reporter simply does not question the news maker and then parrots the information on to the general public in the form of legitimate news.Many of the misleading stories and information are sent out in the form of PR newswire releases.IMHO
Red Herring:
A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
1. Topic A is under discussion.
2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
3. Topic A is abandoned.
Steve-
I did respond to your question on the other thread (sorry it took a while to get to it in the midst of all the comments).
I'm not sure I understand your question here. I have linked to articles that cite posts on my blog. Putting a link on a web page does not imply an endorsement of everything that is on that web site.
If that were the case, I certainly couldn't link to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Ignite, American Legacy Foundation, ANR, ASH, or SmokeFreeOhio.
If SmokeFreeOhio cited my post on their site, I would also link to their web site. But would there be anything wrong with me posting a link to a group that is putting out completely fallacious information about the health effects of secondhand smoke.
If I refuse to link to any site that I consider to have inaccurate information about secondhand smoke, then I would have to refrain from linking to a number of anti-smoking sites as well.
Steve rants:
"Doctor, Are you concerned about being associcated with a group who blatantly denies the health consequences of ETS? Please explain!"
Steve, Are you concerned about being associated with a group who blatantly esposes hatred towards people who smoke? Please explain!
ed, There are a lot of people who believe that ETS harmful to themselves and their family. When I read through the posts I see people trying to protecting themselves from what they perceive as a threat to their health and well being. I don't see hatred.
"Doctor, Are you concerned about being associcated with a group who blatantly denies the health consequences of ETS? Please explain!"
Steve, are you concerned about being associated with a group who refuses to look at the epidemiological evidence? Please explain!
Dr. Siegel, VERY well done, but you really shouldn't be that surprised. You've seen www.TheTruthIsALie.com and you've read Antibrains. The lies are nothing new really... they're just different ones.
Steve, you wrote: "When I read through the posts I see people trying to protecting themselves from what they perceive as a threat to their health and well being."
And Steve, that false perception is routinely groomed and grown by the Antismoking groups that I believe you generally support. Where does the hatred come in? It comes from those fears that are so deliberately cultivated. You don't need to look far to find it: try reading through the posts on IrishHealth.com or ThePublican.com and you'll see it oozing from the monitor.
And when you support those groups you are helping to support that hate.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://www.Antibrains.com
Dr. Siegel, you state that, "I agree that there is evidence that after 20 minutes of secondhand smoke exposure, platelet aggregation increases and that it may increase to the level of that seen in an active smoker."
At what level Dr. Siegel? Otsuka exposed nonsmokers, deliberately without a control condition, to smoke levels 300% higher than those found in the middle of the smoking sections of sealed and pressurized aircraft. Kato used levels hundreds of percent higher still.
You correctly point out that even with such "stickiness" it's a far leap to jump to a realistic threat to life or health, but for me the main sticking point here is the level of exposure: to the best of my knowledge, NONE of these studies found ANY potentially worrisome physiological reaction from the levels of smoke that would normally be found in a decently ventilated nonsmoking section of a restaurant... or for that matter even in the middle of any decent full smoking bar!
Am I correct in this?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://www.Antibrains.com
hey doc,
i'm a little concerned that this isn't going to be noticed to be responded to so i'm posting this here.
in response to my request, you said you would be interested in discussing one of the studies so you can help the (not-yet-outlawed) smokers understand how the science is being applied to ETS/SHS, and to give us nyos' a chance to debate the evidence of the same study for 'our' side.
can we do this soon? because everytime we quote a statement made by a source, regardless of where it came from, it is automatically branded a lie.
and perhaps if we dissect just one study (oh gawd please just one without multitudes of crossreferencing aka wonking) than perhaps we might all get a better chance to understand, or at least interpret, the data for ourselves.
Steve says:
"ed, There are a lot of people who believe that ETS harmful to themselves and their family."
Fine, but so what? There are a lot of people who believe a lot of things. Believing doesn't make it so.
"When I read through the posts I see people trying to protecting themselves
from what they perceive as a threat to their health and well being."
By portraying people who smoke as abnormal? By attempting to marginalize people who smoke as immoral pariahs? By accusing people who smoke of being villains who wantonly injure others? By citing trumped up "evidence" and using it to restrict personal liberties and property rights on a broad scale? By accusing those who criticize your tactics of being traitors? You've done or are defending those who have done all these things, Steve.
Do you really want to be associated with people like ASH, who lie in order to justify their desire to punish smokers?
"I don't see hatred."
Of course you don't. You can't because you're a true believer; you bear a grudge against me because you're convinced I'm hurting you somehow.
You and the people you associate with have the nerve to act all righteous about doing anything you can think of in order to get people like me to tow the line. So you write us off not as people, but as as soulless nicotine thralls who must be berated, vexed, hectored, and humiliated until we relent and bow to your will.
Shoot, Steve, you even blame me and people like me for ruining your social life. That's pathetic. What else will you blame on smokers? It's cheap and easy when you put us in the same category as dogs!
This is why I see the hate, Steve. So do a lot of other people.
Take your hate somewhere else.
The method to the madness is that smoking bans, restrictions, regulations, and etc serve to coerce the reasonable smoker into quitting.
That is the aim of the antitobacco industry (ATI for short), to get people to quit. That is why they make up scary "facts" about secondhand smoke. They are trying to convince policy makers that a wisp of secondhand smoke will render their kid dead, as if their kid was a cockroach getting sprayed by Bengal roach spray. And Bengal is very effective cockroach spray.
The ATI's out there know it's fallacious, and an outright lie. But they are willing to accept the ends justify the means and the ends are to make it such a hassle to smoke, that people will simply quit.
I know. I work for the antis. It is not a secret within our organization, but it is most certainly a secret when dealing with the media, the general public, policy makers or low level minions that facilitate and direct our local coalitions.
So the question remains that Dr. Mike has asked over and over on this blog. How can the antis berate big tobacco for lying to the public about health claims when the antis use the same tactic?
Perhaps a better way to get rid of the antis is to agree to everything they want, then their funding will dry up. Already our successes on youth smoking prevalence rates are so great (according to us) that policy makers that were once very supportive of us are introducing legislative appropriation bills that will gut our state funding. Success in the anti world is a threat to the very existence of the anti world.
So let them have their smoking bans. After a year or so after the anti's funding is revoked, those bans will be easily overturned, or simply ignored.
But back to my organization's delimma -- we claim our mission is to greatly reduce youth and adult smoking, but our real mission is perpetuity of our organization. So if your stated mission is successful, then our real mission is undermined. Like my brother said when I took this job, it sounds like the most oxymoronic thing that he's ever heard of.
whoawhoawhoawhoawhoa.
dogs? dogs aren't bad, dogs are cool!
(like those of us who can talk with a cig lightly held between our lips or light a match with one hand)
hey, disgusted! glad you're back.
What strikes me about the Otsuka and Kato studies is that they exposed people to unrealistically extreme concentrations tobacco smoke, and measured certain physiological responses.
Let's repeat these experiments, but instead of tobacco smoke, use the following items:
a) diesel exhaust
b) campfire smoke
c) burning incense and candles
d) cooking vapours
(particularly those of tater tots)
e) household cleaning products
You know what? I'll go out on a limb here and theorize that you will get EXACTLY THE SAME RESULTS.
Endothelial functions will skyrocket higher than Google's stock price! Platelets will clump together as if they were drenched in superglue! Arrythmia so severe it registers on the Richter scale! Plaque accumulating on the insides of arteries faster than Banzhaf can file lawsuits!
Were the observations of these proposed studies consistent with my predictions, what would this say about tobacco smoke compared to these other common contaminants that the smoke haters don't seem to give a hoot about?
What strikes me about the Otsuka and Kato studies is that they exposed people to unrealistically extreme concentrations tobacco smoke, and measured certain physiological responses.
Let's repeat these experiments, but instead of tobacco smoke, use the following items:
a) diesel exhaust
b) campfire smoke
c) burning incense and candles
d) cooking vapours
(particularly those of tater tots)
e) household cleaning products
You know what? I'll go out on a limb here and theorize that you will get EXACTLY THE SAME RESULTS.
Endothelial functions will skyrocket higher than Google's stock price! Platelets will clump together as if they were drenched in superglue! Arrythmia so severe it registers on the Richter scale! Plaque accumulating on the insides of arteries faster than Banzhaf can file lawsuits!
Were the observations of these proposed studies consistent with my predictions, what would this say about tobacco smoke compared to these other common contaminants that the smoke haters don't seem to give a hoot about?
Sorry, didn't mean to post that twice.
Oh, and Disgusted:
I appreciate your candor!
"funding is revoked, those bans will be easily overturned, or simply ignored."
It's already happening...
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/s...tory/
38824.html
http://www.faac.ca/content/econo...nce%
20study.pdf
Hey Steve and Jill,
How does it feel to be a "low level minion" whose being lied to?
Somebody give Ed his medicine.
"Somebody give Ed his medicine."
Take your hate somewhere else, Alan.
Ed psycho's point was a good one, and worth seeing twice. Because it is true that there are many exposures which can affect endothelial dysfunction, increase platelet stickiness, decrease heart rate variability, etc. I showed earlier that eating a Big Mac, for example, can cause endothelial dysfunction. But that doesn't mean that we should start warning people that eating a Big Mac can increase the risk of a heart attack.
Annette-
You're on. Why don't you suggest a topic or a specific study to talk about.
Disgusted - Very glad you're back.
MJM - You're right that the smoke levels in the Otsuka study were very high. I simply don't know what the effects might have been at lower levels. But the endothelial lining does appear to be quite sensitive to injury from secondhand smoke so it is possible that one would see endothelial dysfunction even at lower levels. This is why I think the main point is simply that the endothelial dysfunction doesn't mean anything in terms of heart attack risk. But you're right that the levels are not necessarily amenable to extrapolation to what ASH suggested (e.g. sitting on a park bench is what I think they said).
Oh great. Now forces alternates content between Siegel and one of their leaders arging that cig smoke is harmless. Oh well.
All of the medical institutions in the world are apparently I guess but the tobacco companies are right.
I am tempted to ask you the same question with regard to second-hand smoking...
It is easier to answer about passive smoking. There is absolutely no substance to the assertion that passive smoke is the cause of any of the diseases attributed to it, from asthma to cancer, to allergy, to SIDS. The "dangers" of passive smoke are 100% junk science. Period.
http://193.78.190.200/10/ztinterview.htm
Back to the original topic. Siegel quotes Otsuko as concluding:
"The present findings SUGGEST that reduction of CFVR after passive smoking MAY BE caused by endothelial dysfunction of the coronary circulation, an early process of atherosclerosis, and that this change MAY BE one reason why passive smoking is a risk factor for cardiac disease morbidity and mortality in nonsmokers."
So Otsuko's just shooting the breeze. Any sophist worth his salt knows how very easy it is to postulate an after-the-fact rationale for any and all possible -- and also even possibly non-existent-- propositions.
Then, too, the point seems to be that even chronic and repeated exposure would do no harm since in each case the response is shown to be reversible, in fact, to reverse itself, beginning in mere minutes ,and back to Go in a matter of hours. So exposed nonsmokers wake up virgins every day. Their response to ETS no different from their response to a thousand other shocks that flesh is heir to, and adjusts to return to stasis.
And, in fact, a lot of effects are reversible in active smokers in short order. In one of the touted heart studies (Law? or He?) the author cautions that smokers have to be tested within a fairly short time frame after smoking because the effects that are being tested for rapidly disappear.
Damn. There was one other point I wanted to make and it just slipped my mind. Well, maybe later.
Can you say Panic Attack????
Which is how I view all those rediculous "studies"-say it loud enough and often enough and those NON's will have panic attacks which feel just like a heart attack, heart rythym irregularities, shortness of breath, palpitations...an on. I know, it is pretty much exactly that which happened to my husband.
The psychologists/psychiatrists stated after 9/11 this country would have multitudes of stressors that would show up down the road (years later)..the constant fight or flight reaction to everyday life. That alone will take a toll on the body.
As I have stated before - Stress Kills, real or percieved FEARS will show up somewhere in the body.
We need a new attitude in this great country of ours...
Capri
MIKE! excellent!!
how about either one or both of the chapters that jill provided the links for?
chapter 7 is carciogenic effects
http://www.oehha.ca.gov/pdf/chapter7.pdf
chapter 8 is cardiovascular
http://www.oehha.ca.gov/pdf/chapter8.pdf
i'm printing those puppies out as i speak.
and the offer still stands regarding using one of my blog sites. i've got one just for html practice i can change the name, set up anyone who wants to be in it as a memember so we don't even have to use the comments. user, etc!
how about it? who's in???
erik,
extreme statements like the one you made about the doc hurt your cause, you know?
here's a thought, if you can put up with people's colognes, multiple pinetree air freshners in your car (which i swear i don't know how people can't stand that), living next to a power plant, living with a sewage treatment plant, having a fireplace, having a barbecue, having a gas stove, using candles, sitting in traffic, and any other multitude of things that are just waiting in the shadows to jump up and bite us, than you can put up with the fact that i want to smoke.
i won't smoke in your house, i won't smoke in your car, i won't smoke in your office, i won't smoke under your bedroom window while you sleep, i won't smoke in the courtroom when the two of us are hauled in there for disrupting the peace - in fact, i will do what i can to avoid any place you are.
but then don't follow me.
ps, game for the study discussion?
Annette-
What I'll do is put up a discussion link on the right upper corner of the blog so that it will always be easily accessible. And then anyone who wants to can participate. Give me a little time to get it up there and to figure out exactly what to focus on in those 2 chapters.
Annette, Dr. Siegel, a great idea!
If you consider the words of the anti smoker campaign and all of it's stakeholders. The conscious discision to ignore the rules of civility and common ethics and beyond that international laws offering protection to their victims. All stakeholders have no right to opinion as that opinion meerly ads to the crimes against others.
FXR
http://canadagov.blogspot.com/20...-thank-
you.html
Annette, sometimes you can find a wealth of beneficial discussion of a study right in the pages of the BMJ itself (unfortunately I think it's somewhat alone in medical journal world in that regard.)
Helena is my favorite because it was used so repeatedly and powerfully by the Antis and was so clearly shown to be worthless as far as saying ANYthing about secondary smoke. See:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/e.../7446/
977#55832 and
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/e.../7446/
977#67440 and the responses below it.
Ostuka is pretty good too: not only were the smoke concentrations 300% over those found in the smoking sections of sealed aircraft, but the researchers deliberately chose to avoid setting up an easily designed control experiment using skunk scent and fog or somesuch.
Why did they neglect this? Did they flunk their high school science projects? Or did they know that setting up such a control would invalidate their findings and jeopardize their future Antismoking grant funding? Perhaps Erik, Jill, or Bill would like to address that question?
Dr. Siegel, I'd like to take you a step further along your answer above to my question. You point out that you "simply don't know what the effects (of smoke) might have been at lower levels." So why do you think it hasn't been measured?
The obvious answer is that it HAS been measured, no results were found, and so the funding was yanked and the results werent published. Think about it: It's an OBVIOUS experiment to make... one whose results could be VERY powerful in promoting smoking bans... but it's simply not there. Why? There's certainly no shortage of money for Antismoking research promoting bans. Can you think of ANY other answer other than the fact that no such effects are found at even such comparatively high (compared to a decently ventilated bar/restaurant) levels as existed in smoking sections of aircraft? Why else would Otsuka have deliberately used levels 200% higher AND avoided setting up a control condition?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://www.AntiBrains.com
I don't know the answer. My sense is that in the preliminary study of this research question, researchers have wanted to have more controlled conditions where they could control the level of exposure, and also that it probably makes sense to test out the hypothesis at higher levels of secondhand smoke first, to make sure there is an effect, before wasting time studying lower levels if there is no effect at higher levels.
But I agree with you that it is doubtful some of those studies will be done. For example, I'd like to see ASH document its claims about the terrible problem of smoking on sidewalks by citing some studies that show that there are measurable, clinical changes among people who are transiently exposed to "drifting tobacco smoke" on a public sidewalk. That's the precise kind of evidence that is missing, and without which I don't think one can make a case for banning smoking everywhere outdoors, as in Calabasas.
Hatred is a legitimate and constructive tool. In my case, as one of the dwindling supply of Americans who love freedom and understand both its responsibilities and prerogatives, I hate those who dedicate their lives to violating the rights of others.
So naturally, my opponents seek to outlaw hate, as they call hatred.
There is only one cure I can think of to restore respect for liberty in the United States: anyone whose income is derived from taxation, be they private researchers, government employees, or holders of political office, must be prohibited from voting for the duration of the subsidy. It is wrong to have a vote on forcing others to provide one's livlihood. Were this just policy made law, those who value their vote would remain in the private sector.
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