These claims are not just implausible but mathematically impossible.
It is often said that smoking is responsible for 17% of heart disease cases. Therefore, if smoking were eliminated entirely, it is impossible for the number of cases to decline by more than 17%.
The idea that there can possibly be a decline in excess of 17% when mere secondhand smoke is eliminated from SOME environments (bars and restaurants but not the home) is implausible to the point of lunacy. Even if all the claims that are made about secondhand smoke are true, it is impossible for a smoking ban to reduce mortality by any more than a tiny fraction of 17%.
(I understand that heart attacks are different to heart disease but there is obviously a close correlation. If there are any widely accepted figure for how many heart attacks are attributable to smoking I would be interested to see them. I imagine they must be fairly similar).
Glantz's basic error
Although having no medical training I have in the past gone through your argument in my head, and also Chris's argument. I can't understand why people who've thought about this, in particular, journalists, cannot see the implausibility and logical impossibility. Maybe they can't shake off their prejudices or feel they need to write what their readers want to hear? Maybe they are just lazy or stupid. I noticed today, a throw-away comment in a column by the highly regarded and highly paid Times columnist, Alice Miles, that smoking had "dipped sharply" since the (English) smoking ban. In fact it has remained the same for women and increased by from 23% to 24% for men. It would have taken her 5 minutes to find this out. What hope is there for sensible comment on second or third hand smoking? There are concerned people out there. In the UK we have Michael Blastland, on whose show you appeared. However, if he had written a column in the Times last week pointing out that smoking had gone up, Alice Miles would still have claimed the opposite. Blastland has pointed out , both in the Times and on the BBC website, that there has been no significant decrease in heart atacks since the Scottish ban, and both BBC and Times journalists have since contradicted him. What hope have the rest of us got?
When you were first starting out in tobacco control and you were invited to testify at a smoking ban hearing as the "expert", were you ever asked about the effects of secondhand smoke on the heart? If so, how did you answer back then?
Clear, understandable, plausible, logical, common sensical ... thank you Dr. Siegel, for putting this issue into perspective.
I have never understood how human beings with a minimum of logic and common sense could have come to any other conclusion, let alone people with a university degree and supposedly gifted with a mission to provide medical advice to others.
One year on, 1,700 fewer cardiac-related hospitalizations and a saving of $24 million in health-care costs in Illinois:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
ne...0,5152225.story
Excerpt:
“In the year since the Illinois smoking ban went into effect, life has changed for the better, said Dan Rosenthal, a Chicago restaurateur.
“He has happier employees, booked more holiday parties and generally saw an uptick in business—at least until the financial meltdown. But it's not about the bottom line, he said.”
Why, Mr. Rosenthal, you dummy, you could have had a smoking ban in your restaurant LONG AGO, and WITHOUT the state-imposed ban. Did you have to have the state of Illinois lead you by the nose into the sunny uplands of a smoke-free restaurant and an uptick in business? And THAT’S the bottom line.
.
Michael;
"analyze the significance of the stipulated fact: a brief encounter with secondhand smoke can cause someone with severe coronary disease to suffer a heart attack by increasing the coagulation (clotting) potential of the blood platelets and causing endothelial dysfunction."
If the smoke imposed an immediate danger to someone with advanced heart disease, how stupefied would that individual have to be, if he were out drinking and smoking in a bar? It seems almost incredible you could find many candidates, who could be affected before or after the bans.
Would their Doctor have informed them of the risk?
Your insistence that a hospitality worker's risk is increased because of the effects of not being properly informed, seem to be pretty generalized in this instance.
The claims here are ignoring long term risk altogether and focusing on immediate risk, which logically should be a discussion of much reduced numbers, not large increases.
For a normal healthy person [which represents the vast majority of the patrons in a bar] There is no or extremely rare immediate risk so what measures were taken to eliminate those not believed to be at risk in an earnest attempt to validate the conclusions, in the final analysis?
A researcher would be negligent to not pursue those numbers when they were so readily available. If by no other means by age group stats alone.
To present an increased risk factor and state that it applies to the whole population, is somewhat overblown when we know from observations the numbers are neither credible or applicable universally.
So if we trim down to those who are immediately at risk, how many would be left in comparison to the reductions cited, among candidates for saving?
Did anyone or any of their surviving relatives in any of the studies even get questioned, to ascertain their medical condition much less if they smoked or quit?
It’s a common argument when advocating added cigarette taxes on smokers that smokers cost the state x amount of dollars in health care costs (my own U.S. representative used that argument with the failed F.D.A. legislation of last year). But here’s a NEJM study from 1997 I just ran across (which may be already know to most of you). It’s talking about health costs.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/cont...ull/337/15/
1052
“ In our study, lifetime costs for smokers can be calculated as $72,700 among men and $94,700 among women, and lifetime costs among nonsmokers can be calculated as $83,400 and $111,000, respectively. This amounts to lifetime costs for nonsmokers that are higher by 15 percent among men and 18 percent among women.”
.
I basically agree with this posting by Mike, except for his statement:
"I don't think the researchers who are using the studies of the Helena ilk to support the claim that brief exposures to secondhand smoke trigger heart attacks have thought this out to any extent."
It has become increasingly obvious to me (especially after Mike's repeated criticisms of these so-called studies since 2005) that the folks who wrote these articles and press releases and who are quoted in these news articles (claiming that enacting a smokefree law sharply reduces heart attacks or hospital admissions for heart attacks) are intentionally exaggerating the heart attack risks of tobacco smoke pollution and the health benefits of smokefree policies/laws.
The known health hazards of tobacco smoke pollution already fully justify the enactment of smokefree indoor policies and laws.
Bill Godshall wrote:
"The known health hazards of tobacco smoke pollution already fully justify the enactment of smokefree indoor policies and laws."
OSHA didn't think so when they reviewed the matter. That's the same agency that has roughly 10 million regulations on ladders alone.
I worked for a company that did mailing for several insurance companies, etc. Out in the factory, they would put the shrink wrap around the books for mailing. If you have never seen it done, I will try to explain it. A roll of plastic runs through a machine and a person lays the material on the conveyor belt and lowers the arm which is heated onto the plastic wrap. The heat seals the plastic and cuts it for the next book. It has a terrible odor and it smokes when heating the plastic. There was a gal who worked in the factory who hated it when she had to do that job, so she called OSHA on our company. They came in, stood there all day long with several machines and monitored the work being done. They seen the smoke, smelled the smell and left with a verdict that there was no harmful chemicals coming from that machine. I tried it one day and decided it wasn't a job I wanted to do all day long either, but I can also see why they also say there is no health problems from tobacco smoke either. By the way, their testing machines were state of the art too!
This is totally off topic, and I apologize to Dr. Siegel and everyone else for this. I hope you can forgive me but it's for a good cause.
Please go to this link and vote for Junkfood Science blog. You can vote only once per day in each category.
http://2008.weblogawards.org/pol...th-issues-blog/
I hope you all can help out here by voting daily. I happen to like Sandy and use her stuff a lot on my own blog.
If your not familiar with Sandy's blog check it out: http://www.junkfoodscience.blogspot.com
The voting closes on January 13th.
"Note that smoking bans would still be expected to reduce heart attacks in the long-term,
because over many years, the incidence of coronary artery disease would be reduced" - Doctor.
Doctor,
As Rose has pointed out many times, one of the most significant compounds in tobacco is Niacin which Doctors seem to say plays a protective role in hypercholesterolemia and therefore coronary artery disease. Even considering the
facts that smoking niacin is different to swallowing niacin and that smoking cessation has only a modest effect on cholesterol levels .
We are still left with the elevated risk for hypertension that comes with smoking cessation, so it's easy
to see why there is a link between smoking coronary artery disease.
Sadly, I have not looked at hyperaggregability(?), so now am going to have to spend hours and hours looking at sticky stuff,
Grrrr.
Bad Doctor.
Fredrik
Trigonelline in coffee turns to niacin when roasted
Drinking Coffee Halves Cancer Risk
"The researchers found that those who drank one or more daily cups of coffee had a 50 percent reduced risk of these cancers compared with those who did not drink coffee. Furthermore, the reduction in risk applied to all participants, including those who were current drinkers and/or smokers at the start of the study and were therefore at higher risk for these cancers.
"We had not expected that we could observe such a substantial inverse association with coffee consumption and the risk of these cancers, and the inverse association in high-risk groups for these cancers as well," Naganuma said in an interview with Reuters.
"Although cessation of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking is currently the best known way to help reduce the risk of developing these cancers, coffee could be a preventive factor in both low-risk and high-risk populations," the researchers wrote in a report about their study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, December 15, 2008
http://www.redorbit.com/news/hea...risk/
index.html
Anti-Invasive Activity of Niacin and Trigonelline against Cancer Cells
"The effects of niacin, namely, nicotinic acid and nicotinamide, and trigonelline on the proliferation and invasion of cancer cells were studied using a rat ascites hepatoma cell line of AH109A in culture. Niacin and trigonelline inhibited the invasion of hepatoma cells at concentrations of 2.5–40 μM without affecting proliferation. Hepatoma cells previously cultured with a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-generating system showed increased invasive activity. Niacin and trigonelline suppressed this ROS-potentiated invasive capacity through simultaneous treatment of AH109A cells with the ROS-generating system. The present study indicates for the first time the anti-invasive activities of niacin and trigonelline against cancer cells"
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/arti...69_653/
_article
"In other words, we analyzed the saliva, which would have otherwise been swallowed. No Nicotinic Acid occurred in the smoker's saliva before smoking. We feel that we have made this report sufficiently long to cover the discoveries, which we regard as quite remarkable."
http://tobaccodocuments.org/prod...65489-
5491.html
James Austin wrote:
"OSHA didn't think so when they reviewed the matter."
Wrong. In fact, OSHA proposed a nationwide workplace smokefree workplace regulation back in 1993/94, which was staunchly opposed by cigarette companies.
I and other smokefree policy advocates encouraged ASH to drop its lawsuit against OSHA (that attempted to force the agency to approve and implement a smokefree workplace regulation) because the OSHA's proposed regulation exempted bars and other workplaces, and because any OSHA regulation would have preempted stronger state and local smokefree workplace laws.
Seems to work on the outside too
Scientists have found a cream containing vitamin B3 can significantly increase the skin's ability to stop skin cancers forming
http://www.abc.net.au/news/healt...ms/
s1366452.htm
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.c...how/
3730875.cms
So on the inside surface of the lungs it might work just as well, but then you'd need a niacin inhaler ..
No match for a busy bus garage though
"Diesel exhaust from the engines caused lung cancer, throat cancer, and heart disease among the workers, according to a lawsuit filed in state court yesterday. The manufacturers are accused of concealing the engines' health effects and disabling emissions safeguards"
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/tr...r-claims/84155/
Per Dr. Siegel, "if it were true that exposure to tobacco smoke in restaurants was a common cause of heart attacks, would we not expect to occasionally observe someone in a restaurant keeling over from a heart attack?"
I agree. But shouldn't we be seeing bartenders and waitstaff exposed to 30 or 40 years of secondhand smoke "keeling over"?
And shouldn't your hypothetical coronary patient with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel be in intensive care and not carousing in smokey bars, restaurants and casinos with the other ICU escapees? (I like your hypothetical.)
This 3rd hand smoke thing is not developing any street cred regardless of what the media is doing. Anecdoctal evidence is that the anti-smoker cartel has lost a lot of whatever credibility it had left among the majority of people who never felt strongly about the whole subject one way or the other in the first place. "Oh, that's just nuts. I beginning to wonder if the whole smoke thing is for real?"
Advocate for CASH
It's the smoke you can't smell that is the most dangerous.
i thought this piece was incitful, no matter what your feeling are on marijuana. the parallels to whats going on now are striking.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/
s...anaIllegal.html
brandz
Bill Godshall wrote:
"Wrong. In fact, OSHA proposed a nationwide workplace smokefree workplace regulation back in 1993/94......."
Bullshit. They said they could set permissable limits. They also said they had hardly ever seen those limits exceeded.
It doesn't take a lawsuit to make OSHA pass regulations. I sure as hell never heard of the anti-ladder lobby.
And I think you're FOS as far as states can't pass stricter rules than what OSHA sets.
First: terrific article,Doc. The question is: will you submit it for print to...any newspaper that featured and/or editorialized on this "study"? or to a Journal? You know that's the only way your facts can reach the same wider public that's being brainwashed. Here, you only reach us and a few dedicated Aunts.
Johnathan--
Send an email with the (documented) facts to the writer, and also send a Letter to the Editor. We need to take every chance, no matter how slim, of getting out the facts. If they don't publish the Ed Letter, at least you'll have presented evidence to the writer. I'm assuming the "Times" in question is London?
On OSHA--
Bill's right. Almost. OSHA did propose regulation. In 1995, But it also included restaurants and bars. In fact, if you want it straight from the document, it also included --
"All OSHA regulated industries, agriculture, gas and oil, manufacturing, communications, wholesale and retail trade, finance, insurance, real estate... shipyards, construction sites and agricultural workplaces" and included the "cafeterias and break rooms" therein. Further, it applied to "public and private buildings, schools, health care facilities, offices and office areas."
What they proposed was that employers set up separate smoking rooms, in which, of course, no work could be done.
Among the benefits to be reaped from this move, OSHA predicted its proposed rule would "prevent 3 million headaches over the next 45 years" (or "approximately 69,000 a year") and, in the same period, "97,000 to 577,818" heart disease deaths.
Now, the way I understand it, when OSHA was asked to back its proposed regs with hard science, it couldn't do it because the science wasn't there. So they simply did an Emily Latella "Never mind." So Banzaf sued them. At that point, OSHA agreed that while it would stick to its newly minted guns and drop the idea of isolation booths and bans (which it couldn't justify), it would set standards for permissible levels of smoking in the workplace, something it felt it COULD sort of back. And Banzaf fled. The whole idea of "permissible levels" based on OSHA's PELS, was total anathema, since that would be admitting-- officially, to the world!-- that there was, in fact, a "safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke" and that the level was quite high.
In fact, in an ASH press release, Banzaf characterized OSHA's offer as a "threat" that would cause "serious harm to the nonsmokers rights movement" and would "seriously hurt efforts to pass [ban] legislation at the state and local level."
To end the lawsuit, OSHA agreed to do nothing at all... but also agreed to delete what Banzaf called the "damaging [to TC] language they had threatened to include" .
IOW, to buy off Banzaf, OSHA agreed NOT to tell the general public that there was, in fact, a safe level of exposure to other people's smoke.
You can easily google the backup for this and likely find actual original documents on forces or clash.
:
Just musing over Fredrik's remarks, it occurs to me that we smoke mostly for the niacin and nicotinamide, not the chemicals.
So why do we put up with them?
Smokers have been having things "done" to them, over the last 50 years and now find themselves in the position of supplicants, writing petitions "oh please don't make me smoke firesafe cigarettes" etc etc
Yet the Doctor points out how very much government and TC depends on the money, that's not a position of subserviance, that's a position of power.
Governments ban smoking in casino's and bars, the people vote with their feet, and there were no nonsmokers desperate to fill their places, were there?
I can find nothing wrong with the plant itself, but the things that are done to it are potentially dangerous, and generally done against our will,by the "experts".
From what I remember on the news in the 70's, nobody wanted them in the first place.
Now the smoking bans have undoubtedly concentrated the minds of people who smoke all over the world, though they may stay silent, wouldn't it be fun to slowly all move away from the chemical laced, tortured tobacco to organic, additive free?
Think of the chaos as companies tried to serve the new market.And a nice withdrawal of cash from the chemical companies.
I had three days slight withdrawal when I switched from premade cigarettes to additive free, which certainly told me something, though at the time I wasn't sure what, but I felt much brighter.
Now of course, I can hazard a guess.
Oh, and additive free smells much nicer, I have done comparison tests on captive nonsmokers.
They definately preferred them when trapped in a confined space.
And there lies the problem Rose. No one in Government, tobacco control or the medical communities wants additive free cigarettes. It isn't that they wouldn't sell, they would, but it is just that they would be making less money from them. Why would anyone donate to charities if there was no dangers from chemical free? How can they tax a natural product? Doctors and scaremongers would be out of work and all those undertakers who bury 430,000 smokers a year would be closing up shop!
diane - Yeah - lets do it! 
You could of course take niacin tablets periodically through the day, but thats no fun because they take upwards of 20 minutes to work.
As we are always being told, the "nicotine" gets to the brain in seconds, while the trigonelline and niacin in the coffee take the longer route to the stomach.
Anyway, you would have to pay extra for Q10 tablets and miss out on those tiny amounts of benefical gases that boost the immune system and wake you up.
Rolling your own with quality tobacco also gets rid of the FSC problem.
Rolling your own with quality tobacco also gets rid of the FSC problem.
For now. Any bets on how long it takes them to demand the tubes/paper that we who make/roll our own are also "fire-safe"?
I'm stocking up now while I can because I don't trust them not to try to force their poison on those of us smart enough to give up the chemicals and smoke clean cigarettes.
However, I cannot say that I've noticed natural tobacco smelling any better. But that's just me......LOL
Walt,
Your advice is taken to heart. I am indeed talking to reporters and trying to get this published in a major newspaper. Will let you know if I get any hits.
They can't change the paper or they will poison the medical marijuana smokers.
Rose, they'll just blame the death on the weed not the paper.....we all know those fsc are NOT poisonous......right?......didn't you get the memo? LOL
LyndaF
Got the memo , screwed it up and set fire to it
Rose,
See........I knew all along that "fire-safe" crap was as big an oxymoron as "military intelligence"........... 
ROFL! I'm with yyou, Rose. I switched to tobaco-only cigs a few months ago and no FSC paper. MUCH better than all those chemicals, but they still don't taste or smell as good as when I first started smoking REAL cigs, oh so many years ago.
My cousin tried an e-cig at the mal and said it is WOW wonderful! She's buying some for herself and her daughter. I figure they might become illegal if the FDA legislation goes into effect, so...
Meanwhile, I'm stocking up on B vitamins and cigs, both.
Thank you Lynda for giving me something to actually do, voting for junkfoodscience (which I came upon through your blog a while ago and have been reading since).
I'm right now in almost a catatonic state of fury and frustration. The third-hand smoke propaganda and then finding out that the SCHIP bill includes (info from MJM) not only what we already knew but an 814% increase on loose tobacco. Apparently, that hasn't been given much attention since "only" 3% of smokers in the U.S. roll their own.
My sister thanked me a few days ago - she came upon her first pack of really vile readymades and remembered I'd warned her about something some time ago. So she called me to ask what it was I'd said - I also looked it up. Yes, FSCs are now in Okla. along with a few other states, merrily trying to punish and/or poison smokers one way or another. She still had 3 packs of pre-FSC to savor as a real treat from time to time. She's not great with online stuff, so I'll try to find out if there's any way to order.
And then - aside from the absurdity of funding children's healthcare from a theoretically diminishing source - What do we know about government's ideas of healthcare?
Forced mega-vaccinations, inoculations, Ritanolizations, psychotropizations, out-of-date nutritional advice, soon statinization, obesity patches, and more that I've blocked out. Of course, there will be the mandated bubble suit at some point.
I'm going to copy this over to the latest thread since I always seem to be the last commenter on an article and nobody reads it.
Kayci
I suggest you consult your local specialist tobacconist.
Its a bit like the chickens got blander and blander over the years, with a strange bitter taste, presumably the antibiotics.It was only when I was given a free range chicken from a smallholding that I realized how much it had changed.
Now I source my chickens very carefully.
"Moving forward, we will do whatever we can to resolve the issue of students smoking in the neighborhoods. Most importantly, we will continue to participate in ongoing dialogues with our neighbors to ensure everyone's voice is heard" - Judy E. Ackerman, Ph.D., Rockville
By "moving forward", I take it that this does not mean that they are going to provide safe and warm indoor smoking areas where students can be normal in comfort and with dignity. No, of course that can not happen because that would be sensible and reasonable. It's better to cause problems and then have more meetings to discuss how to create more problems. In this manner we can get a lot of "moving forward" done and saves us the bothersome job of focusing on education.
Well I strongly agree with the gist of your argument, Mike, but on one point I think you're wrong. Coronary arteries don't have to be severely stenosed to suddenly clot. They can be widely patent but with intimal atherosclerosis which could be enough with an extra clotting stimulus to cause a sudden severe thronbosis occluding the artery. It likely doesn't usually happen that way; probably most clots do occur in severly stenosed arteries, but the data isn't that clear or definitive.
Thanks Rose! Good chicken advice, too
And ditto, Kendra - Thank you Lynda, on voting for Sandy's Junkfood Science blog info. I sent it to everyone I know.
Kendra and Kayci,
You are both very welcome. 
I forgot to comment on Bill Godshall's:
"I...encouraged ASH to drop its lawsuit...because the OSHA's proposed regulation exempted bars and other workplaces..."
You've changed since then. You've criticized Dr. Siegel for not supporting partial bans.
James wrote:
"You've changed since then. You've criticized Dr. Siegel for not supporting partial bans."
My position has been consistent, and the preemption of state and/or local laws is a distinctly different matter than exemptions in smokefree laws.
Besides, I never criticized Mike for not supporting partial bans, but rather for his ad hominem attacks against smokefree advocates who endorsed laws that contained some exemptions, which were insisted upon by well funded cigarette companies and casino/bar owners (who touted cigarette industry economic impact propaganda) and right-to-smoke zealots (who touted cigarette indsutry propaganda claiming that smoking is a right).
Bill, you better get this straight. As an adult in a FREE country, where individuals are allowed to think for themselves, I DO have a right to smoke.
What I may not have a right to do is to deliberately cause harm. Now, since there is NO irrefutable proof that separate, ventalated smoking rooms cause harm, YOUR crusade does in fact strip me of my right to be comfortable when out paying for something.
Would YOU claim you had NO right to have your drink comfortably WITH your meal that you are paying for when told you couldn't drink in the restaurant but had to take it out to the alley by the garbage so that no one was offended?
I didn't think so. Funny how your tune would change when it comes to your pleasures though. And your Prius isn't pollution free, just puts out less of it........you are still forcing your comfort and pleasure into my lungs.
Mr. Godshall's position has always been consistent, I will give him that. His position is that his (alleged) right to smoke-free where ever trumps the rights of the property owner. Of course he is wrong in that position, but that never interferes with his pigheadedness in determining what legal activity I can or can not participate in within the confines of MY property.
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