The large body of evidence documenting that secondhand smoke produces substantial and rapid effects on the cardiovascular system demonstrates that even a brief exposure to secondhand smoke has adverse consequences for the heart, blood, and blood vessels...".
Good quote.
Hopefully, the SGs report will prove to be quite a catalyst to protect non-smokers from second hand smoke.
So would it be satisfactory if these 80+ groups changed their remarks to:
"The large body of evidence documenting that secondhand smoke produces substantial and rapid effects on the cardiovascular system demonstrates that even a brief exposure to secondhand smoke has adverse consequences for the heart, blood, and blood vessels."
What consequences is he speaking of when he says "adverse consequences for the heart, blood and blood vessles?"
Wow. Here'e what big tobacco stated today on second hand tobacco smoke and SIDS:
Philip Morris, the cigarette-making unit of Altria Group Inc., has posted a statement on its Web site, saying that public health officials have linked smoking to children's deaths and illnesses including asthma and ear infections.
`Particular Care'
``Particular care should be exercised where children are concerned, and adults should avoid smoking around them,'' said the Web site statement from Philip MorrisUSA, which has brands including Marlboro cigarettes.
Carmona, the U.S. government's top health educator for consumers, has more direct advice for parents who can't immediately quit smoking and still want to protect their children.
``If you've got to smoke while you are trying to quit, go outside of your house,'' Carmona said. ``Make your home a smoke- free environment for your children.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ne...bNvASQ&
refer=us
A bit different from the testimony given before congress a number of years ago.
Perhaps this will cause a few more smokers to smoke outside their house when they have young children inside.
Is this too much to ask?
hey erik, here's how you protect yourself: stay away from me. stay away from smokers. don't like smoky environments, don't go there. etc. surely, you didn't need an sg's report to tell you this.
i assume you will now start pounding the table about the effects of engine exhaust on innocent pedestrians.
Jill-
The Surgeon General is referring to consequences such as endothelial dysfunction, platelet activation, and impaired lipid metabolism, which are of no concern if you are just exposed for 30 minutes, but could be of concern if you are chronically exposed. So if the 80+ anti-smoking groups retracted their claims and instead made the simple claim that you suggest, I think they would be acting responsibly. Let's hope they do, because if not, it's going to become impossible for me to conclude that they are not intentionally misleading the public.
I think that misses the issue. The report speaks for itself.
The central point of the Surgeon General's report is that smoking bans are needed to protect the public and there is no safe level of second hand smoke:
There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke, said Surgeon General Richard Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., in a report titled The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke. Even brief exposure to tobacco smoke can interfere with the heart and vascular system in ways that increase the risk of a heart attack, said the report.
Providing smokers with a separate, well-ventilated place to smoke within a building or installing an air cleaning system is not enough to protect nonsmokers, the report concluded. Air cleaning systems can capture large airborne particles, but not the tiny particles and gases of secondhand smoke.
And ventilation systems may actually help to spread secondhand smoke throughout a building, the report said.
"Consequently, nonsmokers need protection through the restriction of smoking in public places and workplaces and by a voluntary adherence to policies at home, particularly to eliminate exposures of children," Dr. Carmona said in the report's preface.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Prim...Smoking/tb/
3640
Dr. Siegel,
I'm sure you've noticed the media coverage. The headlines and text are fairly screaming that SHS has an IMMEDIATE (yes, they're capitalizing it) negative health effect, and that NO level is "safe."
Again, I ask, how can NO level be safe? What does "safe" mean?
I think you can see that from what the SG has said on TV and in the papers, that he's saying there's a dire, immediate effect. In your view, is the immediate effect of SHS as dire as is being claimed?
What the SG is claiming, it seems to me, is that whatever "immediate" effect takes place, that "effect" is just as dangerous and consequential as long-term exposure. There is no discrimination between transient exposure and long-term. If you don't believe me, just read some of the quotations from him in the press. It does not matter how carefully measured the words are in the 700 page report, the rhetoric used to promote is over the top and extremely alarmist, and that's what the average reader will hear, and nothing more. I think any objective person would have to agree.
I'm sorry, but I simply cannot understand for the life of me how the risks purported to be found can be equated to what seems to be hysterical pronouncements of immediate, acute danger.
How is it possible that there are permissible exposure limits for so many dangerous chemicals in so many situations, but NO permissible exposure level if they come from cigarettes? Am I missing something?
Josh-
Your question will be answered, I promise. I will attempt to answer it in tomorrow's post. I still need a little more time to research exactly what occurred here, but I think I'm close to the bottom of it. Your insights, however, appear to be right on the mark. More to follow.
And just how long do we really believe not smoking at home with children will be "voluntary?"
Who here truly believes the SG's protestations that his job isn't to legislate, but to suggest?
Who here truly believes the SG didn't fully intend to instigate a wave of intrusive smoking bans at home, a wave of new laws defining smoking as "child abuse?"
Who here truly believes this isn't going to start happening immediately?
What say you, Dr. Siegel? As someone who has so incisively taken apart the rhetoric and shown the dangerous consequences of certain lines of thinking, I should think this would be of interest to you.
Thank you, Dr. Siegel, I appreciate it. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm hounding you - I don't mean to. I just got a little exercised. Thanks for your thoughts.
The large body of evidence documenting that secondhand smoke produces substantial and rapid effects on the cardiovascular system demonstrates that even a brief exposure to secondhand smoke has adverse consequences for the heart, blood, and blood vessels...".
I take exception to the inferences made in this statement. Adverse? Dr. Seigel what have you read in the science that allows for characterizing these changes as adverse? How do they demonstrate that this isn't a healthy adaptive change to counter a stress and is not indicative of healthy homeostatic balance? Taking a cold shower produces substantial and rapid effects on the cardiovascular system -would you characterize them as "adverse" effects as well? Exercise produces substantial and rapid effects on the cardiovascular system and many people believe this is a good thing as it conditions the cardiovascular system.
Bravo Josh. Exactly.
Dr. Siegel, examining the terminology for correctness or accuracy and finding and fixing the flaws is meritful. But you do so through the microscope of those in your profession. It's YOUR profession's language. You must, must, must try to see it through the eyes of a layman. Those hard but oh so subtle differences to the untrained eye do not change the meaning of what the layman is reading. To them it sounds exactly the same. Or as Josh just said: "It does not matter how carefully measured the words are... that's what the average reader will hear, and nothing more."
On Jim Lehrer's show this evening SG Carmona said this:
DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Scientists have clearly looked at this at a biochemical and cellular level to see what changes -- how long does it take for you being exposed before your blood cells start to act differently. Platelets start to clot. The lining of your arteries starts to change.
Just a few minutes of exposure begins that. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to get a heart attack or cancer, but you're starting the clock ticking toward a development of chronic disease...
(emphasis mine)
SG Carmona is intentionally playing along with the "80+" game. Both here and subliminally in his written report.
And when he (Carmona) was interviewed by Jim Lehrer tonight, he made no such fine distinctions but went straight to the outer limits. Check the transcript.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/h...moke_06-
27.html
You'd have to have seen it but even Lehrer seemed to lurch from skeptical to incredulous. And some of the things he said are directly contradicted by all known fact, stress the "all" up there.
Unfortunately I do indeed agree with Josh. He was careful to keep it legal-- not to fall into the trap earlier faced by the EPA of his report being "regulation"-- but the blueprint's all there. He's just opened the door to our homes and to most of the outdoors and given a welcoming wave to snitches. Those "older children" and "other adults" whom Banzaf and Bill count on.
This paragraph just popped out at me from the book I'm reading:
'You couldn't trust anyone in [the city] any more... people told on each other, neighbor on neighbor, child on parent, brother on brother, friend on friend. The [snoops] were everywhere. .. Even at the dinner table, in the privacy of their home, people had to speak in a calculated manner; the [snoops] were in the classrooms too; they'd taught children to spy on parents, what to look for, whom to tell."
The book is The Kite Runner. The city is Kabul, Afghanistan in the very recent past.
There's a true story I read in the 90s in The Atlantic. A kid, about 7 or 8, taught by DARE, to report on his parents, reported on his parents, not realizing it meant that his father was sent to jail (for smoking marijuana,) his mother was thrown out of work, and he was sent into foster care.
Hold on to your homes, jobs and children while you can, but be prepared, like your immigrant forebears, to pack up, and to know when it's time to.
"There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke....."
Josh, I have the same problem to understand. We find the same substances in diesel exhausts, food, and nobody seems to state *no risk-free level".
If there is no risk-free level, it just means that there must be a risk even at the lowest levels. Assuming a more or less linear risk, it would also mean that the risk diminishes with the level.
But then, is a risk of e.g. 0.001% still measurable and to be taken into consideration?
There is no such thing as a risk-free life, even at the lowest level!
The AP version includes this unmodified, unqualified quote from Carmona:
"Stay away from smokers," he urged everyone else.
Asbestos in your homes, anyone? Spitting on the bus? A little more arsenic in your water? How about some extra mercury? Second hand smoke is bad, period. Let's treat it as the pollutant it is, along with all the others (and much worse). We either care about our environment or we don't
Don't talk such hysterical rubbish Norbert Hirschhorn! Yes, I care about the environment and one thing that pollutes it more than anything are the twisted ideologies of people like you.
Ban Norbert Hirschhorn, and, Garlic!
The SG's report (Surgeon General OR Stanton Glans i wonder) will allow the Government the next umpteen years to avoid making much scientific headway into finding the true cause of lung cancer and looking into ways of dealing with it.It would send out the wrong message to suggest that smoking is not the the sole factor,merely a possible method of inducement.It is a political decision designed to manipulate the minds of those who blindly believe and who choose to see no further.Tobacco scam is a mildly amusing term which just doesn't touch the scam pulled by the Health fraternity and endorsed by Government.I would love to know the precise details of what happens when a rush of adrenaline enters the bloodstream,put that in clinical terminology and feed it to the public with a few press reports of the danger of coronary problems and the health effects of it and see what transpires.
Norbert Hirschorn brings up a good point. The politics of tobacco smoke IS related to the politics of asbestos, lead, and arsenic. ALL of those things can be deadly in large enough doses, and ALL of them are harmless at small enough doses. The idea that exposure to ANY substance must be reduced to absolute zero to protect the public health is simply absurd. And I oppose ALL attempts to regulate those substances where they go beyond the point of reasonable protection.
I think the economic and class politics behind the anti-lead, anti-arsenic and anti-asbestos movement is similar:
1) Lead. The anti-lead movement has gone from forcing the oil companies to remove lead from gasoline, to focusing on lead paint in old houses. As with tobacco the enemy has gone from being big corporations to poor people in old houses or apartments who don't repaint. The push from the anti-lead crowd is for regulation that will make housing less affordable for the poorest segment of the population, in order to reduce miniscule exposures with questionable health consequences.
2) Asbestos. Again, the fight has gone from challenging the companies who made asbestos to pushing for removal of asbestos from inside the walls of 50 year old buildings, particularly institutional buildings like schools. The net effect of this is to require school districts to spend vast amounts of resources to upgrade the walls of old schools to eliminate a contaminant for which the level of exposure was questionable. But the level of cost to school districts is not. The amount of money being wasted on the attempt to remove every molecule of asbestos is really criminal.
3) Arsenic. There is a similar politics regarding wood treated with arsenic to weather-proof it. Not surprisingly, the anti-arsenic crowd want to rip up every playground and patio deck where arsenic treated wood might be, and replace it with a more expensively treated wood. Once again, regulations which won't really hurt large corporations but will hit the average joe in the pocketbook in order to reduce a pretty questionable exposure.
Tobacco smoke, arsenic, lead, asbestos: same questionable science, same bad politics.
I picked up this piece from Michaels' quote from the SG report.
"For some of these effects (changes in platelet and vascular function), the immediate effects of even short exposures to secondhand smoke appear to be as large as those seen in association with active smoking of one pack of cigarettes a day."
Am I being a little thick here, or is this paragraph actually stating nothing. I mean, what exactly does it mean by "active smoking of one pack of cigarettes a day"? Does it refer to the 'effects' of a smoker smoking one pack in one day or the cumulative effects of smoking a pack per day for a lifetime (adult - say 50 years)? Even the dimmest idiot can work out that there is a massive difference between 30 minutes of exposure to ETS (say 0.01 cigarette equivalents?) and the direct smoking of 365,250 cigarettes!
If the US Surgeon General is so mathematically illiterate that he can make such a baldly absurd statement, then why should any credence be given to the rest of his blatherings.
Now, for the sake of balance, is anyone in a position to point to any (honest) comparisons of the 'effects of even short exposures to secondhand smoke' to other non smoking-related products or stimuli? And when this truth comes out, maybe we should slightly reword that silly statement to say:
For some of these effects (changes in platelet and vascular function), the effects of active smoking of one pack of cigarettes a day appear to be as SMALL as the immediate effects seen in even short exposures to secondhand smoke.
That's what the SG clearly said, isn't it?
Oh yes he did!
Or am I already dead?
"The AP version includes this unmodified, unqualified quote from Carmona:
"Stay away from smokers," he urged everyone else."
Now if only Admiral Carmona would heed his own advice and stay away from smokers, it'd be much appreciated.
Dr. Siegel,
I was diagnosed with I.T.P. 15 years ago (a blood disorder which produces dangerously low levels of platelets). My platelet levels were as low as 30,000 (they should be in the range of 200,000 - 250,000). I was a non-smoker until 4 years ago. I have a CBC every year, and noticed over the last 4 years that my platelets have been increasingly rising. The last time I had them tested, they were 140,000. The only thing I'm doing different is smoking. Could smoking affect my platelets in a positive way?
I'm thinking of quitting smoking to see if my platelets decrease again. Doctors have been wanting to take out my spleen for years, but I keep telling them "NO." I don't exhibit any of the dangerous symptoms (such as bruising or failure to clot). Just nose bleeds. Anyway, I wish there were more research on some of the positive aspects of nicotine.
Also, I used to take anti-depressants before I smoked...I also saw a therapist. I dealt with depression all my life, and I have not experienced depession anywhere close to the same levels (and no longer take anti-depressants) since I became a smoker. Could there be a link here, too?
I am a closet smoker (the fact that I smoke could affect my promotability...or my job), so I can't sign my name.
CS, There is no evidence of any health BENEFITS to smoking. Think about this one. Smoking is equivalent to putting poisons in your veings, CO, Benzopyrene, Cyanide, etc. You wouldn't see health benefits by drinking a solution of these things, smoking them is no different. Your health is improving in SPITE of your smoking, not because of it. Jill
"And if the report does not even conclude that chronic exposure to secondhand smoke causes hardening of the arteries, it is hard to justify telling the public that just 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke causes hardening of the arteries."
Dr. Siegel, while you are busy reading the report and dissecting specific things like this, the Surgeon General is busy publically announcing, on National TV, that "there is NO safe level of second hand smoke". THIS is ALL the media is reporting on, loud and clear.
He is promoting, openly, that ANY amount (even a whiff to any smoke hater listening for that is what they believe) will cause serious harm. He openly said that "smokers must be avoided".
The SG is openly promoting a "smoke-free" society. He has basically declared it to be open season on eliminating smoking completely, and eventually smokers who refuse to quit.
Retractions by the anti movement won't matter now, the SG has just told everyone that any amount of cigarette smoke (only) will cause you serious harm. Has any SG EVER retracted a statement? OR even admit that perhaps they over-stated something?
Jill,
The research shows that smoking affects the stickiness of platelets. No one knows anything about I.T.P. and what causes it. I think it's pretty coincidental that my platelet level has increased. But, I'll stop smoking and see if it goes back down. If so, it deserves some research.
Jill,
And P.S...I was not asking you, I was asking Dr. Siegel. You are clearly biased and have an agenda.
Vice Admiral Carmona can hardly be classified as a neutral observer to the debate can he? Not when he is on the record as saying this:
"Carmona was asked if he would "support the abolition of all tobacco products."
"I would at this point, yes" he replied."
http://www.data-yard.net/10f1/to...0f1/tob-
ban.htm
So what does he add to the debate?
Bias, bias and more bias.
And the absurd pseudo-'scientific' claims about ETS are just as ludicrous now as they were before he opened his big mouth and swallowed too much sea-water.
Over here in the UK we have the equivalent post, the Chief Medical Officer - otherwise known as Sir (spelt c-u-r) Liam Donaldsen. He's barking mad, too! Is their detachment from the real world a genetic trait, or do they just share a common job description?
Dr. Siegel, thanks for the response. You said that "the Surgeon General is referring to consequences such as endothelial dysfunction, platelet activation, and impaired lipid metabolism, which are of no concern if you are just exposed for 30 minutes, but could be of concern if you are chronically exposed."
I am having trouble understanding the real value of making this differentiation. If 30 minutes is harmless, at what point does it become a problem? If I go to a restaurant once a week and stay for an hour and a half, do I have elevated risk? What if I go to a smoky bar 4 times a week and stay for 30 minutes? Do I have elevated risk levels then? What if once a month I go to a smoky bar for 30 minutes, does my risk level remain unaffected by the smoke I breathe?
I don't see the point in the 30 minute issue. We aren't dealing with people who have one 30 minute exposure in their lifetime. At best, most people will have hundreds of 30 minute exposures. Are you saying that exposures, regardless of the number, they are safe if they are less than 30 minutes?
I am looking forward to reading the post you mentioned is coming toay. Thanks for continuing to respond to me, in spite of my bad behavior on this blog.
Jill wrote:
"CS, There is no evidence of any health BENEFITS to smoking."
Ulcerative colitis. Preeclampsia. Just to name two.
"Think about this one. Smoking is equivalent to putting poisons in your veings, CO..."
It's been awhile since I read it so I could be wrong, but aren't they using CO on certain heart patients? And did they get the idea from the Smokers' Paradox?
"...Benzopyrene, Cyanide, etc. You wouldn't see health benefits by drinking a solution of these things, smoking them is no different."
Oh Jill. Haven't you ever heard of the sh#t they run through the veins of chemo patients? They supposedly reap health benefits.
No "known" safe level for tobacco smoke is what i think is the crux of the matter. It's all dose/time related. A heavy smoker has a much higher risk than a chipper. Just the same, a chipper has a many times higher risk than nonsmoker. (Depends too on genetics. If you have family members with lung cancer, or emphysema, the risks greatly accelerate)
The 3,000 lung cancer deaths associated with non smoking cig smoke exposure is also the same dose/time measures. The vast majority of the 3,000 deaths would come from LIFELONG exposure i.e. their parents smoked and they work in workplaces with smoke all day long. With the report saying that 145 million people being exposed to secondhand smoke, the risk is relatively low. Prof Siegel is correct that someone who comes into contact with smoke for the first time and gets his 30 min dose isn't going to see the artery clog up,It's only after thousands of these 30 minute exposures that "some" people will experience the joys of a heart attack. That number is estimated at about 30,000 to 50,000 a year. The research on this took out the confounding variables. The number is that high due to lot's of people having thousands of 30 minute exposures. Someone who lived in a home with smokers and worked in smoking environment would have 150,000 30 minute such doeses over 40 years. The SG is saying that the risk is easily modifiable.
"There is no evidence of any health BENEFITS to smoking"
Wrong as usual Jill. There are numerous conditions for which smoking, or nicotine in general, offer therapeutic and clinical relief. And they are backed up by scientific studies, which you hold in such high esteem, and which often demonstrate much stronger statistical associations than those which have been used, fraudulently, to damn smokers.
Have a read here...
http://www.forces.org/evidence/e...evid/
therap.htm
...and then come back and try and tell us why every single article and claim there is wrong.
No doubt you will choose to run away from debate as usual, but please don't in future insult the intelligence of others who are not as narrow-minded as you.
There certainly are some health benefits to nicotine in certain circumstances. It's the usual delivery system that is the real problem.
I think Jill raises an interesting question, which to me should be the crux of the debate. How frequent do the "brief" exposures to SHS have to be to raise the cumulative risk significantly? The body heals well from inflammation or injury, but when the injury occurs repeatedly and without sufficient time to fully heal, then a cascade that leads to permanent damage begins.
Clearly a person exposed to large quantities of SHS on a daily basis has an increased risk of heart disease, lung cancer, etc. (the population studies of smokers' spouses bear that out, even if individual stories may vary). The question is whether people exposed to smaller quantities of SHS less frequently are also at risk.
not to mention the "dangerous" cocktails sipped regularly by a majority of scoiety, including water (arsenic), alcohol (benzopyrene), certain DIET soda's (again benzopyrene, and formaldehyde in some that have sat in to warm a temprature for long), noxious exhaust pollution (containing almost identical components in far greater quantities), wood smoke at the local wood grill restaurants, milk, and a host of other naturally occuring toxic pollutants, all of which offer far greater exposure and risk, yet none of these are being pursued as causative, or even anecdotely linked to any of this, and their users certainly aren't being targeted as "murderers, rapists, child abusers, addicts, idiots, and just plain second class citizens.
Until equality is the main ingredient of these class warfares, expect us "lower class" citizens to openly reject persecution, and openly call for revolution, after all, equal representation and taxation are supposed to be the rules, until we take back those rights to the same protections as everyone else deserves, we will be fighting back.
Jill S. wrote:
"I don't see the point in the 30 minute issue...Are you saying that exposures, regardless of the number, they are safe if they are less than 30 minutes?"
What do you do on this blog, Jill, just look at the pictures? This has been discussed to death.
"The SG is saying that the risk is easily modifiable."
You're damn right there. The EPA found it quite easy to modify the risk in their fraudulent 1992 study, simply by using 90% confidence intervals to narrow the range of (un)reliability on their already heavily dubious, and low Relative Risk ratio (or was it Odds Ratio - the EPA report mixes both together with impunity) of 1.19 (CI 1.04 - 1.35).
The '3000' ETS-induced deaths from lung cancer in non-smokers is a totally fatuous number. At best it is a mid-point estimate within a wide range (which is negative at its lower extreme) of unreliable estimates. At worst - and the EPA report demonstrates so many examples of the 'worst' - the real number is so near to zero that, as in all other examples of 'weak association epidemiology' it doesn't actually constitute a risk at all.
And despite what the Vice-Admiral may say, that is what the totality of ETS research overwhelmingly proves.
Jill wrote: "CS, There is no evidence of any health BENEFITS to smoking. Think about this one. Smoking is equivalent to putting poisons in your veings, CO, Benzopyrene, Cyanide, etc. You wouldn't see health benefits by drinking a solution of these things, smoking them is no different. Your health is improving in SPITE of your smoking, not because of it."
I guess that CS's own experience says otherwise. By not even being open to the possibility and persisting that no matter what CS must stop smoking, you could be bringing another life in danger. But I guess that does not bother you. And yes there ARE certain health benifits from smoking or using tobacco.
CS - you might try smokeless tobacco. The risks are lower than for smoking. Since you have clear therapeutic interests in tobacco use, smokeless may be an attractive option for you.
Joel, did you do your homework this time b4 posting? or are we again subjected to your point of view as heard from a mildly interested, non tobacco issues educated layman?
You were rebutted soundly the last time you chimed in, and given fair warning that IF you didnt understand the situation, you should do the investigation while your post clearly shows that you are questioning some of the ideology, it also has a decidedly Anti tobacco slant to it.
For starters, If the dose/frequency in question is relying on how many of these short exposures a non smoker will encounter in their lifetime, answer me this, why have the disease rates continued to increase during the corresponding DECREASE of exposure in the last few decades?
Why is it anybody's business to tell others that they cant enjoy a legal product? who EXACTLY is FORCING non smokers into situations where they MUST encounter tobacco smoke? Why, if this product is so dangerous that we must persecute users, have the states signed onto agreements that protect the "health" of the companies producing these products(not to mention balancing any budget on the backs of its user's as well)?
Why hasn't this product been recalled like lawn darts were when found to be causative damage producers?
Why isnt milk being targeted for its chemicals? Why aren't auto's, trucks and other carbon exhaust vahicles being outlawed and users of poor milage vehicles fined for excessive damage to the publics health? Why oh why is it ONLY TOBACCO smoke that is the magical demon? wood smoke contains the very same, fires from/in any dwelling certainly contain far more hazardous and heavy dosage than one could ever expect to find in their lifetime, yet we dont immediately clear the surrounding areas where a fire occurs, unless danger of the fire spreading to other dwellings exists, why? I know for a fact that the smoke from these fires is far more deadly than exposure to .01 cigarettes per 1/2 hour? And if the exposure is the problem, why are business's forced to cater to only the segment of the population that feels this way? Why cant they be allowed to sell, offer, advertise, use this LEGAL product? and If its to dangerous to be exposed to, where do I line up to sue the government for allowing such a deadly product to be manufactured, sold, taxed, and used by it's citizens? Where is the protection in banning such a dangerous legal product from public consumption, but not from private use by untrained consumers?
The real reason for all of this is money, power, and the ability to seemingly control the actions of others.
Until and unless the US government actually displays it's belief in these dangers by protecting all it's citizens by outlawing manufacture, sales, use, possession, and, most especially, taxation of this legal product, why should I believe what they say, not what they do? Why should I have to face life as an outcast from society for choosing to use a legal product? Why should I not have the right to revolt when taxed beyond my means, above and beyond what other citizens are, and gain absolutely no representation from said taxation? If they are trying to protect me, they are sure doing it a strange way, aren't they? Keeping a supposedly lethal product legal, and taxing the hell out of it's users, allowing and even encouraging discrimination, while at the same time, patting themselves on the back for their brilliant taxation schemes that keep joe schmoe from realising exactly what shortfalls would be and what he would have to pay to compensate for the loss of these revenues.
Tell me again how it's for the "public health"? then tell me how to restore the confidence that they are actually concerned about my health, not my tax dollars, and not winning elections by leaning the pc way without ever actually investigating the SCIENCE behind the propaganda. Science, thers a word that used to have a clear meaning, experiments that are reproducable, verifiable, and accurate to fact, not possble risk, or elevation of risk, or possibly linked to, orbought and paid for in generous grant money to prep an area for the promotion of a product which has neither been proven safer, nor even proven effective in it's supposed use, but sold for immense profits anyway, and soon to be court ordered, so as not to endanger the health of anyone else, yet the root product is still legal, and still balancing the nations budgets on the shoulders of those they deem to be a socially lower class, least able to afford a user tax, and then denied the care and treatment that the taxation was, the originally stated, intent of use for these revenues, where is all that money now? where do I get the health care I've paid for?
They're all coming out of the woodwork now to add their two pennies worth.Why must the antis always have to have things catalogued to the nearest minute,Jill,Geo,Joel ?Are you exposed to tobacco smoke at work YES/NO.The rest of your miserable little lives are down to your own decisions,so Geo deduct your pathetic little figures and see how many 30 minutes you've got left before you drop dead ,perhaps avoiding a smoky bar may help.But you will still die of something at some point in time.Science FAILS to prove SHS,so how can science prove what you ask of it.You can all sit back and think it will reduce the incidence of lung cancer etc,but you will find that it won't ,you can have the pleasure of finding that out for yourselves.Try banning tobacco if you want to,but just look a little further past your noses and get yourself some spectacles.The cost of the SG's report is billions of dollars in grants and suchlike but also hundreds of thousands of lives while science ignores the aspect of lung cancer and ill health and concentrates on earning big bucks for its shysters.Is it worth it Jill,Geo,Joel ??????????????????
"There certainly are some health benefits to nicotine in certain circumstances. It's the usual delivery system that is the real problem."
Maybe, Joel, but to some people the risk saved by giving up smoking may not seem so great as they succumb to Parkinson's or Alzheimer's diseases. It's all about relative risk after all, isn't it? And how do you know whether it is just the nicotine, or the smoke or both which are therapeutic, until you do proper follow-up research? You don't, yet you have no qualms about rushing to a such a conclusion.
It would help immensely if medics and other anti-tobacco bods would stop being so hysterical about the subject. Then there may be a chance of allowing some good to come out of tobacco, rather than just attacking it with the hyperbole of outraged zealots (I don't mean your post, Joel).
Statements like:
"No safe level of ETS"
"Ventilation cannot remove ETS"
"ETS contains 4000 carcinogens" (This was actually said on TV by the Scottish Health Minister)
"30 minute exposure to ETS causes ... yada yada"
...and most of the rest on the antismokers' hymn-sheet are so patently absurd, when viewed from an empirical position, that they should not be allowed to dominate true scientific debate. It's surely time that people started discussing these issues freely and openly, rather than just shouting at each other.
Or maybe I am too much of a realist.
Or maybe I'm already dead!
CO, Benzopyrene, and Cyanide:
All found in automobile exhaust.
Josh asks:
"How is it possible that there are permissible exposure limits for so many dangerous chemicals in so many situations, but NO permissible exposure level if they come from cigarettes? Am I missing something?"
It's called Social Marketing. The SG's report is not a new, independent, research study - it is Social Marketing propaganda intended to influence people's thinking and behaviour.
Social Marketing may be presented in the guise of "public education", but is in fact carefully crafted to maximally impact thinking and behaviour in the direction it's creators favor.
"Social marketing is a comprehensive way to convey, to a selected target audience, the point of your health suggestion such that the receiver(s) may well heed the advice."
"The public health practitioner’s fundamental task of marketing social change is a unique challenge for three reasons: (1) the unfavorable state of individual and societal demand for social change, (2) the hostile environment in which social change must be marketed, and (3) the limited training of public health practitioners in the skills necessary to market social change.
Therefore, the challenge for public health is to recast the issues of importance into a framework
meaningful to the particular target population of interest."
Here is a good example of just how psychopathic Social Marketing is:
"Stephenson and Witte (199
found use of fear messages in promoting behavior change toward skin cancer effective when combined with a high efficacy prevention treatment. Early studies found fear merely frighten or discouraged constructive acts to remedy the health danger. This study
used a new fear appeal theory—the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) that “has clarified the
role of fear in persuasive messages by emphasizing and respecifying the multiplicative relationship
between threat and efficacy”
In addition, EPPM is effective in motivating behavior change...
The study combined a high fear message about skin cancer and death together with a clear message on skin sunscreen and clothing. The study used a two by two design with high and low efficacy messages combined with a text only and a text-picture combination. The high threat/fear
message followed by a high efficacy message motivated a high initial behavior change...They conclude that with young educated people, fear appeal messages have a role in prevention."
I'm curious if Jerry, Si, et. al. really believe SHS to be completely harmless, even in the case of daily, intense exposure. I agree there are plenty of other dangerous chemicals in the environment, and they SHOULD be studied more extensively. I agree there is a lot of hyperbole out there, and that it serves unfairly to demonize the smoker. I may not be an expert on tobacco, but I am a physician, I have reviewed the population studies, and I do have some knowledge of how nicotine and other chemicals act on the human body. My statements are not pure conjecture.
isn't it funny that when i and others suggest to erik--and of course, bill g.--that they avoid smokers as their defense that they have no answer? odd.
The current thinking with regards to why smokers with ulcerative colitis have fewer flare-ups than non-smokers is that it is the inhaled CO which acts as an anti-inflammatory agent.
That doesn't mean that everyone with UC should go out and start smoking. But it might point to new treatment possibilities. It also points out the danger of looking at certain chemicals as "morally bad", i.e. absolutely always in all cases to be eliminated in all people in all circumstances. CO is certainly deadly in large enough quantities, but that doesn't mean it can't be theraputic in smaller doses for some people.
Joel, in regards to your comment:
I'm curious if Jerry, Si, et. al. really believe SHS to be completely harmless, even in the case of daily, intense exposure.
All anybody has been questioning is how harmful is it, in what quantity, and under what circumstances, and most importantly does the degree of harm rise to the level to necessitate external interventions (state OR corporate) to control behavior, criminalize the behavior, have employees fired, remove children from the home, ban smoking outside, etc.
Nobody has ever claimed that it is "completely harmless." That would be ridiculous since there is no substance that is harmless under any and all circumstances. The anti-smoking crowd, however, has no problem saying that it is "completely harmFUL," which is just as ridiculous. But, they are in control, so it becomes the truth.
CJ, I agree. SHS is not completely harmful any more than it is completely harmless. But I do believe it is significantly harmful (meaning the relative risk is higher than one could reasonably expect based on random occurrence). Yes, there are plenty of other substances that are significantly harmful, and those substances should be studied as much as SHS. The question I posed is at what level of exposure does the risk become significant?
Joel, in a nation of 250 million people, 3000 excess cancer deaths is statistically "insignificant" (As one tobacco company put it). You can't even point to a single person who smokes and state that they will get lung cancer ("only" 12 to 15% do). The statement, "no known safe level of exposure" isn't exactly right. They haven't studied it enough to prove what that level is, largely as a result that it would be pretty impossible to do beyond animal studies. So technically the epidemiologists are correct, they don't know what a safe level is. I'm sure Prof Siegel will find some nuggets in his quest to expose those overselling the science. The bottom line is that it is easier to remove the smoke than it is to avoid it.
"No human diet can be free of naturally occurring chemicals that are rodent carcinogens."
Fresh Apples, Grapes, Mangos, Pears, Pineapple:
acetaldehyde, benzaldehyde, caffeic acid, d-limonene, estragole, ethyl acrylate, quercetin glycosides
Red Wine, White Wine;
ethyl alcohol, ethyl carbamate
Coffee
benzo(a)pyrene, benzaldehyde, benzene, benzofuran, caffeic acid, catechol, 1,2,5,6-dibenz(a)anthracene, ethyl benzene, furan, furfural, hydrogen peroxide, hydroquinone, d-limonene, 4-methylcatechol
Tea
benzo(a)pyrene, quercetin glycosides
--http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.103/
pub_detail.asp
The investigation into the leaks from the SG's office to the anti-smoker cartel is going to make the Valerie Plame case look like child's play.
Few, if any, members of the anti-smoker cartel are going to come out unscathed.
It will be with unabashed glee I sit back and watch the blood-letting. It couldn't happen to a (not) nicer bunch of busybodies.
Joel wrote: "The question I posed is at what level of exposure does the risk become significant?"
Which is basically the same thing WE are asking.
Personally, for a normally healthy person, sitting in a well ventilated bar or restaurant for an hour or so, or even in the park, poses no increased risk in my mind. But in a well closed off, almost sealed room with little to no ventilation, with hundreds of smokers puffing away all at once for 8 hours then yes, it would be harmful. Anyone with half a brain could figure that out.
The key however, is what is considered "intense exposure"? I don't see the first scenario as "intense exposure", but I do see it with the second scenario.
So first, it needs to be determined WHAT constitutes intense exposure, then what constitutes "prolonged" exposure.
Smoking hasn't been allowed in movie theaters in over 20 years now. Smoking hasn't been allowed in hospitals and offices for about the same period (except for designated areas). Most restaurants and bars are properly and well ventilated (though I will agree that the invisible wall to divide smoking from non-smoking is rather pathetic and makes no sense), therefore, from what I can see, most people are NOT subjected to "intense" or "prolonged" exposure any more.
But that's just my lay persons view of things.
Joel wrote:
The question I posed is at what level of exposure does the risk become significant?
Joel,
It appears that we are both interested in the same question, and I had attempted to ask Dr Siegel roughly the same question in the past. Of course, we still don't know the answer (all the "research" notwithstanding) and probably never will at this rate.
I postulated in a much earlier post that there appear to be 2 factions in the tobacco control movement. One is intersted in mitigating risks, the other is interested in eliminating risks altogether (which is an untenable position unless draconian measures are resorted to).
The question you posit would only be of interest to the former faction. The question is irrelevant to the latter faction because they are basically pushing a punative/prohibitionist agenda at any cost. The latter faction are the ones that call the shots now (as is evident by the "no safe level of exposure" argument in the CG report) so as far they are concerned, the issue is closed and there is no need for the necessary dose-response biomedical research that would answer your question.
Jill S. I am having trouble understanding the real value of making this differentiation. If 30 minutes is harmless, at what point does it become a problem? If I go to a restaurant once a week and stay for an hour and a half, do I have elevated risk? What if I go to a smoky bar 4 times a week and stay for 30 minutes? Do I have elevated risk levels then? What if once a month I go to a smoky bar for 30 minutes, does my risk level remain unaffected by the smoke I breathe?
I don't see why you're having a problem seeing what difference there is between claiming immediate and life-threatening long-term and severe damage from a single short exposure and potential damage from life-long constant exposure.
I'm sorry to say it, but it appears that you are being deliberately obtuse if you really can't.
As for the question(s) about damage from various dose levels.....you've pointed out one of the problems with the attitude of the TC movement.
You see, if the constant harping is on "no safe level", then very few bother to test for/study the dose-related effects. And the ones that do are decried as "tobacco shills" etc, etc, further reducing the number of people who are even willing to look at the issue.
The ones that aren't decried as "tobacco shills" are so narrowly focused on "proving" their beliefs that massive biases are introduced which often just get ignored or glossed over.
As a result, we are unlikely to ever know the answers to the questions of damage/dose, damage/recoverable and no damage/dose.
As an aside, another consequence of this attitude is the lack of research into finding a cure for the health problems that have smoking (actual smoking, not SHS) as a factor.
When the attitude is "it's preventable, just quit", then no-one bothers to look at potential cures.
Potential cures, I might add, which could have far-reaching side benefits. ie find a cure for lung cancer and you might very well be a good deal down the road to finding a cure for breast cancer.
Instead, all the focus is on finding things to blame for the conditions....an attitude I find quite bizarre and reprehensible.
Jill S I don't see the point in the 30 minute issue. We aren't dealing with people who have one 30 minute exposure in their lifetime. At best, most people will have hundreds of 30 minute exposures. Are you saying that exposures, regardless of the number, they are safe if they are less than 30 minutes?
Again, I'm going to have to assume that you are being deliberately obtuse.
See the earlier part of my post for the response to most of this, but......
One exposure, hundreds of exposures, thousands of exposures, daily life-long exposure, less that 30 minutes, more than 30 minutes, etc, etc.
Yes, it is entirely possible one exposure, hundreds of exposures, or even thousands of short exposures over a lifetime might not be harmful to the average individual.
In fact, considering how many other things react with our bodies in small doses (ie vaccines) it is entirely possible that small exposures to ETS might be beneficial to our immune systems.
But, again, the focus on "no level is safe" means that we may never know.
As well, this still doesn't address a question that has been raised here before on several occasions.....if the problem is simpy ETS exposure, then why wouldn't it be allowed for smokers to just have their own spaces to smoke (ie private clubs)?
Jill SI am looking forward to reading the post you mentioned is coming toay. Thanks for continuing to respond to me, in spite of my bad behavior on this blog.
Thank you for admitting to your appalling behaviour....it's truly unfortunate that many antis feel a need to sink to the level of 2 year olds when posting on sites that don't agree with their beliefs. But, now that you've admitted it don't you feel it advisable to behave in a more polite fashion in the future?
I actually do have several questions for you.
Do you find it disturbing that more money is spent on tobacco control than on finding a cure for lung cancer? Even though 60% of new lung cancer patients are never-smoker/decades quit smokers?
Do you find it disturbing that lung cancer research is receiving only 10% (and I'm guessing this includes funding "blame tobacco" studies) of the funding of breast cancer? Even though the death rate for lung cancer is far higher?
Does it disturb you that this situation has been directly caused by the current public perception of lung cancer being entirely preventable (just quit smoking!) as a direct result of the efforts of the TC movement?
Can you please explain to me how it is that there is "no safe level" (ie one small dose dramatically increases the risks for life) and quitting smoking reduces the risks so substantially (supposedly)? Doesn't it strike you as a little odd that the body recovers from one but not the other?
Does the current focus on lifestyle modification as a preventative measure for cancer (various types) rather than finding a cure disturb you? Especially as the average age of the population increases and various types of cancer become more and more common?
Eagerly awaiting your (hopefully) rational response,
Mike Walsh
Dr. Siegel
This is a paste from the DHHS press release,
"The report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, finds that even brief secondhand smoke exposure can cause immediate harm. The report says the only way to protect nonsmokers from the dangerous chemicals in secondhand smoke is to eliminate smoking indoors."
Since the media is too stupid to actually read the report, or even the executive summary, prior to relesing articles claiming that immediate effects will occur, the DHHS knows the media will communicate to the public things the report says are untrue. The DHHS is actually manipulating the media in this regard.
I can see why the media and the antismoking groups will continue to claim even brief exposure can have immediate caerdiovascular effects. The press release says so.
Of course the body of the report does not find immediate cardiovascular effects,... just as you say. The press release actually says many things the report itself does not back up.
This is another common antismoking strategy... Issue a press release different from what is actually in the study. The DHHS has here, adopted that strategy. the DHSS has become just like the antismoking groups you are constantly challenging to back up their claims. dave K.
Geo you say that it is easier to remove the smoke than it is to avoid it.Why Geo ?Can't non smokers read ? A bar dedicated to smoking is in my view pretty easy to avoid if you so wish.Why must non smokers be nannyed and cossetted ,are they weaker in some way ?Joel ,have you ever experienced the difference in cigarette smoke from a packeted brand,compared to pipe tobacco smoke ?One contains numerous chemicals that have been added,the other less so.The effect this has on peoples lungs is different,the cigarette smoke is dry and acrid and causes eye and nasal irritation in some people but the pipe smoke can sometimes draw a compliment from a non smoker.Both can be controlled by adequate ventilation.Why can't society serve both sets of individuals,it is not impossible,but who refuses to condone smoking areas and fights against them ?Why did the emminent Sir Richard Doll state he was not worried about his own health when in the company of smokers at a time when SHS was becoming a "danger" far greater than AIDS or Ebola ?
Joel asks:
"The question I posed is at what level of exposure does the risk become significant?"
Well, Joel, let's compare the risk of death from tobacco smoke exposure to another familiar risk.
The number of deaths in non-smokers from tobacco smoke exposure is estimated at 43,000 according to the EPA and Centers for Disease Control.
In 2004, EXACTLY 42,636 people were killed in automobile accidents, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
Mind you, this is not an estimate, or the output of a statistical analysis, but an exact figure of individually verifirable fatalities (I'd like to see the same for the figure of 43,000 tobacco deaths).
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf...2004/
809911.pdf
In other words, the risks for death from tobacco smoke exposure are about the same as the risk from being killed in a car crash.
How then can you characterize tobacco smoke exposre as a significant and unacceptable risk, when I am sure you and any other reasonable person people would not regard driving or riding in an automobile either a signficant or unacceptable risk?
"But I do believe it is significantly harmful (meaning the relative risk is higher than one could reasonably expect based on random occurrence)"
Joel, I appreciate that you are against the demonization of smokers, therefore you are, to a degree, a friend. But I must take you to task when you are wrong.
When you say 'you believe' that ETS is a significant risk that is all it is, your belief, to which you are entitled. And because you believe it to be the case I don't sense that you are interpreting the epidemiological studies with sufficient objectivity to see anything that contradicts that belief.
If you review the totality of results of the epidemiogical ETS studies available, you will see that they do not fall into a consistent pattern of 'risk' (statistical associations). Only about 10% of study results achieve 'statistical significance' as positive associations, half of these failing to achieve the requisite RR values of 2+ to justify consideration as potentially causal associations. Furthermore about 4% of results (if I recall correctly) are statistically significant in the opposite direction, ie demonstrate a protective association. The rest, 80%+ do not achieve statistical significance in either direction. But could 14% of results be due to chance?
Given that the vast majority of such studies are carried out by or on behalf of seriously anti-smoking bodies, I warrant (but sadly cannot prove) that there is considerable selection bias involved in the research. Then there is a high incidence of recall bias which must affect all of the case-control studies which rely on the detailed memories of very sick (and mostly old) people. Common sense surely suggests that this means of measuring exposure is fraught with inaccuracy, yet I have not seen any study offering a serious, mathematically-acceptable methodology for removing this bias. Not surprising really, how can they ever know the extent of the bias - except that is most definitely there.
On the subject of bias, can I ask you how many studies into ETS (and smoking generally) are you aware of? I believe that some 100-120 have been published (I can't be bothered to go to the Forces web-site at this time, but the answer will be there). On the other hand, how many studies have not been published? Again I have no proof (since they haven't been published ), but I would bet you that it is much more than 120. And why weren't they published? I think the answer is obvious, it is simply that they had nothing to say - ie were unable to contribute a nice lurid statistic to the anti-smokers' hymn-sheet.
Have a look at this:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/
pub...cation_bias.htm
It shows how the application of a simple mathematical function representing such, typical publication bias can turn a normal sample distribution based on a mean RR of 1.0 into a skewed distribution whose mean (RR) is now 1.58 - no data involved.
Professor Brignell (whose site is linked) is considerable more mathematically competent than any epidemiologist, and he backs up his conjecture with mathematical validation - something epidemiologists rarely, if ever, do.
Now take the distribution of all of the studies and the range of their results and related statistical significance (at the coarse P < 0.05 level - or p < 0.1 for the EPA), apply even a smidgeon of adjustment to account for inherent publication (and other forms of) bias, and you will clearly see that the pattern of the distribution of all research studies does, in fact point to the positive results being most certainly due to chance, as, indeed, are the negative ones. If you still doubt this, how do you explain the WHO/IARC 1998 study's findings (they are much discussed elsewhere on this blog)?
This is why it is completely reckless to base policy and legislation on such weak statistical associations. The EPA's RR of 1.19 does not mean that non-smokers are definitely going to get lung cancer from ETS, but only 19% more so than would if not exposed. What it is really saying is that the numerical association is so near to, and tending towards, unity that it does not demonstrate that ETS causes lung cancer in non-smokers at all. The import of this statistic is entirely mathematical, not biological.
When the EPA multiplied the 19% excess by the population of the US and arrived at 3000 'predicted' annual deaths, they committed a fraud, for which they should, frankly, have been imprisoned, given the adverse effects their fraud has had on millions of people in the USA and elsewhere.
I work, on occasion, both with and for doctors and other public health 'ologists. I never cease to be amazed at the arrogance which they show when they interpret statistics. But I say to you what I often say to them:
'You are doctors, I am a mathematician. I promise I won't visit your patients and offer them what I believe to be the appropriate treatment. You show me the same degree of respect for my profession and don't try and tell me how to produce, analyse and interpret statistics'.
Joel, you believe what you want to believe, but please don't suggest that your beliefs are facts. With all due respect I doubt that you are sufficiently objective, nor yet mathematically qualified, to see through the bias.
On the report
-For some of these effects (changes in platelet and vascular function), the immediate effects of even short exposures to secondhand smoke appear to be as large as those seen in association with active smoking of one pack of cigarettes a day-
Are these effects unique to secondhand smoke?
If not are they considered a risk in other circumstances?
What effect does environmental pollution have on changes in platelet and vascular function, if any?
I think this question was asked earlier (I may have missed the answer), are these effects a normal bodily reaction?
"Some doctors say that nicotine can reduce the side effects, such as sluggishness, of some medications. Studies have suggested that nicotine's ability to release dopamine
might alleviate some symptoms of depression and schizophrenia. A 1990 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that when people with a 'history of depression stop smoking in some cases severe major depression ensues.'"
NYT 2/19/95
But we all know that if the public is included and can be coerced into believing their health is seriously affected..........FRAUD ?YOU BET IT IS and it's been happening for the last umpteen years and has been used by the rabids to set the agenda.And now supported by the rabid SG.
Gabz-Bloodletting over leaks? Leaks of what...most of the info in the report is 20 years old now. Not much new news in it. Just confirmation.The news that tobacco smoke isn't great is over 50 years old now. "There are biologically active materials present in cigarette tobacco. These are: a) cancer causing b) cancer promoting c) poisonous d) stimulating, pleasurable, and flavorful."
1961 "Confidential" memorandum from the consulting research firm hired by Liggett to do research for the company
More than 400,000 people die every year from tobacco use and between 40 - 53,000 die from secondhand smoke related illnesses. Why be picky over the nuances? It is, as a fact, the most preventable cause of death in the United States. Smoking kills more people than AIDS, murder and car crashes combined. Doesn't that bother anyone or are you all simply caught up in the garbage the tobacco industry is using to manipulate the public? I'm sorry. This debate just seems foolish when you look at the facts.
Here's a good editorial today in USA today which sums up the whole debate:
For more than 40 years, smokers have argued, with some plausibility, that they have just as much right to smoke in public buildings and workplaces as others have not to smoke. But medical research has steadily undermined their argument, and on Tuesday, the U.S. surgeon general demolished it.
"The debate is over," Richard Carmona told a televised news conference. His report, compiling all available medical evidence, concludes that there is massive, incontrovertible evidence that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses in adults.
Children exposed to smoke suffer an increased risk of respiratory conditions and sudden infant death syndrome. Even short exposures can start non-smokers toward disease, damaging the linings of blood vessels and airways.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opi...-our-
view_x.htm
Here we go. A top health official and a doctor, who was formerly skeptical of hysterical claims, is now convinced by the SG's rhetoric:
CHEYENNE -- Wyoming's top health official welcomed a U.S. surgeon general opinion Tuesday that said even a whiff of secondhand smoke can pose danger, butstopped short of calling for a statewide public smoking ban.
“I think all of us over the years, including myself, have been skeptical that a brief exposure might be harmful, but there's no question now that it is harmful,” said Dr. Brent Sherard, director of the state Department of Health.
OK, who believes Dr. Brent read the whole report already, and isn't reacting to the press sound bites. Is there a doctor left in the world that can actually analyze data the way a doctor is supposed to be trained to do, and separate transient, minimal risk from long-term consequences?
For goodness' sake, isnt' a PhD supposed to equip your that basic level of science competency?
nonsmoker writes:
Doesn't that bother anyone or are you all simply caught up in the garbage the tobacco industry is using to manipulate the public?
Doesn't that bother anyone or are you all simply caught up in the garbage the anti-tobacco industry is using to manipulate the public?
Sorry, I haven't taken any information from tobacco industry directives so don't insult my intelligence with such nonsense.
If you want to believe that just walking past a smoker, while outside, can cause you immediate health problems, just as the CG said during an interview last night, go right ahead. But don't pretend that it is based on any common sense or provable medical evidence.
Erik,
You know full well that editorial does not "sum up the whole debate." You neglected, accidentally I'm sure, to point out the even USA Today knew there's one one side, and provided a link to this counter opinion in the very article you cited:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opi...sing-
view_x.htm
"The Science is Not in," by Jacob Sullum
Excerpt:
" Surgeon General Richard Carmona says secondhand smoke is a deadly public health hazard, lending support to government bans on smoking in private businesses. Surgeons general have been saying the same thing for two decades, but that doesn't make it right.
The dangers posed by secondhand smoke are debatable and likely to remain so given the limitations of epidemiology. It's well established that tobacco smoke can raise the risk of diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease. The question is how much it takes.
Because the doses absorbed by non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke are much smaller than those absorbed by smokers, any health risks would be so small that it is difficult to confirm them in studies comparing, say, the spouses of smokers with the spouses of non-smokers. The weak, statistically insignificant associations typically found in such studies are consistent with a low-level risk."
It must really torque you, Erik, that even editorial writers on your side acknowledge a different opinion.
nonsmoker wrote: "More than 400,000 people die every year from tobacco use and between 40 - 53,000 die from secondhand smoke related illnesses. Why be picky over the nuances?"
Now it's more than 400,000? Where'd you get that number? Are you using the heart disease numbers? Can you also say with 100% certainty that those people would still be alive if they didn't smoke? What proof do you have that they didn't die from other pollutions? How can you guarantee that they wouldn't have died anyway? Just because they happened to have smoked? Please explain where you got the "over 400,000" figure from.
Jill -
I think you are absolutely correct in noting that there is an important question about exactly how much secondhand smoke exposure is significant in terms of health effects. It is certainly not accurate to suggest that someone exposed for 30 minutes on one occasion is at the same risk as someone who is exposed to very high levels daily for 30 years.
What I hope that you will see is that this is EXACTLY what groups like ASH are claiming!
ASH, in particular, has claimed that a single 30 minute exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of a fatal heart attack the same as that of a chronic, active smoker. (So I guess ASH has even gone beyond that - it goes so far as claiming that a brief exposure to SECONDhand smoke poses the same heart attack death risk as ACTIVE smoking for your whole life)
Anyone can (hopefully) see that this claim is absurd. The other claims which 80+ anti-smoking groups are making are a bit less absurd, but still not accurate.
The nuances you bring up in terms of the length of exposure are PRECISELY the factors that are influencing my opinions about the inaccuracy of these health claims.
I also hope that you understand that my support for smoking bans has nothing to do with whether or not a 30 minute exposure is harmful. I have supported such bans (workplace bans, not widespread outdoor, car or home bans) for 21 years, and my support is not based on any evidence that someone is going to have a heart attack because of sitting in a smoky restaurant for a half-hour.
My point is that we don't need to stretch the truth. We don't need to distort the science. We have nothing to gain, and everything to lose. Namely - our credibility.
Erik wrote: "Here's a good editorial today in USA today which sums up the whole debate::
GOOD editorial? Here I thought you were actually going to give us something new and different. Should have known better. Silly me.
Closet Smoker-
I simply do not know enough about the effects of tobacco smoke on platelet production to be able to offer any opinion, one way or the other, about the potential effects of smoking on idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. I wish I could be of more help. Although as you can see, I tend to be quite outspoken about things I feel I know something about, I also have to admit when I really don't have the answer. Here, I simply do not. I suppose that your "experiment" will help to figure it out. Let us know what happens.
Lynda wrote
Now it's more than 400,000?
The SG said "500,000" and "almost half a million" in the Lehrer interview last night (instead of the standard "400,000"). He also said that "5000" kids start smoking every day, instead of the standard "3000." Then later he said "4 to 5 thousand."
It doesn't matter. They just make up whatever number they feel like, and the public buys it every time. They are in control and they determine the truth.
A proposal for smokers and reasonable people: What do you think about starting an IRC chat room or some other chat room where we could meet up and talk in real time? I'd be willing to do it if there's any interest. You can email me at joshsmokes@adelphia.net
I envision this as a place where we could have real discussions, not a place where antismokers will attack our motives or morality. I think smokers need a place to discuss their views without constantly feeling they have to defend themselves against unkind or malicious accusations.
Let me know.
Well non smoker,for starters we get our facts from scientific studies that aren't promoted by the antis,for obvious reasons.These studies are independant from big T but the antis will always seek to condemn them via whatever method is available.An excellent example is this blog.When "facts" don't fit their agenda,you will never get to hear of them since the press is so biased.You have already discovered the numbers change quite consistently and are based on a computer programme,no death certificates are ever checked or counted.The same occurs when SHS is discussed,they are biased mathematical wizardry which can change immensly depending upon what slant is required.This is not the truth of the issue,we want the facts,not the facts the antis want everyone to believe.Furthermore we believe tobacco is not the sole cause of all of the ill health and death attributed to it.Since the Government will never ban tobacco unless you cough up thousands more in tax to offset the loss in revenue,there never will be an ocasion where other enviromental factors can be examined without tobacco being a confounder.One scientist is certain diesel is the root of all of this ill health and death,not tobacco.But the war on tobacco pays good funding to those who constantly present new studies for example saying tobacco causes global warmimg.If you're happy with your comments that's your business,but it isn't the truth,the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Dr. Siegel,
I am curious to get your feedback regarding certain comments made by the AG on PBS last night:
Case 1: Danger to nonsmokers from being exposed to ETS outside
JIM LEHRER: All right, other example. You work in a smoke-free building. For whatever reason, smoking is not allowed in the building, so the smokers have to go outside. And they hang out in an area by the doors and all of that. You go out and walk through them to go outside to do something, is that a problem?
DR. RICHARD CARMONA: It is a problem, because you're still, even for a short period of time, going through an area that has concentrated smoke if you're walking through smokers. We are thankful that they're out of the building and outside, but they really should be away from any areas where there's going to be pedestrian traffic of nonsmokers, to minimize the exposure to those people.
Case 2: Immediate damage to nonsmokers from short exposures
JIM LEHRER: So you're in an airport waiting room, and there's a glass-enclosed room where people are in there smoking, and you walk by, you're jeopardizing your life?
DR. RICHARD CARMONA: It's not so much jeopardizing your life, but the door opens, people come in and out. The smoke in that room comes out.
It may be less than the person standing outside, but what's the cumulative effect of 20 or 30 smokers in a small room when the door opens and the smoke comes outside? What about the ventilating system that circulates those toxic materials around?
Even small exposure, just a few minutes of exposure, begins cellular changes that start to harm your cells.
JIM LEHRER: Now, how do you know that, a few minutes' exposure to somebody else's smoke?
DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Scientists have clearly looked at this at a biochemical and cellular level to see what changes -- how long does it take for you being exposed before your blood cells start to act differently. Platelets start to clot. The lining of your arteries starts to change.
Just a few minutes of exposure begins that. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to get a heart attack or cancer, but you're starting the clock ticking toward a development of chronic disease, which is all preventable if you don't have the exposure to secondhand smoke.
Case 3: Laying the groundwork for intrusion into the private home and/or child abuse allegations.
JIM LEHRER: Where does the major exposure come?
DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Well, it really depends on what age group you're in. Interestingly enough, children's exposure is primarily in the home with their loved ones smoking around them, and that's a very...
JIM LEHRER: Mom and dads smoke, the kids...
DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Mom and dad, aunts and uncles, grandma, grandpa, but family in a home where children are exposed.
JIM LEHRER: How in the world are you going to stop that?
DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Well, education, we hope. We hope this information will get out and empower people to start thinking. I mean, a lot of people think, "Well, it's secondhand smoke. It's really not that worrisome. The kids will do fine."
The fact is: They won't. We have evidence now that every day a child is exposed to secondhand smoke, they have higher incidents of asthma. Eventually, they'll develop cardiovascular disease and cancers over time.
Thanks for your feedback.
Josh, It's a nice idea, but I hate IRC, never can get it to work half the time for me.
But, tell me, exactly HOW you are going to keep the antis out? You know damned well they follow us around, they hate us, but just have to always be where we are......hehehe
"I have supported such bans (workplace bans, not widespread outdoor, car or home bans) for 21 years"
Why Michael? Why did you get started in 'anti-tobacco' in the first place?
You seem to be a clever guy, but I have a suspicion that you don't like the smell of cigarette smoke. Is that what got you started?
I find your writings to be quite confusing since you appear to recognize that the anti-smoking campaign is driven by hyperbole and falsehood, and yet you stubbornly cling to your support for smoking bans which have been and remain no less cruel to many people than the suggested extended bans that you now oppose?
If there is any adverse effect due to exposure to ETS, it is demonstrably going to occur in the home - remember the EPA 'study' result was based entirely on spousal ETS exposure in females and the UK government has admitted that 95% of ETS exposure occurs in the home. So why do you support the kind of legislation that, on the evidence of a tiny (and for any other substance would be correctly taken to be negligible) 'risk' takes away the freedom to socialize, eg to enjoy a cigarette with a beer, when you know very well that well-ventilated bars, pubs, restaurants and public transport with segregated smoking/non-smoking sections would provide the solution which gives everyone what they want.
Your position seems to me to be rather inconsistent, if not hypocritical, given the madness which your past life has helped to spawn and is now spreading like cancer throughout the world.
You may not be my worst enemy, now, but I'm afraid you are some way from being a friend.
"We hope this information will get out and empower people to start thinking"
My god, he's an arrogant bastard isn't he? 'empower people to start thinking' indeed! I wonder what we have been doing all these years without the wise words of such a great man!
I bet the Vice Admiral doesn't get to go aboard ship very often nowadays. Still, no problem. He doesn't need to.
He probably walks on water.
IRC Chat? Forget it.
What I'd love is an actual live debate, or series of debates.
We could do it via phone, host a series of 10 to 30 minute debates. Record them as MP3 files. Post them somewhere.
McFadden, Koza, Gaison, the Lyndas, Bond, the Walts, etc. too many folks to mention paired up 1-on-1 against some willing hired guns from the anti-industry: people like Tac, Glantz, and of course our own Billy Godshall.
Debate only.
No call in astroturfing allowed.
The moderator would prepare questions,
such as "does environmental tobacco smoke present a significant enough threat to public health to warrant protective legislation" and each side could give a response.
I might nominate Dr. Mike to moderate such a debate, along with a local radio personality.
Dr. Mike, does Boston U have a campus radio station? Would they be equipped to handle such a thing?
geo wrote:
"Joel, in a nation of 250 million people, 3000 excess cancer deaths is statistically "insignificant" (As one tobacco company put it)."
The number WAS statistically insignificant until the EPA lowered the CI to 90%. LOL
"You can't even point to a single person who smokes and state that they will get lung cancer ("only" 12 to 15% do)."
No, but you can be a bit more certain by pointing to a 3 pack a day for 50 years 65 year old smoker and telling him his chances of getting lung cancer by age 75 is 15%.
(According to data assembled by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center)
On a smokers' chat room:
1. If folks don't like IRC, please propose another live chat medium that you like. Note - not an instant messenger client like YahooMessenger or AOL IM, but a chat room, where all folks can see and responde to each other.
2. One keeps out the abusive antismokers by retaining moderators' rights and kicking them out if necessary. This is easy.
3. edpsycho - I was not proposing a debate forum, but a live chat space on the Web where smokers could talk to each other without having to engage in the sort of debate you're proposing. I like your idea, just not in the venue I'm suggesting.
Anyone can email me about this at joshsmokes@adelphia.net
west2, here is at least one answer to your question about endothelial dysfunction:
The study concluded that "A single high-fat meal transiently reduces endothelial dysfunction for up to 4 hours in healthy, normocholesterolemic subjects, probably through the accumulation of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins." (see Plotnick GD, Corretti MC, Vogel RA. Effect of antioxidant vitamins on the transient impairment of endothelium-dependent brachial artery vasoactivity following a single high-fat meal. JAMA 1997; 278:1682-1686).
Yahoo messenger has chat room capability that works pretty good.
Listen up, here's how they come up with their magic numbers...
"More than 400,000 people die every year from tobacco use"
"Smoking kills more people than AIDS, murder and car crashes combined."
There it is. AIDS, Murder & Crashes kills 399,999 people. Smoking therefore causes 400,000.
{Pepe-Le-Pew}
Scientific, no?
{/Pepe-Le-Pew}
I'm STILL WAITING for someone, anyone to convince me that the changes measured in any of these studies represent "disfunction" and not normal homeostatic changes. What makes these changes a "bad" thing and not a "good" thing.
Might it not be that those people who do NOT react in this observed manner be the people who really have "impaired" function?
Josh, I like the idea of live debate - but I much prefer Ed Psycho's idea, even though we all know it will never happen. Anti-smokers never engage in debate, they know they can never win on a true 'level playing field' debating forum.
My real wish would be to be placed in something like the 'Big Brother' house (I believe you do have this cretinous TV program in the States), five of us, five of them, no time constraints, no hiding places and no scripts. Then let the public decide.
You know, I reckon that would be good for ratings too!
Anyway, I don't mind the 'abusive' anti-smokers who post on this blog. Frankly they are all pathetic nodding dogs who present no arguments that are in any way 'challenging'. I've experienced worse abuse from my cat, quite honestly.
And I do appreciate the odd (rare) opportunity to try to engage the (not abusive) antis (Michael, Joel etc) in debates, even if they do tend to be lamentably short and a bit one-sided.
Ed - I'd be up for a public debate, with any health promotion honcho. So would my buddy Roy. It will never happen though, and here's why:
The official policy of TC, for responding to a challenge to a debate, can be found here -
http://www.junkscience.com/sep99...p99/
anrorig.htm
"First, it is most important to know how not to respond. Do not get into arguments with the industry about the scientific evidence."
"Instead, the best approach is to expose the tobacco industry ties of the so-called scientists making the arguments. In almost every case, scientists who have challenged the finding that ETS is a significant health hazard have turned out to be allied with the tobacco industry. Most have received direct funding from the industry. With the help of the tobacco industry documents, databases like ANR's Tobacco Industry Tracking Database, and other sources, document and expose the connections between these "scientists" and the tobacco industry."
In other words - REFUSE to debate, then accuse your would-be-debater of being in the pay of Big Tobacco.
As you will see, those words were composed by our host. When I first contacted Dr Siegel by email, I confronted him with his authorship of that document. He immediately took responsibility for it and admitted he had been wrong. I said to him; "Michael Siegel, you are an honorable man! You confess your mistakes, take responsibility for them and learn from them".
In any case, I'd nominate McFadden as the lead debater for our side
"There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke, said Surgeon General Richard Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., in a report titled The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke."
This is one of the most dishonest thing i ever read from a public health official.
It's *technically* correct, since there's no risk-free level of anything on Earth, but it's clearly misleading uninformed people into believing something completely false, without really saying it.
I apologize if anyone felt I was insulting their intelligence when I made my previous comments because you all seem like intelligent people and I certainly don't want to resort to name-calling. It just sickens me that such a preventable cause of death is being adamantly defended because of some nuances about the secondhand smoke debate. I totally believe in telling the truth and work for an anti-tobacco organization that does not tout the 30-minute exposure stat. Our main problem is with the hospitality workers that have to put up with that constant smoke.
And, please stop saying they can just go work somewhere else because a lot of us don't have that luxury, especially with the job market as it is now - at least in my city. I've talked to people who have said "sure, I'd love to work somewhere else but when I am I even going to find the time to go look for another job. I already work 2 jobs, etc. and I can't just take a vacation day." Sometimes opponents need to think about the types of jobs these are and the reality that there are tons of low-skilled workers out there fighting for the same low-paying, hazardous jobs.
I agree with the statement that you shouldn't use outrageous false numbers like the 30-minute exposure thing. The truth is alarming enough. If you're in a smoky bar for an hour, you've inhaled something like 1 1/2 cigarettes. It's not that outrageous to believe since 85% of cigarette smoke is released into the air and not inhaled by the smoker. Who's lungs do you think that goes into?
And no, I'm not as well-versed in the science behind the 440,000 number but I'll have to actually ammend that previsous stat. Tobacco kills more than AIDS, alcohol, motor vehicles, homicides, drug induced and suiced all combined. And, no ... it doesn't add up to 399,999. It all adds up to 202,000. So, let's say you're a little skeptical, which most of you are, and you only believ in half that 440,000 number. You're still adding up to more than all those things combined.
Just a little food for thought. Hope it spurs an interesting discussion.
Tobacco kills ? it is a computer programme that spits out a number.No accurate data is kept.
Nonsmoker wrote: "And no, I'm not as well-versed in the science behind the 440,000 number but I'll have to actually ammend that previsous stat."
Now it's 440,000? Tell you what....why not find the real number before spouting them off. And good luck on that, I tried and still apparently came up wrong. I asked for the total number of deaths by lung cancer and was told 160,000 of which 3,000 were smoking related, only to have THAT corrected days later. So good luck finding a real number.
I personally would like to see this. Exactly how many TOTAL deaths per year are from lung cancer and out of that total number, how many are definitely proven beyond any doubt to be smoking related or related to SHS only or primarily. Same with heart disease. Period. That's all. I try looking, but these damned studies and reports are written in such a way you really do need a degree in rocket science to figure out which is which. I don't see a need to complicate it.
I only go by my own personal experiences that I've lived with, seen, etc. I use my common sense. And personally, I've never met or known anyone in all my 53 years with lung cancer, and only 1 person with emphysema and one person with heart disease. And up until the past few years, most people I knew smoked. So I really have to ask myself how bad it can truly be if they are all healthy, I am healthy and all their non-smoking family and friends haven't dropped dead yet from our second hand smoke.
See my point? I operate from my life and my own common sense, not numbers crunched to suit an agenda.
Lynda F, Re: up to 440,000 inexplicably.
Explanation: Reaaaallly big car crash just happened.
.... the big car crash was caused by a plane full of AIDS patients landing on the highway, of course.
"How frequent do the "brief" exposures to SHS have to be to raise the cumulative risk significantly?"
-Joel Weisblat
I'm sorry to bring facts to the debate. But OSHA regulations are the safe exposure level for an 8 hour per day, 40 hours per week.
So for airborne nicotine concentrations for example 0.5 milligrams / cu.M is the safe level for an 8 hour per day, 40 hours per week exposure. And the American Cancer Society found that secondhand smoke concentrations are 25,000 SAFER than OSHA regulations.
http://cleanairquality.blogspot....st-
results.html
That explains why nobody has died after 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke. Indeed it explains why nobody has died from secondhand smoke period.
Nonsmoker wrote:
"It just sickens me that such a preventable cause of death is being adamantly defended because of some nuances about the secondhand smoke debate."
Preventable cause of death for smokers? Perhaps. But we are debating smoking bans, which are justified based on their supposed harm to NON-smokers.
The figures you cite regarding aggregate tobacco relateds deaths (all but maybe 43000 occurring in smokers) is nothing but a big fat Red Herring.
"I totally believe in telling the truth and work for an anti-tobacco organization that does not tout the 30-minute exposure stat."
Really? Do tell. I'm sure we'd all like to know. Is it where Disgusted works?
"Our main problem is with the hospitality workers that have to put up with that constant smoke."
So you have a problem with hospitality workers putting up with smoke? Did any of them ask you to represent them? Or is this a big case of noblesse oblige?
"And, please stop saying they can just go work somewhere else because a lot of us don't have that luxury, especially with the job market as it is now - at least in my city."
Tell that to the people who lost their jobs at Weyco, or Scotts, or anywhere else that is instituting a smoker-free policy.
Why is it always OK for employers to promote policies RESTRICTING smoking, but never to ALLOW it? Quite the double standard you people have.
I agree with the statement that you shouldn't use outrageous false numbers like the 30-minute exposure thing. The truth is alarming enough.
"If you're in a smoky bar for an hour, you've inhaled something like 1 1/2 cigarettes."
And sitting by a wood campfire for 1/2 an hour exposes you to an amount of smoke equivelant to 750,000 cigarettes. Big friggin deal.
"to believe since 85% of cigarette smoke is released into the air and not inhaled by the smoker."
100% of automobile exhaust is released into the air.
"Who's lungs do you think that goes into?"
The same lungs that automobile exhaust goes into. But nobody minds that.
"And no, I'm not as well-versed in the science behind the 440,000 number"
And you work for an anti-smoking orgnaization, and are not familiar with the research behind your claims?
Why on earth should we listen to you then? Your arrogance is staggering!
"Tobacco kills more than AIDS, alcohol, motor vehicles, homicides, drug induced and suiced all combined."
Again, are we taling about smoking, or the effects of environmental tobacco smoke?
It's like you are saying: "since smoking kills all these people who smoke, we should ban it in bars to protect people who don't smoke!"
You're flatly incoherent!
I am tired of you already. Take your canned propaganda sound bites somewhere else.
Anti-tobacco really does care. They told me I have to smoke 20 feet from the bus stop... That way, all the toxic fumes of the bus will not affect me, only the non-smokers. (Fact: Exhaust from a bus = 1000's of cigarettes worth of "toxins"... Go find bigger fish to fry you tunnel-visioned nuts!) P.s. Yes, I'm biased.
"Doesn't that bother anyone or are you all simply caught up in the garbage the tobacco industry is using to manipulate the public? I'm sorry. This debate just seems foolish when you look at the facts."
-nonsmoker
Nonsmoker let's cut through the B.S. the agenda of the pro-smoking ban activists is to stop smokers from smoking...because smoking CAN BE hazardous to the smokers' health. A noble cause when it was conducted through voluntary education and marketing. But when it didn't produce the results that the activists and the pharmaceutical nicotine companies desired, they took it to the next level..
Spreading lies about secondhand smoke to use the force of governemnt to accomplish what the non-profit health organizations could not. And the reason the use of force is not popular is because it has caused thousands of businesses to go bankrupt......tens of thousands of jobs lost.....and a serious violation of property rights all based on a series of INCREDIBLE LIES.
Nonsmoker here is a partial list of the businesses and people you seem so cavelier perhaps even giddy in seeing put out of work.
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/ba...om/
banloss3.htm
Watch the little antis not even bother to click on any of the links provided and actually read and comprehend any of the information...
Welcome to the club, tnsmoker. Glad you came.
nonsmoker wrote:
"It just sickens me that such a preventable cause of death is being adamantly defended because of some nuances about the secondhand smoke debate."
Have you considered that you worry too much?
Really, I'm serious.
"I totally believe in telling the truth and work for an anti-tobacco organization that does not tout the 30-minute exposure stat."
That's only one lie. Does your org have a website? I'd like to see what you consider honest information.
"Our main problem is with the hospitality workers that have to put up with that constant smoke."
The only hospitality worker I currently know wants to be exposed to smoke because she smokes. (She'd also like to be able to drink on the job). Think you can help her out at the same time?
"And, please stop saying they can just go work somewhere else..."
Quit your whining. It's not the government's job to find you a job you're happy with. That's your problem.
"If you're in a smoky bar for an hour, you've inhaled something like 1 1/2 cigarettes."
Wrong. In fact, that's a lie. Is this what your org touts?
Without going into all the air monitoring studies (including those done by anti-tobacco) to contradict your statement, just think for a minute. If what you say is true, about 90% of nonsmoking bartenders would be addicted to nicotine in short order. 8 hour shift = 12 cigarettes inhaled each day. That's more cigarettes/day than kids who start smoking and eventually become dedicated smokers.
"It's not that outrageous to believe since 85% of cigarette smoke is released into the air and not inhaled by the smoker. Who's lungs do you think that goes into?"
Who says it all goes into anybody's lungs? Do nonsmokers actually inhale every bit of air in a building?
"Tobacco kills more than AIDS, alcohol, motor vehicles, homicides, drug induced and suiced all combined."
Please. You'd rather have AIDS the largest killer? Or suicide? Is that what you're trying to say?
Joel-- you asked:
at what level of exposure does the risk become significant?
Here's the tricky thing. Most of the epidemiology -- for all its other flaws-- also shows NO DOSE/ RESPONSE TREND. And much of it shows an INVERSE dose/repsonse trend. And that's measured either way (amount of daily exposure or number of years exposed.)
I cut my teeth on this stuff way back when the Hirayama study was touted as the Mother Lode (SG Report of 1986) and the first thing I noted was the passing oddity of the d/r trend. Which actually seemed to prove it s more dangerous to live with an ex-light-smoker than a 2-pack-a-day man.
:Later, the study (the very heart of the SG's case back in 1986) was shredded by many critics on numerous other grounds, and subsequently dismissed by EPA '92 as nearly fatally flawed and ultimately useless. (Or to put that succinctly, : it didn't become officially recognized as flawed, till other studies-- equally flawed-- could be trotted out in its stead.)
I can give you many examples of studies with reversals (even more blatant) of the d/r trends and will if you're still around
Ms Closet--
There's a lot of studies showing that smoking improves mood and improves mental functioning. As for your platelet question, I suggest you google. You're bound to come up with answers, but meanwhile (as long as allowing a platelet dip doesn't hurt you) your experiment sounds like the ticket. But also make note of the amount of nicotine (how much per cgt/ how many times a day) that you're currently taking in.
Ms Jill--
Almost every medicine is toxic or it wouldn't kill bugs, and wouldn't have that long and fairly terrifying list of possible side effects.
Then too, the fear of chemicals is strange and hypocritical. You voluntarily drink coffee: 1000+
"chemicals" and 19 known carcinogens-- and only 19 because they haven't tested the lot.
Josh, there are discussion forums for smokers' rights people. But the antis still get in. And as long as they're not abusive, they're not kicked out. Know why? Because we don't fear them. They don't let us on their lists because they do fear us. However, it's better to have them around because it forces you to work harder and hone your skills for debate anywhere you might be. Having them around is a good thing... To hone skills, have them say things in public that make them look foolish, and for entertainment
Lynda F, please forgive me, and maybe you're being facetious, but your expressed confusion over the figures is getting painful to watch.
Let's begin with this statement:
The following estimated numbers are the antis' figures. No one here agrees with them but they have become the standard figures of conversation. Just understand that so that when you hear them you know it's the figures they've established and what we are forced to work with:
400,000 - 440,000 = SMOKERS by primary smoking that die of "smoking-related" diseases. ALL diseases.
35,000 - 65,000 = NONsmokers by secondhand smoke who die from heart disease.
3,000 = NONsmokers by secondhand smoke who die from lung cancer
Of the 400,000 - 440,000 SMOKERS that die from primary smoking, I have not followed what number of those are from lung cancer.
Nor have I followe how many NONsmokers NOT counted as exposed to SHS that die from lung cancer.
Basically because I don't see why any of that matters as much as you do in this debate.
First, if I'm not mistaken you seem to be trying to confusingly wrest the difference between how many SMOKERS die of lung cancer against the 3000 NONsmokers that allegedly die of lung cancer from ETS. If so, you're spinning around trying to make a case out of how many smokers die of their smoke as compared to how many nonsmokers die of our smoke. How is that making any valid point? You're handing them "smoke kills" (first or secondhand). At least that's how it's sounded to me.
Now, if you're trying to figure how many NONsmokers who allegedly die of lung cancer from ETS against ALL lung cancer cases (including non-exposed nonsmokers) and say that the 3000 is measly in comparison in order to make some point about what's "miniscule" versus "more important" you're still treading water. Don't forget that the antis' say that even one death from other's smoke is one too many. If the number really was 3000 I think I'd even say you can't outright call it unimportant. In the grand scheme of population is it outrageous? No. And really no reason to turn lives upside down over it. But to say "nevermind them", that there are many more dying of lung cancer NOT from that exposure just doesn't help in verbal debate.
I just want to clear up where I think you're obsessing over the wrong and tricky argument when there are so many other worthy ones to make.
And let me be clear, I do NOT believe those numbers and anywhere I speak about ETS deaths and left off the word ALLEGED, please insert it.
This was merely an exercise in explaining what they say and how an argument against it can backfire when you don't understand what they say.
Again, sincere apologies if I've offended. It's not my intention.
JustTheFacts wrote: "This was merely an exercise in explaining what they say and how an argument against it can backfire when you don't understand what they say.
Again, sincere apologies if I've offended. It's not my intention."
hehehehe You find it painful to watch? You should be in my shoes trying to figure it out. It's extremely painful for me trying to make sense of any of the studies and reports, between the convoluted, long winded, language used and numbers that make no sense to me. I am no genius, and basically just have a simple academic mind. So I struggle to understand it as intelligently and comprehensively as you all do here, which is pretty much why I have only read this blog for over 6 months before ever opening my mouth. Complicated math has never been my forte, nor has science.
Actually, I'm not trying to prove anything. In my simple way of seeing things, IF 100,000 people per year, in total die from lung cancer, and of that number 100 have been proven to be related to smoking (either active or passive) then I fail to see where cigarettes/cigarette smoke is as deadly as is being claimed when obviously something else, or other things, are causing more deaths. To me it only proves the anti tobacco crusade is nothing more than a witch hunt resulting from a personal agenda because someone doesn't like cigarettes or their smell.
Simple I know, but that what keeps going around in MY mind. I am a smoker too, so it's not like the answer is about to change my mind about my smoking.
I do see your point about it backfiring too.
I'll just go back to sticking to my own opinions based on my life only, and leave all the numbers and stuff to those of you who seem to actually understand it, because most of it makes no sense to me at all.
I still say if it's so deadly why are more people just not dropping dead and how the hell did I manage to live to the age of 53? hehehehehehehehehe
I do wonder in all of this if the real goal is to make the night club industry a thing of the past.
That part of it seems to be working with these bans.
I live in a town with a ban that includes bars and the only ones that have a good number of patrons on a regular basis........are the ones ignoring the ban.
For anyone who cares to add in the ridiculous lie of "bans do no economic damage".....they don't when a place decides to thumb their nose to the ban in their locale so they don't end up as a ban damage statistic.
I'm glad for these places, too, for I know I can expect a good turnout.
The other places are crapshoots at best where you move your instruments to rehearse in front of a handful of people. Not good for repeat business as a club owner wants people in their club and you as the musician are to provide this miracle for them in a locale with a smoking ban.
The first corner cut is live entertainment in favor of DJs and Karaoke to save a buck. I don't know about you, but I can listen to CDs at home.
Bars were never meant to be health spas and they certainly are not .....even if they prohibit smoking.
Phewww Lynda F., thanks for being so gracious in light of what could have sounded overly critical. And actually, your response was the most clear (to me anyway) about what you've been thinking and now I understand YOUR point better
But no! Please don't stop trying to work with the numbers! You're basically there and every post that speaks of numbers is a help. And you probably understand more than you think. It creeps up on you without you even knowing when you keep hearing and writing about it. Suddenly, you realize, you just know
JustTheFacts, I wasn't offended by your post, well, perhaps felt what you were really saying was "shut up already"...........which I'd already decided to do on that front.....LOL
But I've made no secret about the fact that I have only a high school education. And I am NOT afraid to admit I don't know or that it confuses me to the point that I feel like an idiot.
I'm a simple person, and like the K.I.S.S. theory. Just give it to me in black and white. I like to see the bottom line, don't need all the steps in the middle that are usually wasted anyway.
Lynda F intellectual beings rarely have the penetrative sight of seeing things at ground level.In my simplistic view schools merely provide the basis of education,the individual then either sits back or throughout life is always looking for new information.Dear little Jill believes she has a superiour intellect but fails when you utilise common sense.Anti smokers have the ability to absorb masses of information but are unable to argue their points because it is taken out of context,they are robots.You didn't need to be told this but what the hell.......
In considering the recent disclosures of the Surgeon General of the United States of America one has to reflect upon what was disclosed. Although the news release and associated sound bites stated clearly the smoking debate is over. The incredible statement of how many non smokers deaths result from the toxic abilities of second hand smoke and primary smoking are revelations worthy of fears and immediate action.
Before we take the next step and the floggings start we have to consider the human test results observed in biological testing. The results of which have yet to be disclosed. Many believe human testing is not possible without breaching international law however the testing is already completed and showed no recorded harms which would be co-incidental with the surgeon generals statistical report findings.
The fanatical groups inspiring smoking bans internationally mention the nicotine stained fingers of smokers all the time however fail to report the level of cancerous fingers of smokers being amputated as a result of the sedimentary buildup. A buildup consistent with or exceeding previous lab rat exposures, existing for many in time periods of decades with apparently little result. The accumulations far exceed the levels we would expect to accumulate inside a non smokers lungs after all even sitting one foot away from a smoker for years in considering the air dilution principles at play could not exceed the level of exposure to a smokers fingers constantly bathed in the direct unfiltered smoke.
If the calculated theory seems to indicate a harm exists we should see an unusually high incidence of cancerous smokers fingers, far more numerous than lung , liver or rectal cancers. More evident in fact than any smoking related site mentioned to date. We know this is a rare occurrence which could not if cancer did exist at any level be separated from other confounder to any significant degree, unless of course the cancer was limited to the site most obviously and most significantly exposed the fingers human habit define as the two we consistently hold a cigarette in. No such condition has been reported to exist. The non existent epidemic of cancerous fingers can be placed right up there with a diagnosis of smokers tumor which also never existed beyond media prose. The research crowd incredibly missed this point along with the most intelligent leaders of science and medicine, alternately they did not, and simply do not wish to discuss it, as the real observations discredit the photo ops to date. In fact what we have been told for the past 45 years seem to have a slight imperfection in credibility.
As a theory; smoking is a significant cause of cancers, primary or secondary, I would suggest this claim is absolutely demonstrated in biological assay to be completely false.
Observational science is much more reliable in defining cause and effect. The environment ministries would have been much more able to monitor and define known safe levels than a dedicated anti smoking advocate who exceeds his own research findings in what he relays to the public.
The surgeon General has obviously soiled himself in front of an international audience even the media groups have fallen silent. No jubilation or dancing in the streets. No “I told you so” rhetoric just absolute silence. Observation wise only shame and disassociation is seen in revealing a fanatic who finally went one step too far.
From a purely mechanical standpoint the observations of a smokers fingers reveals a few more real conclusions. Which would dispel previous urban myths so prevalent in the anti smoker diatribe. The color is the first obvious characteristic which could instill some reality into the situation. The color is not black as dissection of smokers lungs reveals. Anyone who has ever replaced an out door air conditioning filter will agree the color of that sediment is definitely not yellow either but coal black as a result of collection of the particulate matter in the air dissolute so often not considered in cigarette smoke statistical research.
The consistency of the sediment on those fingers would be in observational terms described as a glue. If the sediment is in fact a glue why do we not see proposals to test the effectiveness of dissolving that glue in reducing lung sediment contents which the lungs could in turn reduce with the dispelling of flem. If the glue were actually retaining cancerous agents from any source, reduction of effects would have to be inclusive of reduction of the sediment.
Bans and smoking reductions by force and coercion would not seem to be the most effective strategy in mortality reductions as legitimate research would seem to indicate, would be much more effective. Anti smoking advocates and their strategies are known to be extremely expensive, the solutions in taxation and created fears and hate are far more inclusive of sustaining the status quo. If the expense were studied the increased mortality due to increased poverty levels. Reduced personal economies would be inversely proportional to increased mortalities as a result. If mortality is the target biased anti smokers should be taken out of the effort as they do much more harm in consensus views and propaganda than real science and pro active attitudes would prove to be.
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