Why the rush to release the results before they were published? One has to wonder.
Because, at the least, you're missing a word in your headline. It's:
ADVOCACY "Science" by Press Release
Does it really advance the cause of accurate scientific reporting to have the media widely report these conclusions to the public in the face of this complete lack of documentation and support and in the absence of any possible way to confirm the validity of the results?
Advance the cause of accurate scientific reporting? That's not at all what's on their mind. You think the people involved are in the profession of Science. They're not. Their profession is Tobacco Control. And this is what the job calls for.
How is the reporters knowing that this even relies upon science? They can't due to there being no way to find out if or when there is bias; yet here we have reporters putting out basically an interview with out doing any background searches to see what they are talking about.
PS doesn't a trend have to have more then one reference point? How is one year 2 reference points?
"This science by press release approach is contributing to the decline in scientific integrity in the tobacco control movement."
YOU HAVE THE CHUTZPAH TO MAKE SUCH A STATEMENT WHEN YOU SIGNED OFF ON THE 1992 EPA REPORT?
What 'scientific integrity' in the tobacco control movement, for Jesus' sake?
What JTF (so perfectly) said.
Tho I can only hope, at this point, that your "wonder" was ironic and delivered with rolled eyes.
As to the "study," its press release seems to contain a bald lie. Doesn't she claim the annual decline in AMI admissions over the last decade was only 3% ? And yet you were easily able to find evidence that in two of those years it was 16.+% and 10+%. Even w/o knowing the annual declines for the rest of the decade, we now know she lied and the newspaper didn't check it.
So-- would you be willing to catch out her lie in a letter or an op ed to the Scotch paper? Otherwise you're merely tilting at windmills with an unobserved sword.
:
Dr. Siegel, can you blame an ordinary bar patron for suspecting that Stanton Glantz's campaign against public smoking is based on junk science and that James Enstrom and Roger Jenkins are right after all: if ETS is a life risk, it is a small one that can be mitigated into public health insignificance thru ventilation and filtration?
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/c...l/326/7398/
1057
http://www.data-yard.net/2/21/rtp.pdf
http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_r...r=mr20000203-
00
http://www.ehponline.org/members...nkins-
full.html
From the previous thread,it's clearly a case that Dr Siegel knows best.He along with the other Tobacco CONTROL FREAKS simply seek to dominate the use of Tobacco ,to the detriment of every smoker.His fixation with scientific credability ONLY EXTENDS to the points where he sees potential damage may occur should the mindless muppets of society finally get their ars.. BRAINS into gear.I simply don't know what he hopes to gain by all of this.Can anyone see a fundamental difference between Tobacco Control under Dr Siegel,as opposed to what we have now ? This is just a disagreement between two factions in Tobacco Control,Dr Siegel claims the moral high ground but is let down by those 220 ghosts,his opponents on the other hand are out and out fraudsters.WE AS SMOKERS DO NOT FIGURE IN THIS AT ALL.
http://news.independent.co.uk/
he...icle2956412.ece ITS STILL SHS,THOSE 220 HAVE SPOKEN !
We just took part in a radio phone in here in Scotland. In the hot seat was Maureen Moore, the Chief Executive of ASH Scotland.
When asked anything remotely scientific, she said "You'll have to ask a scientist", when asked anything concerning health she said "You'll have to ask a doctor", when asked about the legislation, she said "You'll have to ask a government official".
And the apogee of her broadcasting success? When asked about the Scottish Miracle and that 20% reduction in heart attacks amongst non smokers, the radio host mentioned Prof. Jill Pell. Maureen Moore said "Who"?
She didn't even know the name of the study's author!
There were many questions on toxins, actual harm, and death related figures for SHS and she couldn't logically answer any question put to her.
No wonder they run a mile when you mention the science.
They are clueless.
Name a country where they promoted smoking bans and you will find a national tobacco control strategy.
Examine the strategy which are all developed consistently from common source WHO agreement motivator, and you will find consistent conspiracy, tailored to the culture or level to which society can be undermined.
The consistent call for a comprehensive media campaign is mandatory and universally linked to other national strategies as planned; to increase overall credibility among the victims.
Since the strategy predates the bulk of local research. Can anyone in TC seriously claim the research was not created solely to support the media campaign? Anything which did not promote or legitimize the planned media promotion was either ignored of attacked by the TC terrorist movement.
Come on Michael, TC was always about feigned victimization, misdirection. The promotion of a disingenuous predetermined conspiracy, in support of it's promoters alone, society be damned. How would skipping the publishing step be seen as unusual or inconsistent?
Now the next generation in TC conspiracy has arrived in Canada. The news today? Imperial Tobacco has released a new product little teabags you put under your lip to replace the smoked products. The media release delivered with an interview already in the can at 7 AM? a denouncement from of all places the Canadian Lung Association the spokesperson attacks the wisdom of replacing smoking with another product which promotes Cancers.
How do we differentiate the new product from Smoking Patches or Gum? they are of course labeled as medical treatments as opposed to a recreational product, the former with predictably higher costs.
The strategy now moves into a guiding of those who would be seen as rebellious smokers toward the anti establishment product with a cost advantage to promote internalizations.
TC is now becoming the evil twin who will be denormalized to promote Tobacco Company profits. Shucking off our persnickety spleeney whiner attitudes promotional of fearing a smell, in favor of the strong and free attitudes provided in the switch.
How empowering can a product become? we will soon see as the product will no doubt reverse the trend in smoker declines as kids are encouraged to rage against the machine and ignore the risks as rebellious teens will do.
One has to now wonder if the 54% smoking rates seen in the 60s can be surpassed in use of a "safer product" or will the drug companies be successful in retaining market share by promoting expansions of the safety first strategy. Selling identical products while attacking the competition.
Time will tell as the med community will be used to the max by both sides, creating more credibility toxic wisdom, promoting political science to replace the discovery method.
There ought to be a law...
I hope they keep spouting this BS. Everytime some of this comes out they lose a little more credibility. Soon or later someone in the mainstream will have the courage to call a duck a duck.
Since 1988 (or before) it has been a steady stream of falsified data and lies. These have led to what history will reveal as a dark time in America. It will reveal that a small group of elitist were able to manipulate the media and government into blatent discrimination against adults engaging in legal activity. It will also reveal that the rule of law meant nothing as it related to Big Tobacco. States changed laws in order to accomodate lawsuits. As soon as the deed was done, the laws were changed back. From this billions have been extorted from a minority of smokers. We also know that alot of that money has found it's way back to these elitist groups.
I never would have believed this could happen in my country. These people are dangerous and will not stop at tobacco alone. As Kevin has stated (I paraphrase), they are akin to McCarthyist. The "NeoElite".
Anyway, I leave you guys with a link to the Colorado Restuarant Assoc. I saw this on Forces this morning. It appears that someone is trying to fight back.
http://www.forces.org/articles/p...colo-
damage.htm
Please tell me, where are the 53,000? Heck, I'll settle for one.
ASH- arseholes for shitty healthism ?
Yup- theyll carry on doing what they are doing in sheer arrogance! The more i find out the more angrry I get at how we are being conned!
Dr. Siegel wrote:
"In my career...I made the study readily available for review."
I'm not challenging that statement or anything of the sort, but is your 1993 restaurant study available online?
Si wrote:
"He along with the other Tobacco CONTROL FREAKS simply seek to dominate the use of Tobacco...His fixation with scientific credability ONLY EXTENDS to the points where he sees potential damage may occur..."
True, but at least he's always been upfront about that.
Colin did you ask her since she always asks people to contact the experts; why is her group even recommending anything (since they aren't experts)?
She obviously needs "experts", and since she isn't an expert why does she have more voice with the gov't then the public or smokers who live daily with this situation?? How did she get to talk to the committee when there was no smokers?
from the author of the Irish study:
The group analyzed data from six of the eight hospitals included in the region.
Why were the 2 excluded? An inconvenient truth?
"There seems to be two reasons why smoking would give somebody a heart attack," he said. "There are the acute effects of smoking that occur within 30 seconds of inhaling that smoke. The platelets get stickier, and the endothelium doesn't function as well. Suddenly, with no smoking anywhere, individuals are removed from that threat, and we'd expect the to see the impact right away. Also, for smokers, they have a higher risk of heart attack, but by giving up smoking, that risk declines very rapidly, and we would expect that to show up within the year."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarti...warticle/
562397
I doubt that Mike's very valid concerns (about the unprofessional and unethical behavior by several folks who issue press releases touting the results of unpublished research) will not be taken seriously by the scientific community, the public health community, or by the news media as long as fools continue posting conspiratorial nonsense and ad hominem attacks on this blog.
The worst way to expose and discredit the several researchers and activists (who issue sensationalized press releases touting the results of unpublished research) is to repeatedly insist that tobacco smoke pollution is not a health hazard and that all public health advocates are communists, jihadists and/or control freaks.
But I do thank the several dozen selfish and delusional smokers who repeatedly make those and other silly claims on this blog and elsewhere because 99% of the public dismiss them (and their claims) as whacko, which has made it far easier for smokefree advocates to enact smokefree policies and laws.
You know Billy, when you post on a blog that everyone else is "selfish and delusional", it usually means its you.
Just so you know where I stand on the issue: tobacco smoke "pollution" is NOT a health issue. You and your delusional kind are a long, long way from convincing me.
Try harder. Give us some real science to consider. Try to avoid GIGO afflicted computer programmes.
I'm happy to go ten rounds with you on the science, but you, my ex-three pack a day friend, simply must park the rhetoric.
Bill G said; "But I do thank the several dozen selfish and delusional smokers who repeatedly make those and other silly claims on this blog and elsewhere,......"
For any business to succeed, it has to be able to make its customers happy.
Anti-Tobacco extremists like yourself, make the incredibly SMALL MINDED claim that any effort to make customers happy and earn a living is purely a “selfish” endeavor. Fighting for one’s own freedom might be selfish, but It’s certainly not evil or wrong.
The freedom to choose has driven our economy and the market system for more than 2oo years. Perhaps it is the answer to the smoking debate as well.
A smoking ban will not force you or me to stop smoking in a restaurant. It will force the owner of said restaurant to cater to only a portion of their customer base.
No one is forced to stay somewhere that permits smoking. Whether it is a bar, restaurant or even your workplace, if smoking is allowed and you don't like it, you can leave.
The Rights of Non-smokers infringe on the Freedom of Assembly of likeminded individuals without government interference . A state mandated preference for Non-smokers Rights is disruptive to the freedom of expression exhibited by smoking patrons in the personal choices they make and in an environment specifically designed to be conducive to their assembly as the preferred GUESTS of the property and business owner.
The Rights of Non-smokers stop at the front door of these businesses since they are aware that to cross that threshold of their own volition means they would be assuming personal responsibility for their actions. (OH THE HORROR!)
Non-smoking potential employees are no less capable of avoiding such an environment.
Contrary to Tobacco Control propaganda, the Rights of Non-smokers do not preempt the rights of ANYONE that disagrees with their false assumptions regarding personal space entitlements on PRIVATE PROPERTY.
According to the US Constitution, the Rights of Non-smokers are no more or less important than the RIGHTS of any other individual regardless of how much they may believe, or SELFISHLY wish it to be so.
The Rights of Non-smokers end precisely where the Rights of everyone else begin;
When those Rights infringe on the rights and well-being of others. This of course includes people that have made the personal choice to smoke, and more importantly the property owners that would allow that legal activity to occur on Private Property.
When you have devised a plan that will satisfactorily address this particular shortcoming of the discriminatory redaction of civil liberties in the grossly over-reaching laws you are so adamantly in support of, please let us know.
While it is perfectly legitimate for people to express a dislike of the smell of tobacco smoke, the DISTORTION of SCIENTIFIC, STATISTICAL, METHODOLOGICAL , and research procedure to provide a medical justification for banning smoking in public places is NOT ACCEPTABLE, least of all as a pretext for removing the rights of citizens that do smoke.
Bill Godshall writes: "The worst way to expose and discredit the several researchers and activists (who issue sensationalized press releases touting the results of unpublished research) is to repeatedly insist that tobacco smoke pollution is not a health hazard and that all public health advocates are communists, jihadists and/or control freaks."
I disagree, the science by press release of TC advocates is the best way to make the case that many are jihadists and/or control freaks. Especially if the claims made that are never published and one can show a history of this being done. One such study that comes to mind, when trying to pass the Maryland smoking ban, was one published on John's Hopkins University web site. They went to 5 bars that allowed smoking and measured particles in the air inside and outside the bar and found that more particles were measured inside than outside. No mention of what the particles were (smoke, dust, etc.), no controls (particles in venues that do not allow smoking), no mention of weather (hot humid or clear winter day). This study was probably done by students and was mentioned in the local media after Hopkins stated in supported the ban. The study will never be published as it was completely flawed and its only purpose was to get the ban passed. Stuff like this can not even be considered science. It was meant for the public to believe that the particles in the air were all due to smoking. Junk science at its best from a well respected Medical University no less.
Bill G----"But I do thank the several dozen selfish and delusional smokers who repeatedly make those and other silly claims on this blog...." blah blah blah.
Last time you used that type of statement we were only 6-8 selfish and delu....blah, blah, blah
You never will be able to keep your numbers straight, will you? Or are you admitting that we are a growing number, us selfish delusional.....blah, blah
.
The tyrannical dictators have had their say in Kaulifornia:
http://www.freerepublic.com/^htt...2/
MN1BS4NJH.DTL
~snip~
""This country was founded on freedoms, and my philosophy is, 'Legislate very carefully,' " said City Councilman Bill Dickenson, who voted against the ban. "The closer you get into someone's door, someone's private property, you really better check yourself."
And check themselves they did and busted right through the front door of homes.
And they wonder why we call them control freaks.
.
.
I guess Bill must have his little outbursts neatly located so that he can copy them and paste at will.They subsequently have little bearing on the subject matter being discussed.James,i do seek to differ in your comment that Dr Siegel has "always been upfront about that".I recollect very vividly the Sunday where i believe Dr Siegel sank to lower depths than i had ever seen previously.He has always prevaricated when challenged about his proof positive research,but his ire that day showed the true depth of his brainwashing and contempt he holds smokers in.I have also witnessed a subtle change from the alleged hazzards of SHS appearing after 20 years or more exposure falling constantly until it now approximates to half of that figure.The facts are there.
LightningBoy wrote:
"The Rights of Non-smokers stop at the front door of these businesses"
Perhaps LightingBoy could cite a court decision in any state that concurs with that assertion.
I didn't think so, as I'm not aware of any either.
You know Bill, a couple of times in the past year, Dr. Siegel has politely asked us all to keep things civil.
Your constant name calling (selfish, delusional, addicted, etc) I don't believe falls under the guidelines of "civil". At least not in my book.
I wouldn't be talking about ad hominum attacks if I were you, for you are the biggest offender.
You and yours love pointing out how there's "no right to smoke" in the constitution. Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is also NO right to clean air in the constitution, nor is there any right to never be offended in any way.
I truly hope I live long enough to see you get yours. And trust me, it is coming...........someone, somewhere will hate something you enjoy and push to ban it. Maybe THEN you'll understand about "freedom to choose".
Lynda;
" I truly hope I live long enough to see you get yours. And trust me, it is coming...........someone, somewhere will hate something you enjoy and push to ban it. Maybe THEN you'll understand about "freedom to choose"."
You might nor have to wait long;
With the roll out of snus by the tobacco companies, take a guess who's market share they will be targeting, by pointing out in future advertising out how disgusting it is to spit.
LOL
Bill G. said:
"Perhaps LightingBoy could cite a court decision in any state that concurs with that assertion."
I knew you wouldn't be able to resist that, but you know as well as everyone posting here that I'm not talking about case law.
I'm talking about the amazing expectation of militant non-smokers like yourself of a "smoke free" environment on PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Personal responsibility is something that militant non-smokers genuinely, and it appears, passionately wish to avoid, and will do whatever it takes to see that they accept no responsibility for their own actions.
What part of A Smoke Free environment is NOT A RIGHT, do you not understand?
Especially on Private property.
A Smoke Free environment is a personal preference on an individual basis. If the Property Owner doesn't care to make such an environment available; What gives you the authority to dictate YOUR preference when the property owner could clearly care less if you become a patron or not.
Self absorbed non-smokers are not the targeted market in most of these venues, but you and your socialist TC
comrades whine and cry, and throw tantrums because you feel excluded.
TUFF! Go to any of the businesses that specifically market to the MAJORITY which of course, is Non-smoking.
Why must EVERY BUSINESS be Smoke Free and ignore 20 to 25% of the nations population, simply to make you feel good about yourself, and shirk any personal responsibility for your own poor decision making skills in visiting, or remaining for extended periods of time in smoke FRIENDLY environments that until TC came along, was the personal PREFERENCE of the PRIVATE PROPERTY OWNER.
NOT POTENTIAL PATRONS.
regarding the belmont smoking ban in apartments and condos, i hope some condo owner sues the motherf*****s.
thanks for the post, Sunz.
What Bill G. does not realize is the tobacco control (TC) means TC. This does not include just cigarettes, cigars, etc., but also includes ALL tobacco products. There is no reason that they will not come after his habit. He states:
“But I do thank the several dozen selfish and delusional smokers who repeatedly make those and other silly claims on this blog and elsewhere because 99% of the public dismiss them (and their claims) as whacko, which has made it far easier for smokefree advocates to enact smokefree policies and laws.”
What he does not yet realize is that the SHS issue makes smoking an easy target. But the TC issue has to do with ALL tobacco. Even chewing tobacco has been identified with cancer risks including mouth and throat. Bans were easily passed because TC convinced the public that they face the same dangers as active smokers. But that is not the issue for him but currently he is still addicted to tobacco. He replaced one evil for another evil, but both are still tobacco. He believes that the SHS issue does not apply to him as he has given up smoking. I beg to differ. While I believe that there is a weak link to all the health risks associated with smoking if one is in a constant smoking environment, I also believe that that is not the issue. For most real world applications we are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Irregardless of the science, Bill G. is no different then an active smoker. TC is not smoking control it is tobacco control. He uses tobacco and therefore he is in the same boat as smokers or any other tobacco product. The health nuts are coming after him too, he just does not release it yet.
Si,
Maybe I misinterpreted what you said. What I was saying is that Dr. Siegel's always said his problem with AT is their BSing could hurt the movement.
Dr. Siegel’s profile can be found here:
http://sph.bu.edu/index.php?opti...d=340&
INDEX=677
Coming from a German heritage were an MD does not hold the title of Doctor, but is instead called Arzt unless they have a PhD (my brother-in-law who holds the title of Artz but is working on his Doctor). In order for a MD to be called Doctor in Germany they actually have to have completed a PhD and have been trained in the scientific method. Dr. Siegel has the equivalent of a masters degree. What does the mean? Well he is not really a doctor in the German sense of the word. In order to be a true scientist he would need a MD, PhD and thus he is not really trained in the scientific method. For a true scientist visit:
http://scienceblogs.com/
insolenc...ysicianscie.php
What does that mean? You are preaching to the choir here. While Dr. Siegel admitted that he is brainwashed (he still is). He has not been taught the scientific method of skepticism. He has not tried to falsify his claims. In fact he mostly ignores them as his peers ignore him. Unlike what Bill G. thinks, I do contact people and somehow manage to get responses to my Emails. The biggest response is that Dr. Siegel does not matter. While he holds the title of Professor, he is not to be taken seriously by his peers because he does not know what he is talking about. Basically a big cry baby because he was used by the TC movement and only recently discovered it.
I should point out that I have a degree high respect for Dr. Siegel. He is putting his career on the line. He has in fact broken from the religion of TC and points out errors in their ways. However, he fails to have the same skepticism when applied to his own research. My feeling is, based on the first link, that he built his whole career on this single issue and is thus incapable of thinking any other way. He cannot make up his mind between prohibition (which would mean no more career) or setting boundaries because they may lead where he does not what them to (government intrusion in the home or other issues for which he does not what to claim responsibility). Unfortunately he does not realize he can not have it both ways.
To be fare, my credentials, also do not measure up to a PhD. I also do not have more then a masters degree.
Even a peer review is no guarantee for sound science. The majority of peer reviews on the economical damage of smoking bans were submitted to MEDICAL experts, not ECONOMICAL ones. (We know the mindset of the medical society when it concerns smoking bans.)
Of 106 studies about the economical effects of smoking bans, only ONE was published (and accepted through peer review) in an economical scientific journal, and it showed that there was quite an effect!
Dr. Siegel, would you exempt a bar from a smokng ban if all its workers wore gas masks? That is not as impractical an idea as it sounds. I have often worked as a painter with lacquer thinner stripping woodwork and worn a gas mask all day. They are comfortable and you can still carry on a converstation thru the mask.
http://www.allergybegone.com/
gas...WID=16074428021
Bill H., we have communicated off line. As an aerospace engineer (BS) and mechanical engineer (MS) I can tell you the given specific design specifications as to what a safe level of SHS is (unfortunately no safe level), I could design a venue that would meet the standard. I have reviewed both papers that you sent to me and have concluded that the second measured up to scientific standards but the first did not. The first was funded by GASP, which should be a clue and was published in the TC journal. To get around scientific scrutiny a new journal was created that the scientific method need not apply. Does anyone really think that what is published in the TC journal is real science? This is kind of like the intelligent design community creating their own journal and calling it legitimate.
Bill;
If a worker doesn't feel safe they have a right to refuse work. They also have a right to choose to wear safety equipment. That was always an option for those who felt endangered by the smoke. Michael will ignore you because this is dangerous ground for those claiming to seek protection for employees when if that was the only issue Bars would provide masks for employees who wished to use them allowing choice? and no loss of employment.
Not one bit impractical considering the use of work boots and safety helmets on some job sites and as you stated when painting wearing a mask.
LighteningBoy (don't have the link---see what I can find)
U.S. Supreme Court case Lloyd Corp vs. Tanner U.S. Supreme Court decision Lloyd Corp v. Tanner which upheld that a place of business does not become public property just because the public is invited in. It remains PRIVATE PROPERTY.
.
Sunz wrote: “U.S. Supreme Court case Lloyd Corp vs. Tanner U.S. Supreme Court decision Lloyd Corp v. Tanner which upheld that a place of business does not become public property just because the public is invited in. It remains PRIVATE PROPERTY.”
This is I believe what I was trying to tell Lightningboy in a previous post. The case can be found here:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cg...l=407&
invol=551
The basic jest is the protestors were at a mall passing out flyers. The mall kick them out and they thought their free speech was violated. However, the constitution only applies to government action, not private businesses. I tried to tell you this before. The Supreme Court has ruled that just because a venue invites the public it the not make the place public. Lightningboy, if you can manage it, I would create take your case to court as a public taking. You might be able to claim the same loss as a taking of property. Of course it requires dollars, but I think you would have a case if you could prove financial loss. You would have to be willing to take it to court. How to do that? Do not ask me.
Kevin,
Painters also use gas masks as protection against smoke from burning paint with torches and heat guns. But bar filtration machines can use futher measures to capture tobacco smoke than just carbon filtration:
http://www.smokeeaters.org/uveleccarbon/
Another candidate for a possible smoking ban exemption is a bar with vending machines and no workers, just patrons who consent to the smoke.
Dan, the scientist who did the good study of the Lambert Airport smoking lounges asked our group what we meant by the term "junk science". We gave him the GASP paper to review. He called back and said, "OK! Now I know what junk science is!"
Bill: But I do thank the several dozen selfish and delusional smokers who repeatedly make those and other silly claims on this blog and elsewhere because 99% of the public dismiss them (and their claims) as whacko
Gallup Poll
July 2007
http://www.galluppoll.com/conten...ontent/?
ci=1717
However, not much more than half think the health risks of secondary smoke are highly serious -- and this could have a strong bearing on public demand, or lack thereof, for future restrictions or bans on smoking.
While Americans could be persuaded to go along with higher cigarette taxes, they don't appear anxious to see these taxes raised any higher than they already are.
Americans reject the idea of discriminating against smokers in employment...
Those who would ban all smoking in public places are also in the minority, at 39% in 2005.
The available poll data suggest there is no public demand for further regulation of tobacco or smoking in this country. The issue doesn't come up in polling on the most important issue facing the country, and Americans show limited support for expanded taxes or bans on smoking when asked about it directly. In the absence of a high degree of concern about second-hand smoke -- only 56% say second-hand smoke is very harmful to adults -- there seems to be a limited well from which potential public demand for more bans on smoking in public could spring.
----------
Bill, this is where it'd be time to point out that the "silly claims" ("99%") are yours. But it's worse than that. Yours is not a harmless silly claim. It's this:
"If you tell a lie often enough, and with enough conviction, the people will believe it as truth." -- Josef Goebbels, Propaganda Minister
If the shoe fits...
But I do thank the several dozen selfish and delusional smokers who repeatedly make those and other silly claims on this blog and elsewhere because 99% of the public dismiss them (and their claims) as whacko, --Bill Godshall
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
...
Speaking of making claims, as if fact, with no sound scientific basis to support an agenda coming back to bite them in the rear end (stick with me here folks):
Cancer Deaths Fall for Second Year in a Row
NY Daily News (just one source of dozens) - January 18, 2007
Reprinted here
Cancer fighters were thrilled Wednesday to discover that they are finally winning the war against cancer as the number of deaths from the disease fell for the second year in a row.
Tobacco control and more early screening for the disease can take the credit, said the American Cancer Society, which released the heartening news Wednesday.
"It says that there is genuine progress being made against cancer," said Dr. Donald Gemson, the society's chief medical officer for New York and New Jersey.
The fact that the downward trend has held for a second straight year shows the decrease is no fluke, researchers said.
*
Second Drop in Cancer Deaths Could Point to a Trend, Researchers Say
NY Times - January 18, 2007
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/
ful...752C0A9619C8B63
Much of the decrease is due to smoking cessation and improved detection and treatment of colorectal, breast and prostate cancers.
Fast forward to today...
TO A LONGER LIFE
AMERICANS LIVING TO RIPE AGE OF 78
Associated Press - September 13, 2007
http://www.nypost.com/seven/
0913...longer_life.htm
The number of deaths in the United States rose in 2005 after a sharp decline the year earlier, a reversal that suggests the 2004 numbers were a fluke. Cancer deaths were also up.
U.S. health officials said they believe the drop in deaths seen earlier may have been due to 2004's unusually mild flu season. Deaths from flu and lower respiratory disease jumped in 2005.
Heart disease and stroke - the No. 1 and No. 3 killers - killed fewer people in 2005 than 2004. But the No. 2 cause of death, cancer, rose to about 559,000 from 554,000, according to the report.
The success against heart disease is at least partly due to better treatments, which overcame the impact of an aging, growing population, Thorpe said.
But with cancer deaths, there was no such offset in 2005.
I'm sure if I looked around harder I'd find any number of anti-smokers who crowed in newspaper articles in January over how THEIR campaign has been proven to be a big "success." Which of these two reports do you think will remain or be kept in the minds of the public.
By the way, Godshall, how do you make your living? I know this question has never been asked you before, since, being an honorable person, you would have long since answered it. Cannibals make theirs by eating people. Surely you don't put food into your belly by living parasitically off the flesh of smokers, and then go on to insult them. Being (to repeat) an honorable person, you'd never do that. Or am I being delusional?
Slightly OT from the laugh a day BBC website.
Cocaine users getting younger.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/69.../uk/
6992752.stm
Whose advertising do we blame for this?
Here is another that I find particularly disturbing.
Children cholesterol test call
Children should receive a cholesterol test, say experts
Children should receive a cholesterol test alongside their routine vaccinations at the age of 15 months, experts say.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/healt...lth/
6992945.stm
Get them on to legal drugs as soon as possible!!!
GreatScot
Bill Hannegan wrote: “Dan, the scientist who did the good study of the Lambert Airport smoking lounges asked our group what we meant by the term "junk science". We gave him the GASP paper to review. He called back and said, "OK! Now I know what junk science is!"”
To be fair, the first study seemed to be done before they implemented the air filtering that was in place for the second study. The second study was not peer reviewed, but the mythology was sound. The first study was funded by GASP, who tried to sue the airport using the disability act (That in itself speaks volumes) . It was published in the TC journal. However, I see this as no different then any other crank, read intelligent design, creating their own journal and then calling it science. This in itself makes the first paper you sent me suspect. The problem is that without TC defining a SAFE level of exposure to SHS, no system can be developed to counteract it. In the news recently another Ebola outbreak happened in Africa. Are we to assume, Fort Detrick, who deals with this kind of stuff, cannot protect the workers there or the general public? The answer is no. But the lab was designed to protect both workers and the general public from exposure. With the Surgeon General saying there is no safe level of exposure, a political statement not based on science; it allows no room for compromise.
Apologies James,my fault,i read more into your comment than what was intended.
Harry---"By the way, Godshall, how do you make your living?"
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/...b/
s_488856.html
~snip~
"Occupation: Executive director SmokeFree Pennsylvania"
Of course, all of this is done on as a volunteer, so he claims.
.
Great Scot - you poor thing - there seems to be an awful large number of ninny's in your neck of the woods.Eh?
If the cholesterol screening story disturbed you - this should too.
http://www.foodnavigator.com/
new...eepddtxhprfgmgi
The researchers examined the salt intake and blood pressure of 1,658 children aged between 4 and 18, with salt intake assessed by a seven-day dietary record.
The average salt intake, which did not include salt added in cooking or at the table, was 4.7g/day at the age of 4 years. With increasing age, there was an increase in salt intake, and by the age of 18 years, salt intake was 6.8g/day.
The findings revealed that for each extra 1g of salt eaten by the participants, there was a related 0.4mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure.
"This is an important finding which confirms that eating more salt increases blood pressure in childhood and also adds extra weight to the current public health campaign to reduce salt in the UK diet," said Professor Malcolm Law, professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine.
"The differences in systolic blood pressure between children with higher and lower salt diets may appear small, but making reductions of this order in childhood is likely to translate into lower levels of blood pressure in adult life, with reduced risk of developing heart disease and stroke and potentially huge gains in public health being possible."
How's that for junkscience? They find a clinically insignificant rise in BP associated with salt and extrapolate all sorts of pie in the sky conclusions without a shred of evidence.
The words researcher and scientist just cant be used in the same sentence anymore.
Way OT...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_re...c-
ais091107.php
A study just published that states Aspartame is safe.
http://www.medibix.com/
company.j...ompany_id=30118
The sole funder of the study-Ajinomoto Co.
I am Highly Reactive to Aspartame and I just get a kick out of this stuff.
I wonder what the RR's are on the study.
Sunz, - "U.S. Supreme Court case Lloyd Corp vs. Tanner"
Thanks.
I am already familiar with this case.
It has been, and will be cited, among other USSC decisions in an upcoming case here in Ohio.
Constitutional challenges on the wording used in the construction of Ban laws in every state that has succumbed to the socialist movement to date have failed.
It's not about the constitutionality, because TC has the best possible lawyers that SMOKERS MONEY can buy.
These laws are extremely well crafted to cover nearly every contingency, regardless of whether the law is actually necessary or not.
In Ohio the law, and rules for enforcement that were approved for implementation, do not match the ballott language that was approved by only 33% of the registered voters that bothered to vote at all.
Unless the fraudulent health claims, biased research, high school methodology, and cherry picked results account for at least half of the complaint in such lawsuits, the "progressive" socialists will continue to dictate lifestyle choices, economic policy, "best" business practices, and continue to preach the religion of the healthist elite until the damage can not be reversed.
None of this however will change this fact as long as Tobacco is legal:
A Smoke Free environment is a PERSONAL PREFERENCE. It is NOT A RIGHT,...especially on PRIVATE PROPERTY.
As a GUEST of the property owner, you are entitled to nothing that the property owner doesn't care to give you, and you are of course FREE to decline the invitation to be a guest in the first place.
Don't smoke?,..don't go there, don't work there, don't support them in any way whatsoever. They'll get over it, or they'll change their position based almost exclusively on the revenue generated by the patronage or lack of patronage by non-smokers.
Exercise a little personal responsibility and avoid those venues that currently have no desire to cater to your personal preference, and instead, visit and support those venues that specifically want your business through their offering of Smoke Free environments specifically designed to entice the non-smokers to become regular patrons.
It really is that simple.
Kooky Kalifornia.
Wood stoves to be banned. Public health and risk aversion the order of the day.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/...ory/
365145.html
excepts
"The evidence is very compelling with respect to particulate emissions from fireplaces and stoves" and "the clear connection with human health."
"But we ... need to take dramatic steps"
"So you breathe it in, and it can get into your bloodstream. It gets into you systemically."
"It doesn't take a Ph.D. in physics and chemistry to figure out this smoke is hanging around," Dickinson said.
"But if they take a look at it, they will think, 'Wow, this is too big an item to ignore if we're protecting public health.' "
GreatScot
Doc - in all seriousness - as a
physician who specialized in preventive medicine and public health. I am now a professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department, Boston University School of Public Health.
don't you think it's time you considered switching from useless "Tobacco Control" to something a little more productive?
Perhaps maybe "critical thinking" and separating agenda driven "research" from sound science?
I for one, think that medicine and health are being seriously harmed by sloppy research and ill founded consensus "beliefs" permeating our health policy and are a far greater threat to public health than SHS.
Lightningboy wrote: "As a GUEST of the property owner, you are entitled to nothing that the property owner doesn't care to give you, and you are of course FREE to decline the invitation to be a guest in the first place.
Don't smoke?,..don't go there, don't work there, don't support them in any way whatsoever. They'll get over it, or they'll change their position based almost exclusively on the revenue generated by the patronage or lack of patronage by non-smokers."
Agreed. That is the only reason my wife and I go out. Basically to be treated better then we are at home. No cooking, no cleaning, and the feeling that we are welcome. Otherwise, we would not go out at all. But I suppect this is what TC wants.
"Most Science Studies Appear to Be Tainted By Sloppy Analysis"
We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong.
Dr. Ioannidis is an epidemiologist who studies research methods at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass. In a series of influential analytical reports, he has documented how, in thousands of peer-reviewed research papers published every year, there may be so much less than meets the eye.
These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis. "There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."
The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically, he determined.
(more here) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB...?
mod=hotair.com
Judy, thanks! My point exactly>
Though I believe city councils and state legislatures have the authority to ban indoor smoking, I do not believe the small disputed health risks posed by ETS justify such a public health intervention, especially since the risks are confined to those who voluntarily expose themselves to ETS and can be almost entirely removed thru ventilation and filtration.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/
Si wrote:
"Apologies James,my fault,i read more into your comment than what was intended."
No. It was my fault for not being clearer. Sorry.
Bill Hannegan wrote: "Though I believe city councils and state legislatures have the authority to ban indoor smoking, I do not believe the small disputed health risks posed by ETS justify such a public health intervention, especially since the risks are confined to those who voluntarily expose themselves to ETS and can be almost entirely removed thru ventilation and filtration."
Agreed. This may come back and haunt Dr. Siegel.
Dan, - "Agreed. This may come back and haunt Dr. Siegel."
We can only hope, that the Doc comes to his senses before that happens.
Standing trial for fraud perpetrated on the entire population with the likes of Bill G., Cathy B. and other traitorous TC puppets wouldn't be good for his career.
One of the German counties mandated an expertise about the dangers of SHS from a professor in toxicology before deciding about a smoking ban in the hospitality industry (the results of the study will not prevent them from passing the ban anyway).
The professor in question, G. Scherer, kindly provided Forces Germany with a confidential copy of the final report.
Excerpt from his report:
I am a professor in toxicology/pharmacology at the university of Munich and I am managing director of an analytical/biological research laboratory. I have been working in the domain of tobacco toxicology for 30 years. My habilitation dissertation (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hab...ki/
Habilitation for a definition of this term) was based on a study of SHS exposure.
...
My report answers the question: "Is there evidence for an increased risk from SHS in restaurants and bars and can this risk be eliminated by smoking bans?"
...
Conclusion: Neither toxicology nor epidemiology provide convincing evidence of a health risk for patrons exposed to SHS. In particular because of the very low long-time dose of expositions from this source, increased risks for health effects commonly attributed to ETS(lung cancer, CHD) are not to be expected.
...
Toxicology: While it is true that ETS contains toxic and mutagenic substances for which effects have been shown in cell cultures and animals, the toxic effects of tobacco smoke cannot be traced back to specific substances.
Even worse, apart from tobacco-specific substances, like nicotine and nitrosamins, all the other substances found in ETS are also found from other sources, such as car exhausts, gasoline, furniture, packaging materials, paints, grilled or fried food. It is therefore almost impossible to detect differences in these substances between non-smokers and second hand smokers when analyzing blood, urine or saliva.
Publication (English):
Scherer,G. and Richter,E. (1997) Biomonitoring exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS): A critical reappraisal. Human and Experimental Toxicology, 16, 449-459.
Was the study that pointed to 220 dead Massachusetts bartenders peer reviewed? Could you tell me where and when? Can you tell me the confounding factors you took into consideration?
Or is "science by soundbite" bound by different standards than "science by press release"?
Apparently so.
Sigh.
By the way, doctor, you have repeatedly stated that you cannot support anything short of a smoking ban because you have not seen any evidence that ventilation can solve the problem.
When asked to expound on your expertise in that field, you admitted that you had none. When asked to explain your views, you said you didn't have enough information.
Well, a man--a serious, sincere fellow--has been pointing you to various sources. I wonder. Have you read them? I would hope so. I mean, you claim to be all for property rights. And you base your support for breaching those rights on the notion that "ventilation doesn't work." But if it did work, you would support it.
Well, someone is pointing to systems that he says work. Which would seem to give you a great opportunity to back away from bans and support something else. Have you looked at the material and deemed it insufficient? Or have you simply not looked?
Or maybe when you said you would suppor ventilation, you meant it in the same way you meant that you would support a ban on racecar driving. That is, you didn't mean it at all.
Care to prove me wrong? What do you think of the links?
Moreover, please indicate the percentage of SHS a system would have to remove to make smoking in a bar acceptable. Keep in mind that in the discussion of the 220 dead bartenders, you posited a linear relationship between the amount of exposure and the death toll. That is, a 50 percent reduction in SHS would mean 50 percent fewer deaths.
So I guess reducing 220 to 1 would require a 99.5 percent reduction of the SHS. Unless you are demanding the "deaths" be reduced to zero. But you wouldn't require that. Right? Because that would be zero-tolerance.
"Hurrican Force Winds" required
Sound familiar?
How bout something like this:
http://www.industrial-vacuum-cle...cuum-
loader.htm
While they're obviously not designed for bars, they certainly could be.
These things can suck up 8 TONS per hour!, - 266 pounds per minute!, -
4.5 pounds per SECOND.
Lets see, ....SHS constituents are measured in millionths, and billionths of a gram,...hmmmmm.
"Hurrican Force Winds required" is just another unfunny punchline to the joke that is TC.
O/T, but yet another outrageous example of persecution against those who choose to smoke.
"Smoker Refused Operation on Broken Ankle"
A smoker is facing years of pain after an NHS hospital refused to set his broken ankle unless he gives up cigarettes.
John Nuttall, 57, needs the operation to fix the ankle he broke in three places two years ago and which was not healed by a plaster cast.
Doctors at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro have refused to operate to rebuild the ankle because they say Mr Nuttall's heavy smoking would reduce the chance of a full recovery.
~snip~
A spokesman for the hospital trust said: "Smoking has a very big influence on the outcome of this type of surgery and the healing process would be hindered significantly."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/.../
nsmoker114.xml
--I mean really, how low can you go?
I broke my ankle in three places several years ago (shattered it really), and I too was asked if I could quick smoking before the operation to repair it. I said no.
I underwent a fairly major surgery - pins, plates, something like 20 screws, staples, etc. - and woke up later that day with my new robo-ankle. It healed perfectly and well ahead of schedule. Now that the scars are faded, it's impossible to tell that there was ever an injury there. Smoking had no influence on the outcome, except the positive effect of keeping me relaxed throughout the entire ordeal.
It is simply sadistic to refuse to set a broken limb because of someone's smoking status. And where's the legal basis here? Doesn't the UK have any malpractice attorneys who wouldn't mind picking up an easy couple of hundred million or so? Geez, we can't walk 10 feet in any direction without tripping over one of them here.
Disgusting.
Wow. Just had to say - what a series of excellent posts. I sure hope Michael's got his listening hat on. So glad to share this planet with you folks.
benpal good post, but dated. However, I would trust German scientists before I would trust our own. In Germany all 'I's have to be dotted and all 'T's have to be crossed. Their standards for science are much higher then ours.
Dan wrote:
"What Bill G. does not realize is the tobacco control (TC) means TC. This does not include just cigarettes, cigars, etc., but also includes ALL tobacco products."
Not true, as I've been educating the public about the vastly different health risks of different tobacco and nicotine products, and I've been a leading advocate of developing regulations for tobacco and nicotine products based upon the products risks (with strict regulations for cigarettes, less restrictive regulations for less hazardous smokeless tobacco products, and even less restrictive regulations for clean nicotine products).
I agree, however, that many anti tobacco activists adamantly oppose (and some would ban) all tobacco products, and some oppose all clean nicotine products as well.
There is an emerging split within the tobacco control movement between those of us whose goal is to reduce diseases, disabilities and deaths caused by tobacco products (99% of which are caused by cigarettes) and abstinence-only anti-tobacco moralists whose goal is to eliminate all tobacco use and/or all tobacco companies.
Liberty Belle cited the famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
That quote appropriately describes the smokefree advocacy movement, as in 1986 (when just 4% of workplaces in the U.S. were smokefree), I and other smokefree advocates were ignored, then laughed at, and then aggressively fought by the cigarette industry.
Now, more than half of U.S. residents live in a jurisdiction that has enacted a smokefree workplace law (including bars) and more than 80% of workplaces are smokefree. I considered that to be a big win (although some pockets of resistance still exist where we continue achieving progress).
Sam M wrote:
"Or is "science by soundbite" bound by different standards than "science by press release"?"
Science by poem?
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the tavern of Death
Strode the two twenty.
"Forward, the Bar Brigade!
"Charge for the cigarettes!" he said:
Into the tavern of Death
Strode the two twenty.
Cigarettes to right of them,
Cigarettes to left of them,
Cigarettes in front of them
In and ex haled;
Storm'd at with smoke and ash,
Boldly they strode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Strode the two twenty.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the stand they made,
Honor the Bar Brigade,
Noble two twenty
If we could find them.
Bill G. wrote: "There is an emerging split within the tobacco control movement between those of us whose goal is to reduce diseases, disabilities and deaths caused by tobacco products (99% of which are caused by cigarettes) and abstinence-only anti-tobacco moralists whose goal is to eliminate all tobacco use and/or all tobacco companies."
To quote you "99% of which are caused by cigarettes". Citation please.
Bill G.: "I considered that to be a big win..."
Bill, Bill, Bill... I think you missed Dan's point.
Like Michael, you remind me of the folks at the carnivals who shell out $80 in repeated attempts to squirt water into a clown's mouth. When they win a cheap stuffed toy -- they think they've "won" something.
What did you pay for that "win" again...? Oh! I remember! your autonomy, your liberty, your property rights... Now that you paid them away, I hope you won't be needing any of those things in future...
Dan: "benpal good post, but dated."
The reference to the study was just an example, there are more studies, but they are in German.
But the report Prof. Scherer wrote for the county is dated Aug 21, 2007. It shows that there are scientists who stand up for the facts.
Doctor Siegel and Sam M., I really wish you both would call Air Quality Engineering and SmokeEaters and ask their experts exactly what their machines can do. I have talked to both companies. The SmokeEater guy told me they could get the air as clean as a bar or restaurant was willing to pay for by running the air thru multiple systems with differing technologies of capturing smoke. The Air Quality Engineering guy told me to bring a SmokeMaster to a Council Hearing, light a cigarette next to the machine and watch the smoke disappear. He said if that didn't convince the councilmen, nothing would.
http://www.smokeeaters.org/
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/
Of course, if you stand in a bar or at a concert with your face very close to the face of a pretty girl who happens to be smoking, no technology can save you from risk. But some risks are just worth taking.
Oh Bill H. -- you charmer...
Margaret wrote: "Don't you think it's time you considered switching from useless "Tobacco Control" to something a little more productive?
Perhaps maybe "critical thinking" and separating agenda driven "research" from sound science?"
Margaret - I basically agree with you. In fact, part of the reason for this blog is for me to be able to take a step back from the tobacco control trenches and spend time focusing on critical thinking and helping the effort to separate agenda-driven research from sound science.
It is difficult, after 21 years in the movement, to suddenly view myself as not being a part of it, but as you will see on Monday, things are getting so out of hand that I have to say that this really isn't a movement that I WANT to be a part of any more.
Sam-
It is reasonable and fair of you to question my own statements I have made about the estimates of bar tenders' and restaurant workers' mortality attributable to secondhand smoke, and to ask whether that was indeed a case of "science by press release."
I don't believe that it was - for three reasons:
1) The assumptions for the estimates that I made had been peer reviewed and published in the scientific literature. I was merely using already published equations to calculate the risk.
2) I made available at the time the complete basis for these estimates, so that anyone could review them. I also readily shared that information with anyone who asked, even with tobacco industry representatives who may have asked for it.
3) I did not issue any press releases to disseminate these findings. They were intended for the use of specific policy makers. I do not issue press releases to report scientific findings unless either:
A - I have published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal; or
B - I make available the complete study from which my results are derived, so that they can be publicly reviewed.
As far as my opinions about the ability of ventilation and filtration to solve the secondhand smoke problem, they are based on actual measurements of smoke constituents in actual environments in which these systems have been used. I am open to new data, and so if you are aware of data that documents, by actual measurements of smoke constituents, that these smoke eaters and ventilation systems substantially reduce the levels of these constituents, then I'm happy to review them. But so far, I haven't seen any data showing that these systems substantially reduce secondhand smoke levels to anything near what would be an acceptable level.
"The assumptions for the estimates that I made had been peer reviewed and published in the scientific literature."
The critical assumption--and the one that makes the statement nonsense--is the assumtion that every bartender in Massachusetts will work for 40/40.
Or maybe not. Please point me to the peer reviewed literature regarding that assumption.
If you can, I will return the favor by pointing you to a unicorn.
As for the ventilation, I didn't ask if you found the links provided here convincing. I asked if you had linked to them and read them.
Have you or haven't you? If they are insufficient, in what sense are they insufficient?
You keep saying that you haven't seen a ventilation system that works. My question is, are you looking? Even when someone points directly to a promising one?
Dr. Siegel wrote: "It is difficult, after 21 years in the movement, to suddenly view myself as not being a part of it, but as you will see on Monday, things are getting so out of hand that I have to say that this really isn't a movement that I WANT to be a part of any more."
While I may not agree with you, I would stick with you convictions as long as they really are supported by science. But even with the science, I would ask that you consider government intervention to be minimum. It is possible to accomindate both smokers and non-smokers. Looking furward to what you have to say.
Sam-
I did read the web sites. But what I don't see are the results of research that document the actual levels of smoke constituents in actual establishments in which these systems are being used. I could be missing it, but as of now, I haven't seen it.
By the way, I'm by no means arguing that these systems are worthless. The lower the levels, the better. If you are going to allow smoking, then it makes sense to have these systems in place. But do they work well enough to make the risk acceptable? I don't believe so.
If they reduce half the smoke, would they lower the mortality from 220 bartenders to 110 bartenders? You posited a linear relationship before. Are you sticking to that or not?
"The assumptions for the estimates that I made had been peer reviewed and published in the scientific literature. I was merely using already published equations to calculate the risk."
Still waiting for direction to the peer reviewed study that supported the 40/40 assumption in 100 percent of cases.
Dr. Siegel wrote: "But do they work well enough to make the risk acceptable? I don't believe so."
But it is only a belief, based on nothing. There is no acceptable level of SHS. Ring a bell? The point is, if you tell me, as an engineer, what the acceptable level is, I could make it so.
Still waiting for direction to the peer reviewed study that supported the 40/40 assumption in 100 percent of cases.
I haven't been around here much lately. By this - do you mean that the doc calculated his 220 dead bartenders on the assumption that all bartenders tend bar 40/hrs week for 40 years?
As a former bartender ('80's)- I can falsify that assumption right here and now. None of my fellow bartenders still tend bar. None. On average - most of the folks I know tended bar less than 5 years. I did it for 8.
Dr. Siegel, thank you for looking at the sites and considering the filtration argument.
OSHA sets permissible exposure levels for some of the constituents of ETS. Yet it seems reasonable that PELs for welders might be too lax for bartenders. Doctor, could you give Sam, Dan and I a permissible or safe level of exposure for some constituent of ETS in bars?
Margaret,
Yes. That's how he calculated it.
And he used that calculation to impact real legislation.
Make of it what you will.
"No safe level" or a claim to what is acceptable at all, is found only in the theft of power by an absolutely illegitimate claim.
The imposition of power can be found in the Wiki explanation of Public Health and the expressions of Bio-Power to eliminate democracy.
Imposed health as an obligation to the state is at play here, simply an expression of a well known means to lay claim to power over populations. Power can be imposed either through direct means with force or by deceptive means through coercion when the realistic ability to take control is not at hand.
I know when you evaluate the following many will have to wonder what exactly earned Bill his credentials in "public health" and how far the fanatics are willing to take the claim they represent any official capacity, over that of democratic elections and the evolved values of the people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopower
"For Foucault, biopower is a technology of power, which is a way of exercising various techniques into a single technology of power. For Foucault, the distinctive quality of this political technology is that it allows for the control of entire populations. It is thus essential to the emergence of the modern nation state, modern capitalism, etc. Biopower is literally having power over other bodies, "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations" (History of Sexuality, Vol.I, p.140). It relates to the government's concern with fostering the life of the population, and centers on the poles of disciplines ("an anatomo-politics of the human body") and regulatory controls ("a biopolitics of the population").
Biopower for Foucault contrasts with traditional modes of power based on the threat of death from a sovereign. In an era where power must be justified rationally, biopower is utilized by an emphasis on the protection of life rather than the threat of death, on the regulation of the body, and the production of other technologies of power, such as the notion of sexuality. Regulation of customs, habits, health, reproductive practices, family, "blood", and "well-being" would be straightforward examples of biopower, as would any conception of the state as a "body" and the use of state power as essential to its "life". Hence the conceived relationship between biopower, eugenics and state racism."
Public Health promotion in this sense is simply an attempt to steal control by the spineless promotion of trash talk and terrorism. Sneaking around like maggots under a rock, because those who seek population control, haven't the courage to stand and take it face to face.
What do I make of it?
Typical worst-case-scenario fearmongering of the public health nazis.
I don't really blame the doc for doing what he was obviously well trained to do. That's what public health needs to do to justify it's existence.
Sam -
You're exactly right. At least for lung cancer. The mortality risk will be linear with respect to exposure. So if exposure levels are cut in half, so will lung cancer risk.
Once again, I didn't make an assumption that all bartenders work for 40 years. I was simply estimating the working lifetime mortality risk for bar workers. Obviously, workers who don't work for a full 40 years will have proportionately lower mortality risk. This was made very clear to the City Council, and they could easily calculate the estimated mortality under any assumptions they wanted to. I am aware of no data on the average working lifetime of a bar worker.
The following was submitted as a comment to the Herald for its story on the Scot "study", but I thought it worth sharing here as well:
=========
When examining something like the Scottish "Magical Study By Press Release" tactic it's important to examine the history of previous scams.
The best documented of these is of course the original "Great Helena Heart Miracle" study done several years ago in the U.S. The thing that makes Helena so notable and unique is that it was published in the British Medical Journal which has an admirable editorial policy of extending peer review to a much larger group and in a much more public venue than most medical journals.
Rather than have an article merely examined by a few journal editors and commented on by one or two external "experts" who are sometimes merely co-workers or friends of the original study authors, the BMJ opens a reviewed, controlled, yet very fair public forum for informed individuals to comment on and criticize published studies.
Helena served as the model for all future copycat "Instant Heart Attack Reduction" efforts: Pueblo, Bowling Green, Piedmont, Ireland, and now Scotland. The extent and depth of the fraud that has been perpetrated upon the public can be seen merely by reading the Rapid Responses to Helena that the BMJ accepted for publication and noting the almost nonexistent defense of their work mounted by the study authors (who nonetheless have continued, in the best tradition of traveling snake oil peddlers to market their wares in public forums worldwide).
See:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/
e...055.715683.55v1
and then, after seeing the depth of problems associated with this archetypal study, see the treatment accorded to a *much* larger follow-up study that had the additional strength of being based upon completely open and publicly verifiable data. See:
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/
and the analysis published through the American Council for Science and Health and reproduced at:
http://
www.illinoissmokersrights...elena_acsh.html
The important lesson here is that the grandfather of all such studies, when carefully analyzed in the years after publication, has been shown to have virtually no substance at all. Copycat studies, such as the recent Scottish and Irish efforts, will almost certainly be also shown to be just as devoid of meaning.
BUT... the antismoking lobby will still have scored a victory, and a very deliberately and fraudulently intended victory, by grabbing the headlines in initial press releases that will leave a substantial and lasting impression in the minds of tens of millions that wisps of secondary tobacco smoke are horrifically deadly assaults upon the innocent and "the children"... and thereby lend to an atmosphere where smoking and smokers can be defiled, persecuted, and assaulted beyond all reason.
This is wrong. Just as wrong as all the bases upon which these smoking ban laws are predicated.
Don't be fooled by the shiny lights and the flashing mirrors: these people are lying to you, no matter how cleverly they hide it and confuse it, they are lying when they present as fact that science justifies these extremists incursions into our private lives, choices, and personal freedoms. Letting them get away with it opens the door to far worse down the road.
Stop them now.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
mailto: Cantiloper@aol.com
"You're exactly right. At least for lung cancer. The mortality risk will be linear with respect to exposure. So if exposure levels are cut in half, so will lung cancer risk."
OK, then. There we have it.
So, with the RR currently estimated at 1.19, which is not exactly off the charts, we would obviously be able to make a significant dent by HALVING the exposure, which by your own estimation HALVES the risk. So now tell me... how low does an RR have to go before it drops off the radar for extreme government intervention? This would seem to obviate the need for ventilation systems that remove 99.99999999999999 of the SHS. Right? I mean, a simple fan that reduced SHS by 50 percent would significantly reduce the risk. And seeing that 1.19 is not THAT much of a risk...
Question: What is the RR associated with SHS if the SHS is cut in half?
And.. OH MY GOD!
"This was made very clear to the City Council, and they could easily calculate the estimated mortality under any assumptions they wanted to."
So... city council member don't need "warnings." In fact, they are so briliant that they can CALCULATE the estimated mortality under ANY assumptions they want to.
But your whole reason for not choosing warnings over bans is because why?
Anyone remember?
Because the issues are just so complex and so muddled and OH SO CONFUSING that America's bartenders just don't stand a chance. Even a highly educated health professional such as the doctor can't dream up a way to clear their silly little heads. Did you hear? A full 44 percent of Americans disagree with the doctor over SHS. That PROVES that bartenders can't be trusted to make their own decisions. And bartenders who have lost their jobs because thier bars have shut down due to the doctor's bans? To bad, silly chumps! It's good for you!
But city council members in Amherst? They are so brilliant they can DO THEIR OWN CALCULATIONS!
Math!
Maybe because they were predisposed to agree with the doctor?
Explain... Why is it that you think city council members can strike out on their own and interpret your communications--to the extent that they can manipulate the math on their own--but bartenders are too stupid to decide whether or not to work in a smoky bar?
And if you are making assumptions that you know to be false, why did you choose 100 percent at 40/40? Why not 0 percent? It would have been closer to the truth. How might that have affected your calculations? I mean, if we have to choose between to things that are false, we would choose the one that is less false, right? But you didn't. Why? Might it have had something to do with the same thing motivating people who released thre Helena and Scotland studies?
And agenda?
And agenda that trumped truth?
Listen. There will not be 220 dead bartenders in Massachesetts. You knew it. And you said it anyway. Because you thought it would would advance your agenda. You were right. But you know what?
That stinks.
I'll bet Dr. Siegel thinks that ventilation and filtration doesn't really protect either welders or bartenders from smoke, but workplace ETS, unlike welding smoke, is easy to get rid of entirely. Unlike welders, you can just send the smokers outside.
Sam - Agenda? Of course Michael had an agenda. Despite what the committee may have thought, I doubt he was testifying as an unbiased researcher. I think, he was testifying as an advocate.
The mixing of "researcher" and "advocate" in highly politized issues is very troubling for science. Well, for me anyway. Exactly for that reason: because advocates have agendas, while researchers shouldn't.
As a researchers, or scientists, it's our job to present the strengths, weaknesses, and all potential confounders and reasonable alternate explanations associated with our research. As an advocate for tobacco control (or workplace smoke bans) I think the goal is more like *winning the argument*. Not exactly fibbing, but presenting evidence basically for one side, and in the best light for that side.
But I'm not sure if anyone is recognizing this distinction. I'm not sure either if it is even ethical to call oneself an *unbiased* researcher, when one is also acting part of the time as an advocate.
What do you think Michael?
I pause to honor James's brilliant takeoff on the Charge of the Light Brigade. Work that worthy shouldn't go without comment or be taken for granted. ( If Tennyson smoked, he's applauding somewhere. )
Back to the matter at hand:
As a researcher, Doc, if you didn't find enough information on the links about the level of ventilation, why don't you call the manufacturers and ask? I'm sure Bill H. would share the names of his contacts.
But then we already know that as far as you're concerned no level of SHS is acceptable, and neither is any risk, even if the "risk" is nothing but a mathematicl possibility. You once posited something like...0.008 ug/m3 (?), so I suppose even 0.009 wouldn't cut it, even tho the linearly declining RR would be 1.01 (for bartenders working that 40/40).
Or: where have I gone wrong?
:
That quote appropriately describes the smokefree advocacy movement, as in 1986 (when just 4% of workplaces in the U.S. were smokefree), I and other smokefree advocates were ignored, then laughed at, and then aggressively fought by the cigarette industry.
Now, more than half of U.S. residents live in a jurisdiction that has enacted a smokefree workplace law (including bars) and more than 80% of workplaces are smokefree. I considered that to be a big win (although some pockets of resistance still exist where we continue achieving progress).
Uh, Bill... you have this bad habit of thinking time stands still in regard to whatever it is you say, do, or accomplish. But that's not surprising when it appears, through your writing (it's all "I" did this or me, me, me), that the world revolves around you and your time on this planet.
You selectively ignore that your anti-smoking/smoker experiment is not in its first life. In fact, in the U.S. it was worse back in the early 1900s. Prohibition of tobacco existed. Centuries prior in other places the govt. killed or severely punished you for it.
And what happened? The trend changed. I'm sure you had a twin back in the early 1900s who thought it was all over -- the war won -- then too. Get the drift?
So this quote will be ours next:
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
And the history books will once again scornfully write about this current trend's makers. You're destined not to be remembered in a good light.
Michael J;
"Don't be fooled by the shiny lights and the flashing mirrors: these people are lying to you, no matter how cleverly they hide it and confuse it, they are lying when they present as fact that science justifies these extremists incursions into our private lives, choices, and personal freedoms. Letting them get away with it opens the door to far worse down the road.
Stop them now. "
Public Health is served and grows power by these promotions of risk perspectives. They recognize only total population as the body which needs protection the rest of us are only risks described in their calculations. People are the risks, affecting the survival of a political ideology, as though it had a life of it's own. a life more important than, the lives of individuals, or so they would like us to believe.
Population view is consistent with ideologies we in common sense perspectives see as immoral and inhuman by every scale of the imagination. It is simply who they have been trained to be, as the new normal; rational obedience.
Empowered by the theories of Lock who prescribed the senses alone provide intuitive knowledge irespective of the randomness which provides some of us inteligence in varying levels, of course intelligence for most of us, which preceededs experience.
This allowed the evolution of psychology, beliefs still empowered today. Irrational persons conditioned thought through cold showers [or other forms of torture]the irrational it was thought, could be made rational by consistently providing physical and emotional distress, in response to irrational actions or thought. Through pain we can direct a person's path back to reason.
The education systems in the industrialized world follow the same pattern today rewarding of letters preceding one's name, not as an expression of personal intelligence or contribution. Rather an ability to retain and parrot back the intelligence of others on command.
Dogs can be trained in similar fashion to bark on command.
If I were to stand on your toe, Public health would step on the other foot to draw your attention away from the pain as reason in their perspective would demand. The drug companies who fund them of course would prefer you took a pill every day for the pain. Common sense would have you asking me to step off. Of course common sense is the alternative to the worship of public health fantasies.
Public Health represents nothing in respect to independent intelligent thought, of community or personal protections for the rest of us.
"The ship of fools" reference captures Public health and their sheep like perspectives. It is only a matter of time [as History demonstrates consistently] before community rejects them again and prescribes another well deserved quarantine.
Godshall: “I've been a leading advocate of developing regulations for tobacco and nicotine products based upon the products risks (with strict regulations for cigarettes, less restrictive regulations for less hazardous smokeless tobacco products, and even less restrictive regulations for clean nicotine products).”
I’ll bite. What “less restrictive” regulations for smokeless tobacco products? Is that on the same order as less restrictive regulations for gum-chewing? Maybe a restriction on spittoons? I don’t get it.
Dr. Siegel: “As far as my opinions about the ability of ventilation and filtration to solve the secondhand smoke problem, they are based on actual measurements of smoke constituents in actual environments in which these systems have been used. I am open to new data, and so if you are aware of data that documents, by actual measurements of smoke constituents, that these smoke eaters and ventilation systems substantially reduce the levels of these constituents, then I'm happy to review them. But so far, I haven't seen any data showing that these systems substantially reduce secondhand smoke levels to anything near what would be an acceptable level.”
1. Actually measurements in bars by such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have shown that the level of smoke pollutants to be well below OSHA standards, as you know. Are you now trying to tell us that you require some kind of MIRACLE VENTILATION SYSTEM to lower the risk level from no-substantial-risk-to-begin-with to a risk so minuscule that it alone can satisfy your exacting standards? Please, doctor!
2. I believe you have NEVER answered this question: IS OR IS NOT the air in a bar that allows smoking but which has ventilation equipment installed and operating MORE HEALTHY TO BREATH than the air in a bar that does not allow smoking but is not equipped with ventilation equipment? Since you've made a big thing about your compassionate nature vis-a-vis the health of bartenders (and our callousness), do you think you could answer that question? You’re in the health game, aren’t you? You want the purest air possible for bartenders, don’t you?
3. BUT MOST OF ALL, THIS: You’ve told us that you REJECT ventilation equipment for the reason that smoke, before it can be cleansed by ventilation, would FIRST have to pass under the nostrils of bartenders – and you rejected ventilation equipment on that sole basis. Are you getting forgetful, doctor – don’t you remember that argument? But if you’ve given up on that bit of silliness, please let us know, because many of us like a good faint now and again!
.
Welcome back, Harry.
Kevin, unfortunately, this is right on the nose--and the kind of observation that lights up the synapses
People are the risks, affecting the survival of a political ideology, as though it had a life of its own. a life more important than the lives of individuals, or so they would like us to believe.
Exactly. And we're all just statistics now, Numbers on their board. Mixed in with 220 fictional bartenders, we lose our claim to reality. And it's way beyond the question of smokers or nons. This is all of us-- everywhere-- in the centralized, bureaucratized, rationalized world,
:
Walt and Harry, I wish you both would call these numbers and report back to Dr. Siegel about the possibilities of filtration machines to solve our national bar and restaurant ETS problem. I don't doubt that you guys could ask better questions about air quality and mortality than I could!
Air Quality Engineering: 888.883.3273
SmokeEaters: 877.688.2703
I have been lobbying the Illinois legislature like mad to exempt casinos based on their superior ventilation systems. Is the American Lung Association starting to get worried?
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday...73?
OpenDocument
I sent this e-mail to Illinois Senator Clayborne, who has been trying figure out how to exempt casinos in his district, on September 8:
Senator Clayborne,
This is the ventilation/filtration exemption of the Chicago smoking ban.
This exemption is the reason the Chicago ban passed 46-1. Chicago
businesses and aldermen knew that filtration companies could fit any venue with sufficient filtration measures to make the indoor air of any smoking establishment cleaner than Chicago air. If this exemption could be included in the Illinois smoking ban, I believe casinos would be able to meet that strict standard and allow smoking. Filtration experts assure me that their machines can make the air of any establishment nearly perfectly
clean if a customer is willing to pay for multiple filtration measures.
Please consider giving back to the businesses of Chicago and all of
Illinois this fair and reasonable compromise:
"Any public place or place of employment otherwise subject to this Chapter whose owner or operator can demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the commissioner of public health and the commissioner of the environment, that such area has been equipped with air filtration or purification devices or similar technologies as to render the exposure to secondhand smoke in such area, notwithstanding the fact that smoking may be occurring in such area, equivalent to such exposure to secondhand smoke in the ambient outdoor air surrounding the establishment. The commissioner of
public health and the commissioner of the environment are jointly
authorized to promulgate regulations specifying what types of technologies, when and if available, and taking into account any
applicable Federal and/or State standards, satisfy the requirements of this paragraph."
http://egov.cityofchicago.org/
we...1.html#7_32_080
http://www.smokeeaters.org/casino/
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/d...uments/
f62b.pdf
Sincerely,
Bill Hannegan
Now, more than half of U.S. residents live in a jurisdiction that has enacted a smokefree workplace law (including bars) and more than 80% of workplaces are smokefree. I considered that to be a big win (although some pockets of resistance still exist where we continue achieving progress).
Bill Godshall | 09.14.07 - 3:11 pm | # BILL,you are nothing short of a NEO-FASCIST.What you demand as of right,infringes other peoples rights,but you refuse to accept that this is immoral and hide behind your mantra of anti smoking .As to the general debate concerning Dr Siegel and air ventilation systems,sorry Dr Siegel,but you are a closed book on this issue.When you believe it is appropriate to return to your earlier studies to see if they hold up to more rigorous scientific analysis,since they are 15 years out of date,i will then accept that you really do wish to uphold the virtues of scientific reality,not agenda driven politics.Actions speak louder than rhetoric.
Yes!
I also fogot to mention James's brilliant poetic achievement.
Outstanding.
Humor is good. particularly when it is so well done.
Doctor,
So you hit Bill H's link. And apparently did not find the information you need. an you tell us what that information is that you are looking for? The kinks obviously did not provide the right stuff. But that seems to prove that you are looking for SOMETHING. Can you tell us what that is and how it would need to be expressed? For instance,
"Our ventilation system reduces the amount of SHS in the air by XX percent."
Or if you are after constituent parts,, "Our sstem reduces chemical YY by ZZ percent."
Once we have that we can start asking around.
I am surprised you haven't done this yourself, honestly. After all, you claim to be keenly interested in property rights. And you claim to be eager for a system that would allow you to advocate for something other than a ban. Yet you seem singulary incurious as to the systems that are available.
~It is difficult, after 21 years in the movement, to suddenly view myself as not being part of it, but as you will see on Monday, things are getting so out of hand that I have to say that this really isn't a movement that I WANT to be part of any more.~ MS
Ahhhh professor~
Could the DragonLady/Hitlary have anything to do with it?
Movements have been known to overreach lately, perhaps it is TIME for a change of heart and priorities i.e. from health to LIBERTY! There is light at the end of that long dark tunnel for you yet. Lotsa love and God Bless. We need you on our side to fight the politicians & neoelites! ~RN
HILLARY CLINTON:I WILL CHANGE OUR COUNTRY
http://www.americanthinker.com/
2...ill_change.html
Michael wrote;
"Sam -
You're exactly right. At least for lung cancer. The mortality risk will be linear with respect to exposure. So if exposure levels are cut in half, so will lung cancer risk.
Once again, I didn't make an assumption that all bartenders work for 40 years. I was simply estimating the working lifetime mortality risk for bar workers. Obviously, workers who don't work for a full 40 years will have proportionately lower mortality risk. This was made very clear to the City Council, and they could easily calculate the estimated mortality under any assumptions they wanted to. I am aware of no data on the average working lifetime of a bar worker. "
Linear vs Non Linear risk is a question I have been asking about for a very long time and I appreciate the expression of that opinion.
The sale of smoking bans is primarily Dependant on the level of carcinogens in the smoke and Cancer is the most used tool of promoting fear.
Heart conditions are another matter with much less ability to muster much in the way of ad agency spin or credibility considering what we are all exposed to, on a daily basis. Endothelial dysfunction has worn out it's usefulness for the most part and is now perilously close to being branded as misleading and false advertising on a number of fronts.
Getting back to the linear risk perspective. If a linear risk is accepted as fact it then is almost an obligation to calculate the physical risk value, in order to establish safe levels. When we hear no safe level exists that statement is only true if we ignore the obvious deliberately and refuse to make those calculations.
The statement filtration can not establish a level considered safe is also deliberately deceptive without a perspective target, advising what could be considered a safe level.
I can suggest a logical starting point; however I assume little following will be seen in the TC perspectives despite the obvious truth of the situation. To accept the reality risk [if particulate is the only risk] is always elevated inside buildings compared to outdoor air and for obvious reasons as close as your vacuum cleaner, to declare a level below that found in outside air is only serving political opinion and has little benefit or value when we can not escape the air originating outdoors.
If a level below outdoor values can be achieved it most certainly would represent a beneficial level. A level below outdoor levels would then offer an escape or refuge from the elevated risk outdoors. Now it comes down to what is acceptable outdoors and those acceptable levels are well known.
Deceptions are developed in ad agency spin without lying directly or at least not if it can be hidden in deceptive language and innuendos, by making self serving statements without allowing any further discussion.
The absolute of zero risk by normal standards is unreasonable and would be seen by the public as fanatical and not at all beneficial, when much larger risks are accepted in exchange for the benefits of other products.
Many TC advocates state regularly smoking has no redeeming qualities, this is also demonstrated to be false when observing the amount of cigarettes sold every year.
Commerce is only possible when the product value of a possession is elevated by opinion to be greater than the value of another [Cash] allowing a fair exchange. In Canada the price is hovering around the 10 dollar per package level, indicating price sensitivity plays a minor role in a decision to purchase cigarettes.
Incredibly anti smoker groups declare cigarettes have little value and no cost benefit in spite of the multitude of government expenditures made possible through taxation and settlement agreements including the funding of those same ingrates who should be thanking smokers for providing lobby group welfare funding, providing the handouts the same ingrates refer to as personal salaries.
Handouts being provided which serve only to bite the hands that feed them with little complaint from the smokers, so far.
In another perspective, that of comparing welfare checks;
Lobby groups are paid disproportionate levels of welfare, compared to other welfare recipients who's levels of income are dangerously low, promoting large predictable health risks. Risks increased substantially by the reduced amounts available to the government which are inversely decreased by terrorist political groups wasting a lot of essential funding. Expenditures in adherence to their preventable addictions. Those of public funded political self promotion, mirrored in disproportionate media purchases.
After reading some of Bill H. links on ventilation (thanks Bill H). I had a delusional moment as would be described by Bill Godshall.
That is, had some of the ventilation system found in Bill Hs links been installed in the very press room in which the SG made his famous deceptive statement “no safe level” of SHS; the air in the room would have been much cleaner and healthier.
Bill H, I believe the Filtration Industry needs to do a better job at promoting their products, they should be using services such as this:
http://www.pr.com/
To name just one.
Once it is released onto the internet by these press release firms they enter the search engines as 'News'
The only reason we hear about wacky groups such as PETA, [when they are not out there slaughtering pets], is through their press releases.
News is no longer news, it's just a conglomeration of press releases.
One can make the best product in the world - but if you don't get the information out to the public, the stuff just sits around on shelves collecting dust [which also will create PM 2.5]
It's not:
If you build it- They will come.
It's
If you promote it - They will come.
Smokenreader;
I have always contended smoking rooms were a result of delusional or misguided reversed reasoning. If those who demand air purity are to be served, smoke free rooms as oposed to smoking rooms have always been the answer.
Since the majority of those when given choice will congregate in the smoking section, the non smoking room would be much smaller and because of size restraints could afford much larger air exchange rates with reduced energy consumption perhaps even into the hurricane force levels if requested.
Non smoking rooms offer levels of comfort well beyond the standards in outdoor air. If pollution levels outdoor continue to climb we will all soon be moving toward controlled environments eventually in any case.
Non smokers could be protected from not only smoke but from the many other present risks from multiple sources they no doubt would fear as well assuming of course consistent reasoning is being employed in smoking ban promotions. If smoking is eliminated in all buildings we will have to deal with other contaminants next anyway. Why not deal with all contaminants consistently and all at once and avoid the public expense of future campaigns we will see eventually anyway.
I have proposed this in the past to the howls of those demanding clean air, then crying; they don't want to be delegated to fish bowls preferring to taunt smokers being so confined the hypocrisies and type of attitudes being served suddenly become obvious.
The right way to deal with anti smokers demanding clean air is to afford it to them as a matter of choice, by installing an environment, the only one which will suit their demands, and allow others to go about their business as usual through mutual respect exclusive of the hatred promotions consistent with TC advocacy.
I assume polution levels outdoors will climb, because as with TC other so called environmentalists are affordeed their conflicted opinions as well, in protecting the public.
We know for instance diesel exhaust is an immediate carcinogen meaning it does not take 30 years to see effects to prove physically Diesel exhaust is highly carcinogenic. Risks are immediate and consistently observed.
TC proof of carcinogenic risk is found only in estimations. Yet so called environmentalist are promoting the production of alternative energy sources almost exclusively focusing on coal and biological mass being converted to fuel. The fuel being produced is diesel fuel!!! as we move from gasoline to more diesel use, what is the predictable health risk result?
Similarly the wise ones who refer to themselves as Health care professionals and their partnered environmentalists, hogging the microphones of late, are also selling compact florescent lamps as a means of reducing greenhouse gases, while ignoring the increased production and use of mercury which will find it's way eventually into the landfills and more perilously injected directly into the blood stream through cuts when the lamps are broken. Cost and environmentally beneficial LED lights are being deliberately stalled in the production process, while we are being encouraged to purchase billions of mercury and phosphorus filled disasters.
Sam-
What I would need to see is very simple: studies of the levels of smoke constituents in actual establishments with the ventilation/filtration system in use. Then we could make a judgement as to the adequacy of these systems in removing the secondhand smoke threat.
For the engineers among us; considering the smoking room criticisms and a solution found in developing instead non smoking rooms.
How many of the complaints associated with negative flow ventilation could be solved with creation of a positive flow environment inside it, for the protection of those within?
How much cigarette smoke would travel from a negative flow into a positive flow environment as opposed to the opposite solution.
What political reasoning could then be employed to maintain smoking bans?
The employee issue is already a non starter by Michaels argument; employees could be educated and be compensated for accepting risk commensurate with salary.
Dr. Siegel: What I would need to see is very simple: studies of the levels of smoke constituents in actual establishments with the ventilation/filtration system in use.
Dr. Siegel, you are trying to solve an equation with multiple variables. But you are unable to provide the expected result.
"What I would need to see is very simple: studies of the levels of actual, measured exposure to ETS smoke constituents and their actual effect health effects."
What exactly is the level of exposure you would need to declare a restaurant "safe". You and I know it's not zero, but how much is it? And how do these levels compare to the ubiquitous levels in our day to day life?
What I would need to see is very simple: studies of the levels of smoke constituents in actual establishments with the ventilation/filtration system in use. Then we could make a judgement as to the adequacy of these systems in removing the secondhand smoke threat.Dr Siegel,is this based on MR barworker smoking the equivalent of 11/2 packs of cigarettes a day or any other such figure you suggest is appropriate ? Now,how does this happen to sit with your "desire" to see scientific credability ? I'd suggest it doesn't sit,it falls FLAT.
Gents,
as stated above by Walt, Dr Siegel will refer(if he answers at all) to Repace's ridiculous low level of 0.0008 um per cubic metre for nicotine and the circular debate starts afresh.
GreatScot
"What I would need to see is very simple: studies of the levels of smoke constituents in actual establishments with the ventilation/filtration system in use."
This is an intriguing response on several fronts. First, I am glad to see that you have switched over to demanding "actual" proof. To be consistent, I request that you provide me with the names of actual bartenders who have actually died from SHS exposure. Can't? I thought not.
But let's think through the demand for "actual establishments." Many of the best technologies are, of course, new technologies. Many of them are expensive. Can you think of any reason why more bar owners are not installing them, providing some good sites for collecting data?
I know. Let's go to New York City. There are thousands of bars and restaurants there. Let's look at the filtration systems and see which ones are best at removing SHS. Oh. Wait. Legislation that the doctor supports ruined the chance to make such observations. OK. Let's go to Pittsburgh, where there is no ban in place. Let's go to a bar that has installed a brand new $50,000 ventilation system to deal with SHS. Oh. Wait. No bar owner in his right mind would install an expensive new system to deal with SHS because of the looming threat of a ban.
I wonder how many people have died because of legislation that has slowed ventilation research and discouraged investment in the best system. I bet if one hundred percent of babysitters in Seattle jumped off of skyscrapers because of this development, the death toll would be enormous. But wait. That's a ridiculous assumption to make. Either way, maybe we will have to rely on lab studies to judge ventilation.
And maybe those studies should go out into the real world and see how much smoke is in an actual bar. I would contrast this with studies that assume a level of exposure that we all know to be false. Because using such an assumption would be misleading. Like, for instance, assuming that every bar that allows smoking has one smoker on the premises per year, and that smoker smokes one cigarette. Or assuming that all bartenders everywhere work 40 hours a week for 40 years.
Those kind of assumtions would be ridiculous. So I suggest we don't use them as the basis of our calculations. Agreed?
I would also point out that you have still not answered the question regarding what pollutants you would want measured, and what level of purity the systems would have to achieve. You obviously have some in mind. Because you have stated time and time again that the links provided here to do not discuss the chemicals pollutants you are interested in.
So which ones? And what level of purity would suffice?
I might also add something to the discussion of linearity in exposure. Someone just mentioned the doctor's much-discussed claim that a bar worker sucks in 1.5 packs of cigarettes per shift. Meaning 30 cigarettes.
A filtration system that removed 80 percent of the SHS would reduce that to 6 cigarettes, a 90 percent system would reduce it to 3 cigarettes; 99 percent would reduce it to one-third of one cigarettes per shift.
Doctor: How many Massachusetts bartenders would die if they inhaled the smoke from 1/3 of one cigarette per shift? If their careers lasted 40 seconds? If their career lasted 40 years? I think if we are going to measure one extreme, we ought to measure both.
Still waiting on direction for the peer reviewed studies supporting the 40/40 assumtion for 100 percent of bartenders. You said the assumptions you made were all peer reviewed.
Couldn't Dr. Siegel just adjust these OSHA numbers downward?
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/...DARDS&
p_id=9992
Dan inquired:
"To quote you "99% of which are caused by cigarettes". Citation please."
As long as cigars, smokeless tobacco and pipe tobacco all combined cause more than 4379 deaths annually in the U.S., cigarettes are responsible for at least 99% of tobacco deaths.
According to the CDC, an average of 437,902 deaths in the U.S. were attributed to cigarette smoking annually from 1997 to 2001.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/
mm5425a1.htm
If all smokeless tobacco products posed an excess relative risk (RR) of 4 (compared to never tobacco users) for oral cancer mortality, Rodu and Cole estimated there would be 6,000 oral cancer deaths annually due to smokeless tobacco if all 46 million smokers switched to smokeless, which also means that (using a RR of 4) smokeless tobacco is attributable for fewer than 600 oral cancer deaths annually among the 4.6 million smokeless tobacco users in the U.S.
But since virtually all epidemiological studies have found an excess RR of less than 1.5 (compared to never tobacco users) for oral cancer mortality associated with moist oral snuff and chewing tobacco, the estimated number of oral cancer deaths attributable to smokeless tobacco use in the U.S. is below 250 annually.
The number of male oral cancer deaths attributable to pipe smoking in the US in 1991 was estimated to range from 25 (using a 2 RR with lower prevalence data) to 120 (using a 3.3 RR with higher prevalence data), with a middle estimate of 40 oral cancer deaths. Nelson DE, Davis RM, Chrismon JH, Giovino GA, Pipe Smoking in the United States, 1965-1991: Prevalence and Attributable Mortality, Preventive Medicine 25, 91-99, 1996.
No mortality estimates due to cigar smoking have been published. But if the folks at the CDC truly believed that cigar smoking killed more than 3,000 Americans annually, I'm sure that they'd publish an estimate similar to the way SAMMEC is used to estimate cigarette attributable deaths.
So I remain confident that cigarettes are responsible for 99% of all tobacco attributable deaths in the U.S. And you can quote me on that.
peer reviewed studies also seemed to indicate marginalized members of communities share increased health risks by large proportions associated with reduced self worth and confidence.
It was once believed if smokers reduced consumption or quit altogether they enjoyed reduced health risk as a benefit. In a linear perspective those assumptions would be pointing us in the direction of the highest benefit being found in educating and encouraging moderation.
Non linearity dispels encouragement and moderation through myths without any requirement of explanation, and encourages legislation enforcing the ideals found in punishing individuals to encourage desired behavioral changes.
The rights involving ownership of your body and what will be produced by that body, in support of the State who claims, it owns all bodies, seems to indicate slavery is still alive and well, residing in the philosophies of progressive politics.
TC promotions concluding an increased health risk in significant numbers from miniscule casual exposures means we can put aside the smokers benefit idea altogether. With the promotions of a no safe level; smokers are all doomed and non smokers need to protect themselves at all costs, including political encouragement to be more aggressive in asserting air must always remain smoke free.
It is for the Kids after all. How will we ever teach them to understand what is afoot, when those supposedly in the know, can't even present their case consistently?
Also,
I would appreciate it if could clarify your position on bartenders--who cannot be trusted to figure out the risks that SHS poses...
Versus city council members--who you seem to think can take data you provide and extrapaolate it out o provide their own figures.
Why this difference? Do you have any peer reviewed studies that point to different mindsets among bartenders and elected officials?
Moreover, did you indicate to city council members that the relationship between exposure and mortality is linear? This is not an obvious conclusion. And not one we can just assume people will come to. Even if they are the kinds of brilliant people who serve on Amherst's City Council.
So again, did you give them instruction in this regard? Or did you trust them to be competent enough in terms of math and epidemiology to make the leap on their own?
This is a serious question. And one that I think deserves an answer.
You don't exactly need the numbers of how current ventilation systems work to answer the question of "How much do they have to remove". Maybe I'm misunderstanding your answer, but that seems a set up so you can say "Oh, see, no ventilation system can remove enough". To ask for what they can do instead of simply saying "I want it down to this much" is very much a set up, and the information you are requesting has absolutely nothing to do with the answer you could give. I have these kids, and this is exactly the way they argue, because it's easy to win this argument and make it impossible for anyone else to win.
I suppose you could be saying that you would like to know if those ventilation systems work as advertised in a real smoking environment. However, given the way "science" has been working, I'm a bit offended that you'd hold ventilation to a higher standard than yourself. I mean, you feel justified making extreme claims (40/40=dead bartenders) and expect people to accept THAT science, and yet everyone else must use real life science, which by the way is impossible thanks to the bans you helped enact.Wow, no matter how you go, you get to win this one, huh?
Personally, I don't have a problem with real science and would prefer a return to it. I just think it's crappy for TC to be allowed to make assumption after assumption and advertise it as "fact" and then expect the other side to exceed those expectations. Where's the real life numbers for those bartenders?
Bill, you do realize that you are a contemptible person, right? And very, very selfish. The funny thing is we, smokers y'know, are willing to compromise. You however, want to take OUR habit away while maintaining your own. Not to mention, you look at the science on ST as lies while accepting the science on tobacco like gospel, funny enough the science done by the same individuals. The simple fact is, smokers could actually kill everyone immediately by lighting up and not be as bad a human being as you are. Even Cathy is a better person. Not too intelligent, but a better person.
And you can say this is name calling if you will, but I don't really think it is if we are using you as an example. If you can call us selfish murders, I can call you a bad human being. Some may find this harsh, but Bill states his opinion on us so frequently I feel justified in being equally honest.
Jalestra;
Bill simply sees himself as a superior being, his limited mindset justifies the contempt he holds for others. He apparently has no visible income however he is the acting president of his own invented fan club. The only contribution to society he has been involved in for at least 16 years as he explains it; a life's obsession derived from a political speech by the former surgeon General of all people, back in in 1986.
He claims in reference to anothewr post "first they laughed at him" well guess what most of the sane people on this planet are still laughing at him.
That should draw a fine picture in your mind's eye as to who you are dealing with.
Don't take Bill too seriously. the TC ideology as expected; with most promotions of hatred, will draw many anti social personalities into the fray. Just be thankful we are not all like them. Few are.
Just think of him as the politically correct David Dukes and be confident, in the long run, observing fads and political impositions, nothing ever lasts.
"So I remain confident that cigarettes are responsible for 99% of all tobacco attributable deaths in the U.S. And you can quote me on that"
http://www.americanthinker.com/
2...calls_hims.html
~snip~
"So what kind of person needs to believe that? What kind of shriveled self-respect makes you want to feel that nobody is as Progressive and "post" as you are? What school curriculum has taught you to have such contempt for others?"
"If you can put the world at a disadvantage by implicitly accusing them of sin, you can also manipulate and oppress others, conscious of your own moral superiority. Evidence is not required."
.
Peer review is a short term prerequisite to consensus by agreement,the new fall back position for ranti statistics and agenda fulfillment. For the rest,sticking their head in the sand (or elsewhere for that matter) whistling Dixie is about as advantageous as demanding scientific credability.I'm so glad for you Bill that you can promote your smokeless tobacco using epidemiological studies that suit,but ignore the many others which suggest (1)you are WRONG (2)SMOKING IS LESS HAZZARDOUS THAN YOU WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE (3)YOUR DIATRIBE CONCERNING SHS AND THE DANGERS ARE GROSSLY EXAGGERATED AND PRONE TO REMOVAL OF RELEVANT DETAILS .
Way OT, but very interesting if you can believe polls:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/v...y-were-the-
days
~snip~
"“Many aspects of contemporary life, such as invasive methods of law enforcement or modern conveniences, are generally unwelcome."
Sunz,far from being OT it sums things up to perfection.Politicians who don't suffer from corruption in this day and age,err i couldn't name ONE ,but it doesn't stop there,the HEALTH PROVIDERS,what agenda will it be today...ad infinitum.
Bill G. wrote: "Dan inquired:
"To quote you "99% of which are caused by cigarettes". Citation please."
As long as cigars, smokeless tobacco and pipe tobacco all combined cause more than 4379 deaths annually in the U.S., cigarettes are responsible for at least 99% of tobacco deaths.
According to the CDC, an average of 437,902 deaths in the U.S. were attributed to cigarette smoking annually from 1997 to 2001.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/ mm5425a1.htm"
Bill I do not have time today to review your link today. I will try to do so tomorrow and comment on it. Thanks for the link.
Si "Politicians who don't suffer from corruption in this day and age,err i couldn't name ONE"
I was listening to a talk show on the radio and one of the commentors kept referring to politicians as: Polichickens!!! LOL
Right-O Si, it all makes you wonder what will be next. But of course it will be for our own good!
to echo on kevin's insightful point:
Since the majority of those when given choice will congregate in the smoking section, the non smoking room would be much smaller
this wonderful and charming piece is from boston globe/boston.com, the writer from brookline, mass of all places. my, my...
By Edith Pearlman | September 10, 2007
I KEEP a handful of gold-tipped mauve cigarettes on my coffee table. They fan out from a fluted glass like exotic reeds. There's an ashtray too, and a box of matches. I don't offer the cigarettes to anyone; but the display itself tells visitors that they are welcome to indulge.
Not long ago my husband and I gave a party for about 90 people. There was a buffet in the dining room. Pony-tailed helpers twirled with trays of canapes. A pianist played jazz in the living room. A bartender dispensed hard drinks and soft ones in the sunroom.
Beyond this sunroom is a little office with a table and three chairs. I had moved the cigarettes and their works there, out of concern for guests who might be bothered by other people's exhalations. As my smoking friends arrived - they number eight women and two men - I advised each in turn that the weeds were in the office.
This had two unexpected results. One: A few guests objected to the advertised presence of the Smoking Room. These were people who, however offended, would have held their tongues if I'd hired a belly dancer to supplement the pianist; they would have managed to overlook target practice in the backyard. Yet they were outspokenly horrified at my small courtesy.
Two: the Smoking Room - unventilated, awkward to reach - was inordinately popular. The grateful smokers used it from time to time, often accompanied by the nonsmoker they were talking to when they felt the familiar yearning. Other guests ventured in unescorted, and stayed.
One man, a nonsmoker, spent most of the party in one of the chairs, the conversation swirling around him. I made sure that the ponytails kept him supplied with wine. Whenever I poked my head into the Smoking Room I noted that the guests there were animated, just as they were in the rest of the house; that laughter joyously rose, though no more ringingly than elsewhere; and that the air was aromatic, if cloudy.
In the Smoking Rooms of great 19th-century houses, men in velvet jackets talked about politics and horses and women. By the middle of the 20th century, though, "Smoking Room" referred to the section of a public facility where smoking was expressly allowed. In a library it was the vaulted reading room. In train stations it was the waiting area. In hotels it was the lobby: Beside every chair stood a metal ashtray whose thick stem rose from a weighted bulb.
My cramped Smoking Room is what those grand halls have come down to. And at other parties, smokers usually have to step outside. My friends have become familiar with back stoops and driveways. They are mostly light users. One smokes five cigarettes a week. Another smokes four a day (the late pope, it was rumored, smoked only three). They know the danger of tobacco, which can cause cancer; they know as well the sweet usefulness of the nicotine residing in the tobacco: a habit-forming alkaloid that clarifies, soothes, and heightens, all at the same time.
Smokers are the first to say that smoking in excess is not good for you. Anything in excess is not good for you, righteous indignation included.
Every one of us can figure out what the smokers in my Smoking Room were getting, though we might describe it diversely - they were getting a chance to enjoy their recreation, gratify their habit, surrender to their addiction, indulge their vice, and practice their perversion. But what were the nonsmokers getting, to make them linger in that blue haze? Perhaps, in a passive way, they too found clarity and elevation. Or perhaps they were sniffing a particular blend of wariness and tolerance: wariness that raises an eyebrow at conventional wisdom, tolerance that gives people with unpopular pleasures a little room.
Edith Pearlman is a short story writer who lives in Brookline.
OK, so if the data don't exist to document that filtration/ventilation systems are available which will reduce the levels of smoke constituents in a room by 95-99%, then why are you arguing that filtration/ventilation is an adequate solution to the secondhand smoke problem? You're basically agreeing with me that there is no evidence to support the use of ventilation/filtration to solve this problem.
Thank you brandz. Civility is so refreshing.
JTF -- just realized that my post about Michael as advocate vs. reseacher largely echoed your first post on this thread. *smile* Guess it was worth repeating.
I don't know why I happened to think about this tonight, but the best times I have had socially have occurred in smoke-filled environments. The very smell of tobacco smoke brings back some very fond memories, especially of sports bars where I used to watch the college football games on Saturday nights. Also of pool halls and bridge clubs.
I would suspect that the data, at least raw data do (let's pretend it's singular -- sounds much better) does exist, as to the capabilities of ventilation systems. I don't know a lot about such things -- but would find it hard to believe they sell them without testing their efficiency.
But I think Sam was asking you to specify your requirements before he or anyone else went hunting. IS that the requirement? 95-99% of smoke constituents? Is that smoke in general, or specific to tobacco? Anything else we need to know...?
Kevin, I can't help letting people like Bill bother me. It takes a pretty pathetic disgusting individual to scream about how bad beer is, but put whiskey forth as a miracle cure, when his favorite drink is whiskey. There's a word that fits this kind of behavior (other than hypocrisy), but I'm too tired to think of it. Maybe in the morning it'll hit me.
Michael -- you didn't REALLY post that did you? The man who helped take away my pool halls... makes me wanna cry. I try not to think about the fact that I will never again enter a pool hall.
But yes, because smokers tend to be a friendly and sociable bunch. The ignorance TC shows about the "culture" of smoking astounds me. No benefit? What a joke.
OT but even more bans. let's just ban everything and stay home. it just gets more and more pathetic.
http://www.king5.com/topstories/
...J.d238e252.html
Jalestra - pecksniffery is a good word. It's fun to say too!
--------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
OK, so if the data don't exist to document that filtration/ventilation systems are available which will reduce the levels of smoke constituents in a room by 95-99%, then why are you arguing that filtration/ventilation is an adequate solution to the secondhand smoke problem? You're basically agreeing with me that there is no evidence to support the use of ventilation/filtration to solve this problem.
Michael Siegel
OK, Dr. Siegel let's shoot for 99%. The guy at Air Quality Engineering indicated that he could bury me in filtration performance tests and specifications. The guy at SmokeEaters said they could take out 99%+ of the ETS if someone would pay for multiple systems.
Kathy Drea of ALA is using secret particulate tests to pan the ventilation/filtration systems at the Casino Queen. Her goal is to stop a move by the Illinois Senate to provide casinos with a filtration exemption:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday...73?
OpenDocument
I wish Kathy could explain to me how filtration can handle smoke like this:
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/c...com/
chrome6.php
Bill H. -- they again argue that casino bans won't hurt business -- haven't they been listening to Donald Trump? And I love science conducted by people with agendas, using "hidden", "secret" ("toaster sized"?) devices. Inspires such confidence.
"Why be concerned about Chromium VI? Hexavalent chromium (Cr VI) is an IARC-1 human carcinogen. According to the EPA, "The best estimate of the excess risk of lung cancer from exposure to hexavalent chromium...is 8 cases of cancer in every 100 workers exposed." -Environmental Protection Agency, Chromium VI (CASRN 18540-29-9)."
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/c...com/
chrome6.php
This page claims Air Quality Engineering Ambient Air Filtration Systems can protect workers against Chromium 6 well enough that workers don't have to stay in restricted areas or wear gas masks. But these same machines can't adequately protect bartenders against cigarette smoke?
"The new Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) of 0.005 mg/m3 is very low and many welding and thermal cutting tasks are likely to require Supplied Air respiratory protection in the absence of engineering controls. Only proven engineering controls (such as source capture filtration from Air Quality Engineering, Inc) can eliminate the need for the regulated areas. Filtration (rather than simple exhaust to the outside) allows recirculation of expensive conditioned air and reduces the size of the regulated area and reduces the number of affected employees."
First do no harm (but it's okay if you're dealing with loonies):
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/
...n_exemption.php
Excerpt:
"A ROW has erupted at a York mental health hospital amid claims that staff are being forced to passive smoke while on duty.
"Under the new smoke-free legislation brought in on July 1, residential mental health units could opt to designate specific smoking rooms to allow patients to smoke inside.
"But staff at Bootham Park Hospital told The Press it was unfair that their health was being put at risk because of the exemption.
"York GP Dr Brian McGregor has backed their plight [!] and said there was no medical reason why the smoking ban should not apply to mental health patients too."
Ain’tcha proud, Dr. Siegel -- one of your own?! But how do you like 'passive smoke' as a verb phrase?
P.S. to Walt. Thanks for the thought.
.
GDF, if bans hurt business, then the Casino Queen will get creamed. Competing boats are just across the river in St. Louis.
To: Bill Godshall "Send you a plague of dead cattle"
We used to be angry reading your posts, Bill. Now it just seems that the general consensus is that we feel sorry for you.
You just can't stand the fact that somewhere:
Some guy/gal you've never met,
In a state you've never been to,
In a city you've never heard of,
In a bar you would never walk into,
On property you don't own...
Smokes a cigarette.
You must put a stop to it! What a miserable existence you have.
Please respond to me directly so I can verbally kick your ass up and down the sidewalk for public amusement.
So this quote will be ours next: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." And the history books will once again scornfully write about this current trend's makers. --JustTheFacts
"Thank you, thank you ver' much." --Elvis Presley
Now, more than half of U.S. residents live in a jurisdiction that has enacted a smokefree workplace law (including bars) and more than 80% of workplaces are smokefree. I considered that to be a big win (although some pockets of resistance still exist where we continue achieving progress). --Bill Godshall
"And this, too, shall pass away." --Abraham Lincoln, September 30, 1859
"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." --Abraham Lincoln, December 1840
...
For Bill H.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/
...2_568_23_07.txt
"NEWARK, N.J. -- Two Atlantic City casinos, blaming increased competition and a partial smoking ban for sinking profits, are offering buyouts to managers to avoid layoffs, according to a published report Thursday.
The president of Resorts Atlantic City and Atlantic City Hilton, both owned by Colony Capital of Los Angeles, said that the managers are being offered one week's pay for every year of service with the casinos.
"The Atlantic City casino industry is facing its most difficult economic times since the inception of casino gaming," Tony Rodio, regional president of the two casinos, told The Star-Ledger of Newark in a story posted on the newspaper's Web site.
"Increased competition in Pennsylvania, New York, and other nearby states, coupled with the devastating impact of a 75 percent smoking ban in the casino are factors which has the industry on pace for its first-ever year of revenue decline," Rodio said. "In fact, we estimate that this partial smoking ban has resulted in $1 million in lost revenue per month at Hilton and Resorts combined."
Colony Capital had no immediate response to a request Thursday to speak with Rodio.
The partial smoking ban began April 15. Earlier this month, Donald Trump, whose company has three casinos in the city, urged that the City Council repeal the ban. Casinos were excluded from a statewide ban on smoking in public places that took effect last year, prompting the council to enact a local ordinance.
Last week, state regulators announced that quarterly net income at Atlantic City's 11 casinos fell 34 percent, giving the industry its second consecutive quarterly drop. The state Casino Control Commission also reported that net revenues fell 6.1 percent and gross operating profit dropped 19 percent in the quarter for the seaside gambling halls."
and so on...
“The right way to deal with anti smokers demanding clean air is to afford it to them as a matter of choice, by installing an environment, the only one which will suit their demands, and allow others to go about their business as usual through mutual respect exclusive of the hatred promotions consistent with TC advocacy.”… Kevin
Kevin,
I honestly appreciate your thoughts. I would suggest that nonsmokers as opposed to anti-smokers should be afford an environment that fits their particular needs.
I would further suggest that many anti-smokers should be afforded an environment that serves to protect and preserve the best of public interests.
I think most understand the difference between non-smokers and anti-smokers. Unfortunately, the horrific truth is that as a society, at some point these distinct labels including “smoker” have been inject into the populous through the promotions of smoking bans. With that came an environment ignorant to the thought of “mutual respect.” TC knowingly or unknowingly helped create and continues to promote such an environment. The SG press conference I referred to was simply part of the process.
The problem, aside for property rights issues and such, is that these measures where taken in part to help define a smoke free society. Mutual respect being part of the glue which holds us together as a society, has taken a back seat. Replaced by “they’ll get use to it” and “tough love”, and the like.
You know Kevin, that it comes down at some point to protecting your family, your friends and others who soundly disagree with these promotions. I don’t classify that as “hate”.
I think we have a responsibility to recognize when others beat down our doors and even a greater responsibility to have the courage to pick up the door and beat them over the head with it. So to speak.
I will say, that I am less concerned about the smoking issue and more concerned about how it has expanded into other issues and areas. I think it’s a real and troublesome concern.
“What I would need to see is very simple: studies of the levels of smoke constituents in actual establishments with the ventilation/filtration system in use. Then we could make a judgement as to the adequacy of these systems in removing the secondhand smoke threat.”
Are we now to accept Dr. Siegel’s terms for a discussion on ventilation/filtration systems? Remember, this guy sees a secondhand smoke threat on patios! This is the guy who said it might be OK to have a smoking section in a stadium SO LONG AS THERE WAS NO POSSIBILITY OF A WISP OF SMOKE DRIFTING OVER INTO THE NON-SMOKING SECTIONS! Doctor, why not equip patio staff with personal monitoring devices and see what you get at the end of a day -- if you have the honesty and courage? (This is absolute farce!)
Recently I ran across an old note that says: “Oak Ridge concluded that wait staff inhaled the equivalent of six cigarettes per year.” Even if that were off by a factor of 10, you’d still get only the equivalent of 3 packs a year!
So we now need studies as to the adequacy of systems in removing the secondhand smoke THREAT. Doctor, why do you find is so difficult giving us an English sentence that’s not a damn propaganda line? This guy has absolutely no shame.
So, ok, ventilation/filtration. Just how much damn ventilation/filtration is required to bring the “threat” down to a level that would satisfy not only OSHA standards but any but the most hysterical? Second, instead of just measuring smoke constituents, why not have a more robust benchmark that compares the cleanliness of the air OVERALL to what it is with no smoking? Are we talking about healthy air or are we talking tendentious crap?
I don’t remember any of us signing up for a moon walk, doctor.
.
Old file item (for what it's worth):
file:///e:/ETS%20DOSSIER/VENTILATION/Air%
20filters.htm
Sorry, goofed. It was a New York Post article.
In full it's:
May 16, 2004 -- New York pub owners are pinning their hopes on a 90-pound gadget to put butts - and cash - back into bars.
It's called the Airistar 1000, an air purifier that removes dangerous microscopic contaminants - like germs, fungal spores, even anthrax - from the air.
Spurred on by bar owners who say the smoking ban has extinguished their take by as much as 40 percent, two Albany lawmakers are finalizing identical bills that would permit smoking where filters like the Airistar 1000 are installed.
The $3,500 gizmo - so named because it cleans 1,000 cubic feet of air per minute - can eliminate 99 percent of cigarette smoke in a matter of minutes.
Manufactured by Illinois company Airistar, it's equipped with wheels for mobility and can blend into the background of a bar as a table.
"These state-of-the-art filters make room air cleaner than what you breathe outside," New York Night Life Association spokesman Basil Anastassiou said after a recent demonstration in the office of Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito (D-Rome). State Sen. Raymond Meier (R-Western) is also sponsoring a similar bill.
According to he company's advertising manager, Sean Burke, 115 Airistar 1000s have been sold around the country since they went on sale eight months ago, and 19 were bought by restaurants and bars.
Sam Pappas, owner of Market Square, a bar 20 miles outside of Chicago, installed the gadget to quell customers' complaints about smoky air, despite the fact that Illinois hasn't imposed a smoking ban.
"We hold events ranging from birthdays to Super Bowl parties, and I'd get complaints about the mist of smoke," Pappas said. "Now the place is crystal clear."
Even if Albany's new laws are passed, the Big Apple won't be immediately inhaling the benefits.
"New York City's laws are more stringent than the bill I'm proposing - and the city's law would preempt it," Meier said.
"However, passage of my bill might persuade city council members to follow suit."
The New York Night Life Association is armed with a petition addressed to Gov. Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno signed by 40,000 from bar patrons and workers - one-quarter from New York City - asking that smoking be permitted in air-filtered bars.
Almost a year after Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban went into effect on July 24, 2003, New York City bars are still feeling the economic burn.
"The city's bars lose on average an estimated 15 to 19 percent in revenues because of the ban," said Brian Nolan, executive director of United Restaurant & Tavern Owners of New York, Inc.
Interviews with more than a dozen bar owners and managers conducted by The Post show the revenue loss is often even more extreme.
Fiddlers Green, a bar on West 48th Street, shut down April 1.
"Sales were down 25 percent," said Eugene Wilson, the bar's manager. "Three of our waitresses left because they weren't making enough in tips."
Sandee Wright, the co-owner of Whiskey Ward on Essex Street, said she was battling a 30 to 40 percent drop in sales.
"I've had to lay three people off, starting with my doorman - my husband does it for free now," she said.
Harry, if ventilation/filtration machines can protect indoor parking lot attendants and indoor welders from smoke and fumes that can kill in less than an hour, why can't these same machines protect bartenders from environmental tobacco smoke that might kill after 40 years? I still don't get it. Will someone please explain this to me again very slowly.
In response to a request for information from Norm Kjono, I received the following (slightly edited) in March of 2005:
“I have particular knowledge on [air system technology] because my company did ...a study which analyzed our Indoor Air Quality system.
“... our system has HEPA filters and activated charcoal beds. The charcoal does address gaseous constituents of ETS, as our study clearly shows. We wound up with indoor air at our facility that was superior to outdoor air on both a gaseous and particulate basis with smoking permitted at work stations.
“And, indeed, ... facilities with comprehensive air quality systems to address ETS can be healthier than those without such capabilities. The same system that addresses ETS also reduces levels of
carbon monoxide and many other gasses (such as off-gassing fluorocarbons), pollens, dust, airborne bacteria, and other harmful constituents while it addresses ETS.”
Since I take all of this to be honest and accurate on the part of Mr. Kjono, the question has to be asked, WHERE IS THE PROBLEM? Isn’t it perfectly obvious that with specs like that there would not only be no problem, but that with such a system in operation your air would be purer in a smoking bar than in a bar without the equipment that is smoke-free? And isn’t it obvious as well that 1. the technology exists to satisfy the most demanding critic, and that 2. the standards here given are way above any that would be required in a bar that allows smoking, and that a much cheaper solution could easily do the job? Especially, to repeat, when bartenders smoke the equivalent in secondhand smoke of a few cigarettes a year?
OK, if now Dr. Siegel wishes to stick with his ½ to 2-1/2 packs a day nonsense (or whatever the figures were), let him answer the question: What danger does even the elevated measurement of the 2 or 3 chemicals he used to get the ½ to 2 packs a day figure pose to the health of bartenders? Has he finally answered that question, when hitherto he seems to have avoided addressing it as though it were the plague?
.
Bill H.,
Shysterism isn't in the business of giving explanations.
.
Harry, the guy who put me on to this filtration technology is a former lounge owner who is allergic to smoke, hates smoking, believes Surgeon General Carmona's press statements yet installed some X-11Qs to deal with his lounge smoke. Though he prefers smoking bans, he thinks such filtration technology if properly maintained can make a smoking venue tolerable and reduce ETS risks to safe levels.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/x-11q.php
Michael Siegel wrote: “OK, so if the data don't exist to document that filtration/ventilation systems are available which will reduce the levels of smoke constituents in a room by 95-99%, then why are you arguing that filtration/ventilation is an adequate solution to the secondhand smoke problem? You're basically agreeing with me that there is no evidence to support the use of ventilation/filtration to solve this problem.”
While I cannot supply the data you ask for, I can tell you that filtration systems do work. The reason their probably is no data is because if it was researched the results would go against the TC agenda (no safe level). However, you do not support outdoor smoking bans, why? Is there data supporting the fact that SHS outdoors is so much safer then indoors? I would point out that with filtration an outdoor environment can be simulated. Of course this can go both ways in that TC can claim that there is no safe level of outdoor SHS. What I can tell you is even without filtration I could design a room divided in two where one half could smoke and the other half doesn’t. As long as the air in the room is moving in one direction with for example exhaust fans the smoke would also only move in one direction. From a scientific stand point air is a fluid like water. Go to a stream or local moving body of water and apply dye. Which way will the dye move, upstream or downstream? This involves no filtration. As long as you do not define a safe level of SHS exposure, you are correct a filtration system cannot be designed. While what I am about to say is purely anecdotal, we had I relatively new restaurant open here recently that does provide good filtration. While smoking, I noticed the side stream smoke leaving my cigarette heading directly in the direction of the filtrations system intake, only exhaled spread. The smoking room itself did not have the lingering smoke often seen in unfiltered rooms where one can see the boundary between smoke (near the ceiling) and non smoke (near the floor). Nor can I say that the filtration system exhausted the intake outdoors and if not that the smoke was completely removed. But such studies should be trivial to do. Why haven’t they? It would not support the agenda in trying to get everyone to quit smoking.
Mr. Bill wrote:
But since virtually all epidemiological studies have found an excess RR of less than 1.5 (compared to never tobacco users) for oral cancer mortality associated with moist oral snuff and chewing tobacco, the estimated number of oral cancer deaths attributable to smokeless tobacco use in the U.S. is below 250 annually.
Hey, Doc--
Does that qualify to make him "callous"? Seems we were callous about the fictional deaths of 220 fictional bartenders, and here he is heartlessly dismissing the real deaths of the same number of chewers. I expect an equivalent reprimand to follow,
And since when is an RR of "less than 1.5" dismissed as implicitly negligible, anyway? Seems to me I once heard a 1.19 listed as cassus belli.
:
Harry,Bill H, HAVEN'T WE ALREADY ANSWERED OUR QUESTIONS ? DR SIEGEL DOES NOT SEEK TO BECOME EMBROILED IN A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE FINER PARTICULATE MATTER IN VENTILATION SYSTEMS.
Dan;
Your observations are entirely on the mark. Smoke can not swim upstream there is no magnetic force which compels it to defy the laws of science. Only active and determined imaginations will defend "smoke can not be managed" the same way we stay dry with a roof overhead.
Minor flaws will always be expressed as major health risks irregardless of safety real or imagined. The so called studies put forth by comics like Repace are largely accepted because there is a want to believe, regardless of scientific credibility.
As I suggested in a non smoking room positively ventilated smoke could not travel into the room and leakage would be beneficial in airflow moving away from the room. Similarly utilizing existing technology with negative force airflow, smoke will move toward the more preasure positive controlled vents.
Repace and others get away with taking advantage of close to source measurements capturing samples on route toward the vents and explain the deceit with language like "can still be as high as" while ignoring the normal average actually found throughout the room or the rate of air exchanges affecting dilution levels.
Ventilation is limited in an ability to control smoke at source unless it controls the smoke in such a way it can not be inhaled by others as it travels "the gold standard"
The fanatical crowd has established a beach head in promoting a belief any smell of smoke is dangerous nullifying the ability of the human body to deal with it. The bent ignores other toxic environmental constituents and focuses only on the smell of smoke. If you can't eliminate all possibility smoke will never be detected by the senses including by sight, there will be no safe level according to the extremists and that would be regardless if a real risk exists or not.
The hazard has mutated to the point the act of smoking creates unacceptable risk to any non smokers who know about it.
Why is it when seeing a group standing outside a bar on a Friday night indulging in a smoke the one word which comes to mind is "uncivilized"?
De-normalization is actually de-civilization as we are separated, first out of respect in non smoking sections and now out of abusive attitudes claiming all indoor spaces. An act I can only describe as promoted hatred and certainly anything but civilized.
"You're basically agreeing with me that there is no evidence to support the use of ventilation/filtration to solve this problem.”
I am not sutre whether to hope you are being painfully sarcastic or willfully obtuse. Either way, it's an incredibly disappointing response. Either way, allow me to clarify the point in hopes of getting a different response.
The question is whether or not evidence generated in a lab using scientific methods and advanced statistical analysis is acceptable when attempting to guide public policy regarding SHS. There are two possible responses: 1) Such data is acceptable, or 2) Such data sucks and should not be accepted.
Whatever your answer anybody committd to consistency, you would be forced to apply that answer when it is convenient for his position and when it is inconvenient. Right?
So. The original question was what kind of data you would require to accept a filtration system. You said you needed real-word data from actual establishments using the system. That is, you gave Answer 2.
But if we apply Answer 2 consistently, there is no basis for banning SHS in bars. Because time and time again, people asked you for direct evidence of dead bartenders, lung cancer and heart disease. You can provide none. No names. No corpses. No "real world" examples of the carnage you predict. So maybe ventilation experts can't go to a bar to prove their point. But you can't go to a cemetery to prove yours. And you can't go to an actual bar to show where your victims contracted their disease.
Besides. A room is a room, whether it is a bar or a 20-foot by 20-foot lab. And SHS is SHS. This is a much better approximation of "real world" than anything you can muster for your argument.
But let's say you decide to change your answer to Answer 1. Which would be a more honest answer. That is, you have based tyour entire career on lab experiments and statistical analysis. Well, if you are willing to accept statistical analysis and lab methods, consistency dictates that you accept statistical analysis and lab methods in response to your statistical analysis and lab methods.
And this hooey about there being "no evidence" is exactly that. Hooey. There is evidence. But you rejected it as insufficient. So I asked you to tell me what kind of evidence you would accept. I asked you to tell me what level the pollutants would have to be reduced to. In conjunction with that, I asked you to use your claims of a linear relationship to tell me what the RR would be for a bartender who worked in a place that had a filtration system that removed 90 percent of SHS, and one that removed 99 percent.
I did this for a reason. Because I am waiting for you to bust out the 0.000008 figure. And when you do, I want to discuss how that would work when applied to the 1.19 RR, because reducing that by such an astonishing proportion would seem to be requiring an RR far lower than the one we apply to other risks.
Perhaps this is bad math. In which case I will plead guilty. At which time I will ask why I am having such a hard time doing the calculations, but the elected officials in Massachusetts could be expepected to do them so easily.
Maybe writers like me are just really stupid like bartenders. Or maybe you are right and amateurs can't do the math without a little help. In which case it would appear that you made an egregious error in assuming that the elected officials could take a tiny data point and extrapolate it to get the numbers they need.
Last, you said all you assumptions in the 220 case were backed by peer-reviewed evidence. Still sticking to that?
By the way, there is a gargantuanarticle in today's NYT magazine about how unreliable epidemiology is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/
1...agewanted=print
Interesting stuff:
"Smoking and lung cancer is the emblematic success story of chronic-disease epidemiology. But lung cancer was a rare disease before cigarettes became widespread, and the association between smoking and lung cancer was striking: heavy smokers had 2,000 to 3,000 percent the risk of those who had never smoked. This made smoking a “turkey shoot,” says Greenland of U.C.L.A., compared with the associations epidemiologists have struggled with ever since, which fall into the tens of a percent range. The good news is that such small associations, even if causal, can be considered relatively meaningless for a single individual. If a 50-year-old woman with a small risk of breast cancer takes H.R.T. and increases her risk by 30 percent, it remains a small risk."
A small risk. Huh. I wonder how small it is for SHS. Unfortunatley, the article doesn't even deem that significant enough for discussion.
So much for the threat being "obvious" and "severe."
"You're basically agreeing with me that there is no evidence to support the use of ventilation/filtration to solve this problem.”
Could we clarify the "Problem" So we can attempt to find a mutually beneficial solution?
To date outside of political spin the "Problem" seems to be much more of an imagination driven phobia, than any clearly defined "problem" in scientific terms.
Depending on who presents the news release, the "Problem" seems to find a multitude of definitions and few in scientific terms actually do stand up to peer review or moral integrity.
The irresponsibility seen in a scientist acting as a politician [The bane of Public Health theology] has directly caused a mortality toll throughout history beyond the total of all other mortality risks.
We would be hard pressed to find a scientist or politician who would openly praise the Eugenics movement however universally they promote exactly those principles in supporting the public health movement. Or as we know it "public health reform".
The Galton Institute [formerly The Eugenics Education Society, later the Eugenics Society] as a participating policy maker at the WHO stands as an indictment of what is really behind the curtain.
Sam;
Thanks for that link.
I would love to hear some enlightenment from the leaders of TC in response to their moralizations of the following from your link;
"The dangerous game being played here, as David Sackett, a retired Oxford University epidemiologist, has observed, is in the presumption of preventive medicine. The goal of the endeavor is to tell those of us who are otherwise in fine health how to remain healthy longer. But this advice comes with the expectation that any prescription given — whether diet or drug or a change in lifestyle — will indeed prevent disease rather than be the agent of our disability or untimely death. With that presumption, how unambiguous does the evidence have to be before any advice is offered? "
220 bartenders was a careless and perhaps dangerous public dispensation of health relevant information, which could have served less dangerous use if held within the annals of science, for responsible evaluation, as opposed to being promoted as a tool of advocacy.
Kevin,
Yes. Careless and perhaps dangerous. That's about right.
The doctor defends himself by saying that he is not aware of any studies indicating the average length of a bartending career. But that did not prevent him from selecting a number to use. He chose 100 percent of bartenders working a 40/40 career. He could have chosen 50 percent. Or 85 percent. Or 20 percent.
He could have just guessed. Which would have been sloppy. But at least that would have offered a small chance of being accurate. He chose 100 percent, which happens to be just about the only number that can be eliminated as a possibility. And the number that expresses the danger in the most exaggerated way possible. The BLS has identified restaurant work as one of the professions most closely associated with part-time and seasonal work.
Yes. The doctor continues to say that he thinks discovering the "lifetime mortality risk" is useful. But that's really strange, because he does not think that is useful at all when discussing other careers. For instance, when discussing NASCAR, he insists on using real numbers. He never makes any effort to compare the risks equally by assuming that NASCAR drivers are behind the wheel racing 40 hours a week for 40 years.
What he does is refer to ACTUAL mortality. He names a number of dead drivers that would convince him to advocate for a ban on racing. And when someone points out that the mortality far exceeds that number, he changes the subject.
You can call that a lot of things. Scientific ain't one of them.
So... if city council members can be expected to do the math on their own and come up with a real mortality risk for bartenders--as opposed to the doctor's inflated numbers--perhaps we can expect the doctor, a math pro, to run the numbers for NASCAR. How many drivers would we expect to die if they worked 40/40? The doctor obviously does not consider this a trivial subject, as he has discussed it seriously in the past. And clearly the math is not beyond him, as he thinks elected officials with no training can master it. And he says that the lifetime mortality risk, expressed in terms of a 40/40 career, is important to know.
So, doctor: Is the lifetime mortality risks from SHS exposure greater than or less than the lifetime mortality risk of driving a stock car?
Sam;
examining the usefulness of calculating maximum mortality risk. The inly way it could be found useful is in comparing it to minimum to find the average or net.
In the net calculation we can state what Michael actually found [assuming say 100,000 in the trade] the risk is 220 in 100,000
Utilizing TC methodology we can also state; ETS is beneficial to long term health with so many known to be exposed. The small proportions of those not exposed would not see the obvious benefits of close to 99.9% observed to be exposed, who lived longer and avoided the devastating effects of smoking related disease, as a direct result of ETS exposures in the workplace. Lowered risks, compared to the lifetime risks of moderate smokers which are known to be much higher.
Michael would be the first to attack that statement, yet would continue to utilize the same reasoning expressing 220 of 100,000 is a huge "preventable" mortality risk. In evidence all he offers is numbers he claims to sustain his theory, which can actually be read both ways.
Why debate ventilation at all? As far as I am concerned the so called science of ETS is nothing more than trying to pull the imaginary rabbit out of a hat. Most of these so called studies using the Cox Regression method based on questioneers that sits on a foundation of recall bias in many cases third party recalls collected by those that are trying to satisfy a point of finding a positive which promotes more bias proves nothing. ETS is the only thing easier to indicted than a ham sandwich. That all being said at least a ham sandwich gets its day in a real court. So in the end there is an easy way to settle this. SHOW ME REAL BODIES OF THE DEAD AND MAIMED!
Looks like your body truly belongs to the stat. No surprises to find the state in question is kooky Kalifornia.
http://
www.democracyinaction.org...ast_KEY=1077060
GreatScot
Epidemiology gets some bad press.
http://www.latimes.com/features/...ome-
middleright
GreatScot
BTW; I know there are many more than 100,000 in the industry and many more in total outside of the industry who have been chronically exposed. The figure was just a point of reference utilized to demonstrate my point.
Very few in total population have not been casually exposed.
With that in mind how could any research measure elevated risk due to casual exposure? Today most in the population according to TC research, are convinced there is a substantial danger from casual exposures, otherwise smoking bans would not be possible at all.
The final number can be indicative of both positions, Michael just prefers to see things his own way.
Epidemiology is an expression of politics and can be crafted to pass peer review while reflecting any theory you wish.
Proof can be found when TC attacks research claiming "tobacco industry bias" as the only explanation they can offer, to prove deception is afoot, after peer review fails to demonstrate support for their groups theories.
From GreatScot's link;
A professional opinion on the true usefulness seen in evaluating ETS exposures in the workplace. Entirely similar to the evaluation of drinking coffee in those same workplaces. The political will is obviously much more determined to find dangers in casual ETS exposures, especially in signatory countries participating in the WHO anti smoker treaty.
"What's more, some things simply cannot be tested in randomized clinical trials. In certain cases, to do so would be unethical. (Care to assign half the people in a trial to smoke cigarettes?)
In other cases, a trial of adequate size and duration -- say, to test whether coffee drinking raises or lowers the risk of Parkinson's disease -- would have to control the habits of huge numbers of people for decades. That would not only be hugely expensive but also virtually impossible.
Stampfer cites examples of findings of epidemiology that, he says, have stood the test of time: smoking's link to lung cancer, to name the most notable. "
Check out this chart from the American Society of Industrial Hygiene. If a SmokeMaster removes particles from the air down to .01 microns at 97 percent efficiency, how could it not make the air safe from PM 2.5?
http://bp1.blogger.com/
_2eI4lUPy...ticle+chart.jpg
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/c-12.php
Bill H;
It seems the technology can remove all of the smoke, however the defeatist TC coalition, who claim to know more than the engineers, say it is no use attempting to find workable solutions.
TC seem to also be claiming the manufacturers are fraudsters. I would like to ask the TC Members if this advertisement represents ideology heresy, or if the development of these filters changes the original and likely outdated "no safe" assessment.
The engineers may have to end up in court just to protect their credibility against the TC rumor mill.
OK, so if the data don't exist to document that filtration/ventilation systems are available which will reduce the levels of smoke constituents in a room by 95-99%, then why are you arguing that filtration/ventilation is an adequate solution to the secondhand smoke problem? You're basically agreeing with me that there is no evidence to support the use of ventilation/filtration to solve this problem.
Michael Siegel | Homepage | 09.15.07 - 10:35 pm | #
Doc, I will email you a copy of a study which was done inside the bellagio casino in Las vegas tomorrow, when I'm on the computer which has a copy and i can attach it as a file. It was impressive.
The casino Queen: I have looked at the study done by Roswell Memorial institute During the second test in the dining area , the reasearchers reported that no one smoked during the whole time of the test, yet the particulate results were close to the first test when someone was smoking in the dining area. ERGO, it must be that most of the indoor 2.5um particulates were not coming from shs. Another shabby study done by press release.
Godshell measures success by more than 50% of the public now being protected from SHS. Mcfadden and i and many others here have cited data that those populations are not ehalthier than they were pre-ban or than populations where smoking is still allowed. If populations with bans were healthier, I would support Bill's statements characterizing such bans as success.
I think this gives us a great deal of insite into Bill's thinking. bill measures success as smoker harasment, not improved public health. Need i say more?
of course, Bill also believes if a hunter sticks a shotgun down a rabbit hole. that the rabbit will tie the barrel into a knot, and when the hunter fires, the shotgun will backfire and give the hunter a blackened face. He saw it on TV one saturday morning. dave K
Just sent this letter to the Illinois Senate:
Dear Senator Cullerton,
Affordable and readily available filtration machines currently protect
Illinois welders from workplace smoke and fumes that can kill in an hour if unfiltered. Many Illinois industries rely on these same machines to purify workplace air from smoke, dust and fumes to strict OSHA standards for workplace indoor air quality. Why not continue to allow the Illinois hospitality industry the same recourse to such protective technology to meet OSHA air quality standards for workplace safety?
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/...DARDS&
p_id=9992
For instance, the SmokeMaster, an electronic air cleaner manufactured by Air Quality Engineering, can remove PM 2.5 particles from workplace air at 97 percent efficiency down to .01 microns.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/c-12.php
The CM-12, a HEPA-type companion machine manufactured by the same company, can remove further remove PM 2.5 as well as remaining gases and chemicals.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/d...ments/cm-
12.pdf
Larger versions of these machines are available to larger venues such as casinos and bowling alleys.
http://www.smokeeaters.org/casino/
Filtration experts assure me that a sufficient number of these machines
can make the air of any venue nearly perfectly clean. Please see the chart
provided by the The American Society of Industrial Hygienists linked below
to see the many toxins and pathogens that these machines would also remove while purifying the air of tobacco smoke. Please exempt from the Illinois smoking ban any Illinois business that opts to provide truly clean air to its workers and patrons with this excellent technology.
http://bp1.blogger.com/
_2eI4lUPy...ticle+chart.jpg
Sincerely,
Bill Hannegan
For the 4 years operating the restaurant prior to the Statewide Ban in Ohio, the ventilation system in use consisted of 3 Hunter ceiling Fans in the Dining Room, a standard restaurant exhaust hood over the Range in the kitchen, and the Exhaust hood over the grill, behind the counter.
Lawyers and judges came in from the Courthouse across the street everyday.
Police and Fireman,...everyday.
Gas, Electric and Water employees,...everyday.
Doctors, Nurses, and college students ....everyday.
Farmers and their families,...everyday.
Some of these smoked,..some did not.
There was never a complaint.
Not from anyone, at all, ....ever.
No one fell over dead at the counter.
No one ended up face first in their breakfast or lunch.
No one collapsed in the doorway upon entering or exiting the business.
Delivery people come and go without suffering massive heart attacks as well. There were no fatalities at the grill, nor at the 10 burner Range in the kitchen area.
Imagine that if you will.
Smokers and Non-smokers living in harmony. Business was good then since I was one of only two independent / non-franchised restaurants in town that allowed smoking. I was filling a demand in the market, (something TC simply can't come to grips with)... but Ohio was still a Free state then.
No additional expensive, redundant ventilation, air filtration systems were required before the nanny parade came to town.
"Imagine that if you will."
LighteningBoy
I don't need to imagine.
I lived it.
There was a time when most people simply minded there own business and there was harmony.
That, sadly, is no longer where we find ourselves today.
Hej, Great Scot, this link of yours was very interesting ( http://www.latimes.com/features/...ome-
middleright )
Let's take this snip:
"What's more, some things simply cannot be tested in randomized clinical trials. In certain cases, to do so would be unethical. (Care to assign half the people in a trial to smoke cigarettes?)"
Certainly! Here is one that did:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/
con...pe2=tf_ipsecsha
Guess what? There was no mortality difference (actually, the intervention group did worse than the control group).
Hopefully to put this to rest, I see no reason - Sam - why one could not make an estimate of the mortality risk of NASCAR driving under the assumptions of driving 40 hours a week for 40 years. The point of it wouldn't be to estimate actual mortality. The point would simply be to be able to express the risk of race car driving per minute driven; in other words, to give people an idea of just how much risk race car driving entails. As long as one made the conditions of the calculations clear, I think it would be perfectly reasonable. And in fact, I think it would be a very useful calculation. It would give people an idea of just how dangerous it is to drive around a track at those high speeds in cars that do not provide adequate protection.
That is precisely the point of providing policy makers of an idea of the expected number of deaths if food service workers were to work a full 40-year lifetime in that profession. I think it is very useful and important, although I agree that it needs to be made clear that this is not an actual mortality estimate (which I did very clearly in my testimony to the Council).
I really see nothing wrong with trying to make people understand the magnitude of risk of race car driving by expressing it in terms of how many drivers would die IF they raced the same amount of time as most of us work during the week. It would put things on the same terms, and would help people to understand the true magnitude of the risk.
Soren,
It is interesting to note that GreatScot's link and Sams link to the nytimes are written by two different people on opposite ends of the country with simular content. Could it be the world is awakening from their coma?
.
"Hopefully to put this to rest..."
Well, it might put it to rest. But I think it makes you look kind of silly.
"...to give people an idea of just how much risk race car driving entails"
and calculations of imaginary conditions do that how...?
IOW, IF monkeys flew outta my butt, I'd probably be concerned. But they don't, so I'm not.
I suspect it's better to admit you simply framed your argument to try to *convince* your listeners of something they might otherwise dismiss, rather than to keep trying to defend this.
Just my opinion, of course.
"I really see nothing wrong with trying to make people understand the magnitude of risk of race car driving by expressing it in terms of how many drivers would die IF they raced the same amount of time as most of us work during the week. It would put things on the same terms, and would help people to understand the true magnitude of the risk."
The magnitude simply as a number is useful but only within proper context. What is objectionable is the use of these estimates for purposes they should never be used, to promote fear and create an argument devoid of proper perspectives. If for instance if other similar numeric calculations were presented to allow proper perspectives which do not intensify the effect, but rather add an unbiased overview; ethically you would be well within bounds, however to provide such a number which is then taken by others to further exaggerate risk and promote fear. When you make no comment to quell the misinterpretation your credibility is diminished.
Jaws excited the fears of many who think twice when considering swimming in the ocean. A look at the numbers shows only 9 people die from shark attacks anually and 741 die from toasters. Do we start an international campaign to ban toasters in light of the numbers?
Looking at the numbers from many research studies we have no problem demonstrating smoking as a risk factor diminishes with lowered used.
We also observe smoking related diseases occur in the vast majority in the third trimester of a life cycle. We could understand many of the mortalities are not as slated "Preventable" most occur simply as a factor of normal aging irregardless of smoking.
In a population dying today of which more than half were ever smokers, how can the calculations determine preventable mortality?
What is missing from TC advocacy is the numbers to define how much the numbers can be assigned to other factors. The 450,000 number is careless and irresponsible political tripe, which by its exaggerated use will lower the overall confidence in the source who are so obviously speaking in self serving tones.
If we consider how many hypochondriacs will be attracted to an anti smoking campaign, in the same way anorexics will be attracted to the denormalization of obesity, what kind of support do you actually create?
The David Dukes and Ernst Zundels of this world would flock to any public health promotion of hatred, especially when it elevates their own stature in politically corrected terms. The fact we can now denormalize life factors which are predominant among the poor and the aged is dangerous ground and poorly considered.
Hitlers rise to prominence was found in exactly the same conditions when science promoted the politics of segregation.
So if I gave a presentation about NASCAR at a women's senior center--or some other place where the listeners would not likely have a lot of knowledge about the sport--what would be a good way to frame this information you are talking about? Would it be OK for me to just say, "Well, if NASCAR drivers worked 40/40, about 90 percent of them would die."
Could I just leave it at that? Or would their complete lack of knowledge about the subject compel me to add a simple statement, like: "But for heaven's sake, ladies. Don't have a fainting spell. All those good ole boys aren't dying. They don't work nearly that long."
Clearly, if I really wanted to convey accurate information, I would add that. And if I didn't I would clearly be misleading them about the danger. By exaggerating it.
So how does this compare to SHS? Well, the doctor insists that the public just has no clue about it. It's so confusing that even people who work in the bartending field can't be trusted to get all the informationthey need to make an informed decision. They can't understand anything about RRs and things like that. So people like the doctor himself have to make laws to protect people from their own stupidity.
But those city council members? They can understand the caveat. They can do the math on their own. They can come to their own conclusions regarding the linearity of the threat. And they can be counted on to do all these things in the face of intense political pressure.
As for NASCAR drivers, well,to heck with them. When discussing whether the sport should be banned in the past to protect the drivers, the doctor said that the NUMBER of dad drivers just wasn;t high enough. he said if it were as high as ten, that would be a different story. When confronted with 40 names, he changed his tune.
Now he is changing it again. It's not the NUMBER of dead workers he is worried about. It's the RATE of death.
But doctor: The RATE of death among drivers is CLEARLY higher than the rate of death for bartenders. So now we are back to the ols question: To be consistent, will you now embark on a public campaign to ban race car driving?
Consistency demands it.
All you had to say at that meeting was, "...but not that many will die, because hardly any bartenders or those hours."
It would have been immensely more honest. And it would have given them a better grasp of reality. And it wouldf have taken two seconds.
You didn't do it. But you should have. And I suspect, deep down, that you know it.
You claim to value truth, honesty and science above all else. In that moment, you didn't.
And it's clear that you didn't.
I really see nothing wrong with trying to make people understand the magnitude of risk of race car driving by expressing it in terms of how many drivers would die IF they raced the same amount of time as most of us work during the week. It would put things on the same terms, and would help people to understand the true magnitude of the risk.
This flunks the logic test. The " true magnitude" means the true size or extent of something-- in actuality. The model you offer does not, in fact, express or explain anything at all to do with actuality, let alone truth. In fact, it's the opposite. A misleading use of statistics.
If in order to make the case that "hot dogs are bad for you," I offer you the biological results of somebody's eating hot dogs for 40 hours a week for a term of 40 years, I am, in fact, LYING. And claiming that I expect my audience to extrapolate back to the effect of eating 12 franks a year, is just plain disingenuous. And certainly doesn't explain the "true magnitude" of the risk imposed by eating hot dogs.
And since, as I think you've admitted, when you did your calculations, you had no idea of the % of MA bartenders who themselves smoked, and made no such adjustments, we'd also have to add to my example above that I've made no corrections based on the rest of my dog-eaters' diets. Aside from the hotdogs, did they only eat salads? Or else, after "work," did they also eat burgers, french fries and malts?
As for ventilation...
remind me what was wrong with the Jenkins studies of bars in 16 cities, where not only the air but the bartenders were monitored? The results showed whatever constituents were measured were far far far below any OSHA PELs, and also considerably less than had been reckoned.
Or, IOW, the "true magnitude" of exposure had been vastly over-estimated before it was actually, empirically measured.
:
Furthermore Walt, the ETS Jenkins measured can effectively and affordably be removed from an ordinary bar by installing a SmokeMaster and a CM-12. We are only talking about $5,000 for the two. I am thinking about paying to have two such units installed in a currently unventilated smoky St. Louis neighborhood bar and have the air quality improvement officially measured. I don't own a bar or restaurant, but as a smoking patron I somehow I want to settle this ETS/filtration controversy!
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/t...com/
tobacco.php
http://news.independent.co.uk/
uk...icle2966955.ece I WONDER WHAT MAGAZINE THIS PRODUCT IS ADVERTISED IN ? IS IT A P MORRIS PRODUCT OR RJ REYNOLDS,GOSH IT'S NEITHER.
Sam-
You don't have a clue what I said at the city council meeting. What kind of gall you have to attack my integrity and character without even knowing what I actually said at that meeting. What you are doing is precisely what the anti-smoking groups do: attack without having the facts at their disposal. Without having the documentation to back it up.
The fact of the matter is that I made it very clear to the council members that many bar workers do not work for 40 years and that I was merely presenting an estimate to give them an idea of how serious it would be if they all did work for that long. I made it very clear that I was not estimating the deaths that actually occur, but those that would occur under the specified conditions. But I did also mention that there are hospitality workers who do make it a life-long career, so the estimate does have some relevance.
You said: "All you had to say at that meeting was "...but not that many will die, because hardly any bartenders or those hours." That is EXACTLY what I made clear in my oral testimony.
I like the way you have more knowledge about what I said than I do, even though I know what I said and you don't.
And I like the way you're willing to attack my integrity and character without knowing the facts.
It's a shame: I think you could have a great career for yourself in the anti-smoking movement. You have all the right instincts!
Seems odd to me that this didn't come up in the past. You defended your position with the notion that you began the 220 statement by saying "If all the bartenders in Massachusetts work for 40 years..."
Did you mention other caveats? What were they? How did you express them?
At no stage prior to this did you mention that a full perusal of your full testimony would be useful. If it would be, provide it.
I might add that when this discussion began, I started of with a question. Something along the lines of, "Please tell me you didn't just go in there and use numbers that assumed all bartenders work 40/40."
You responded with the quip about the "if... then" statement. If you wanted to bring up other things to consider in the discussion, you should have brought them up. Or bring them up now. Rather than discussing who has gall and who doesn't. I am in no position to decide how you want to discuss statements you have made.
SO did you use other caveats other than the if... then? If so, what were they? You say you did. Fine. Put them out there.
I just did.
How so? What statement did you make, and in what way did you present it?
Did you come right out and say, "But the 220 number is incredibly inflated because the assumptions behind it are false"?
Yes.
And by the way, I think it would be pretty hard for me to have assumed that you said that, even if you did. I have asked repeatedly for any qualifying statements you made regarding the 220 number, and all you mentioned was the "if... then."
I hardly think my decision to take your statement as a full statement amounts to "gall."
OK - fair enough. I retract that. I have no reason to question your intent in questioning me about this. But I do want to emphasize that I did make the context clear. Perhaps you have a valid argument that this was simply too complicated to present to city council members. I stand in fault if that is the case. What I do want you to understand, however, is that I do take my statements seriously and do not attempt to mislead (intentionally). I would like people to acknowledge at least SOME difference between me and the anti-smoking groups.
It does pain me to be lumped into the same group as all of them. Although I do understand why people would do that (and I have to constantly remind myself that I am no longer part of them).
Politically whatever death toll Dr. Siegel put forward back then doesn't matter much now to the city councils and state legislatures that have yet to pass strict smoking bans. But his attacks on the junk science claims being put forward now by the ACS and other antismoking groups are hugely important. Many thousands of lawmakers have seen them this year. Dr. Siegel is the main man Stanton Glantz would like to make disappear.
Probably in all fairness to doc, what I think happens is doc can make a statement with a qualifier, or caveat, and other antismokers then take his statements and remove those qualifiers.
The problem is, lawmakers and really everyone esle, for that matter,do not listen carefully and miss lots of qualifiers and caveats in statements made by both sides on lots of issues, not just smoking bans.
A remmeber months ago typing a long thread about how when one views an actual study, how different the content can be that what antismokers say about the study's conclusions.
A clasic example is the actual helena study itself, which did discuss shortcommings and possible errors in conclusions, while the statements made about the helena study in support of bans eliminated those.
I traced the claim bartenders inhale 16 cigs-worth of shs per 8 hour shift. Most anti websites do not provide a reference, but smoke-free MA did, and used Hammond, 1995. I went to a local science library and got a copy of hammond 1995, and nowhere did hammond 95 say anything about bartenders. it did say that in the upper 90%ile of poorly ventilated restaurants that nonsmoking customers could get 1.7 cig equivaLENTS OF 4 AMINOBIPHENYL IN 2 HOURS. , but the paper never looked at bars, and only a few components of smoke.
Yet, through a series of misquotes, this became "NS bartenders get 16 cigs/ 8 hour shift."
So, I for one can certainly understand confusion over doc's statements and doc has complained about being misquoted before.
and Doc just criticized science by press release, and really that's what it's all about , taking a statement someone has said and modifying it slightly to suit the intent of the activist.
So whatever doc said, about 220 bartenders , under theoretical circumstances , the Smoke-free Il just misquoted Doc a little saying shs does kill 220 bartenders. and got a ban passed to boot.
Job done? just short of a lie? i suppose so, but, as usual the end justifies the means.
Of course, doc could have phoned the Il legislature and said he was being misquoted but did not, that
's the only problem i have with doc.
in closing, however, i'd like to point out that even if doc had phoned the Il legislature, or even spoke in person saying he was partially misquoted, it probably would ahve made little difference, in today's climate. dave k
Doc, - "It does pain me to be lumped into the same group as all of them. Although I do understand why people would do that (and I have to constantly remind myself that I am no longer part of them)."
It is specifically because you clearly refuse to acknowlwdge the loss of liberty, and individual freedom, or that adults, despite what YOU would prefer they do, are able to make their own decisions about where they go, what they do, and when and how they do it.
Until you recognize and acknowledge that you and your TC COMRADES are dictating to smokers what is and is not acceptable to you personally, instead of simply providing "sufficient warning" and then letting it go at that.
You persist in the assault until YOU and your TC COMRADES have forced the 'smokers' to give it up and see the light. Only then are you and your TC COMRADES convinced that you have provided sufficient warning.
You simply can't understand why anyone would ignore you.
Here's a helpful tip for 'ya,..They're not ignoring you.
It's called making a personal choice.
It's called personal responsibility for ones' own actions.
It's called FREEDOM of CHOICE.
You continue warn everyone; they think about it,(some actually think about it for more than 2 seconds, so kudos to you on that) and decide to live their own lives anyway in spite of what you and your TC COMRADES think.
Because you are anti-choice.
Because you are anti-business.
Because you are anti-freedom.
Because you are seeking the utopian wet-dream of a smokefree world of "sameness" where no one has to think about anything at all, because public health is there to watch over and care for everyone.
That's why you remain ONE OF THEM.
Sam,
http://www.junkscience.com/news/...ws/
amherst.html
GreatScot
One wonders, then: If you can use a few simple caveats to fully inform city council members and warn them about the dangers of SHS, why can't you use those same communcation techniques to inform bartenders?
Sam the whole debate was a sham.
"On August 19, 1997, the Board of Health for Amherst, Massachusetts voted unanimously to impose a total smoking ban in town.
In support of the proposed ban, Amherst's Bored of Science (I mean "Board of Health")imported Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of public health from Boston University. "
"the Amherst Bored of Science did not permit members of the public to question Siegel (or say anything else) at the meeting."
The board of health:-
voted unanimously.
The board of health:-
imported Dr Siegel
The board of health:-
suppressed questions or dissenting comment.
The Doc's testimony as reported here was accurate as far as it went. However it would not have mattered a jot as the whole process was a sham.
I must really go and pack now.
GreatScot.
I was "imported?" Well, I guess going to Amherst is in some ways like going to a foreign country.
Dave K is right - my statements have, in many cases, been taken out of context by anti-smoking groups. For example, I had once stated that nonsmokers in a smoke-filled bar may inhale the equivalent amount of NDMA as smoking something like 1/2 pack a day, which is a true statement. Some anti-smoking group stated that passive smoking is the same as smoking 1/2 pack per day, which is not true.
Sam asked: "If you can use a few simple caveats to fully inform city council members and warn them about the dangers of SHS, why can't you use those same communcation techniques to inform bartenders?"
The reason is that this wasn't the city council. This was the Board of Health, which consists ONLY of trained health professionals. Most Boards of Health include physicians. Some are all physicians. The Director of almost every Board of Health is a physician. So I was specifically talking to physicians here. Admittedly, I speak to physicians differently than I would to city council members in general or to the general public.
Hope you all didn’t miss me too much, as I was away for a few days helping a friend move to my town. Now I’m baaaaaaack!!!! hehehehehe
Bill G: So I remain confident that cigarettes are responsible for 99% of all tobacco attributable deaths in the U.S. And you can quote me on that.
And where is your proof that cigarette smoke, and absolutely nothing else, was the absolute cause of those deaths? I don’t want numbers by any agency, since they can’t be trusted to be honest, but actual proof!
Doc: What I do want you to understand, however, is that I do take my statements seriously and do not attempt to mislead (intentionally).
I beg to differ. I think you do intentially mislead, and I’ve pointed out to you precisely how you do that. You consistently talk about the “serious health hazard” of SHS with NO clarification or qualifying information. Meaning you just spit out that phrase, and leave out ONLY for those with EXISTING SERIOUS health conditions.
You consistently use the term “cause” knowing full well the general public accepts “cause” as an absolute (which it really is by the way). YOUR use of it to mean “increased risk” IS deceptive in that regard, since no one is general population uses it that way. Personally, I find it deceptive of the entire scientific community to “re-define” a word just because in the end it suits their purpose.
When it comes to your 220 bartenders, you consistently state that the “serious health issue of SHS” will “cause” them to die.
Yet, you then state that parents smoking at home or in the car ONLY present an “increased risk” for certain illnesses in their children (which us smokers have told you is hogwash with our own children as proof).
So, I’m sorry Doc, from my side of the fence, yes you do in fact deliberately mislead in order to push YOUR agenda on us.
Doc, having a group of physicians sitting on a panel to judge anything tobacco is the equivelent of having a group of drug dealers sitting on a jury of a person on trial for drug possesion. With only one witness being called. That from the defense and that person being a drug user and the charachter witness for the accussed. I think we all know the outcome.......The "fix" (no pun intended)is in.
Or am I wrong and Amherst was just a "kangaroo court"! Hmmm....
Dr. Siegel wrote, "I had once stated that nonsmokers in a smoke-filled bar may inhale the equivalent amount of NDMA as smoking something like 1/2 pack a day, which is a true statement. Some anti-smoking group stated that passive smoking is the same as smoking 1/2 pack per day, which is not true."
As we've mentioned before, almost any equivalence figure one wants could theoretically be produced by the antismoking lobby. All one needs to do is ignore the fact that smokers breathe their own secondary smoke and then choose particular chemicals that are produced at the lower burning temperatures of a non-puffed cigarette and compare them the almost total non-existence of them in the higher temperature puffed phase. That is no more or less honest than doing the opposite: there are certainly "toxic" chemicals produced at the higher temperature as the cigarette is being puffed that are virtually non-existent in the idling burn cone. Picking the right elements I could claim that a nonsmoker "smokes" 10 cigarettes an hour or only one cigarette every gazillion years. It's a propaganda junk argument unless those elements in the concentrations in which they would normally be inhaled have been shown to produce cancers or other diseases. Complete and total junk.
It's hard to come up with a good parallel for smoking in this regard because there really aren't many human activities in which the participant generates and consumes something that is simultaneously consumed by those around that participant, but I can think of two that might make at least some sense.
One is driving. A driver in a properly designed car driving at 30 mph would inhale virtually none of his or her own exhaust fumes. A pedestrian being passed on the sidewalk however will certainly inhale a significant amount. The difference might be as great as 100 or even 1,000 times. Secondhand car exhaust being forced into the lungs of children innocently enjoying a game of hopscotch might well be 1,000 times as concentrated or "dangerous" as that inhaled by the marauding driver of a killmobile.
It would be nice to have an example that actually involved "consumption" of something but that's a bit hard to come up with. However... theoretically at least... it might be possible.
If I had complete knowledge of the chemical composition of all the delicious aromas given off by the freshly sliced turkey on my Thanksgiving plate I could probably find at least one chemical that is given off into the air for a few seconds in a vastly greater amount than exists in the flesh of the turkey itself. Applying the same standard of ignoring the turkey-eaters' "consumption" of the secondary fumes from the "idling" slices and comparing merely what they consume orally with the consumption of those deadly chemicals by the sweet little vegetarian children nearby, we could probably show that secondhand turkey "eaters" were being forced to "eat" twenty or thirty pounds of turkey at single Thanksgiving feast against their will.
Now eating twenty or thirty pounds of turkey every day would probably produce an ENORMOUS increase in heart disease deaths.
***BAN TURKEY NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!!***
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Director, Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc.
Director, Pennsylvania Smokers' Action Network (PASAN)
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
Bill H--
Could you try your ventilation experiment in LightningBoy's restaurant?
:
Walt, I would love to. But isn't LightningBoy's restaurant in Ohio where public indoor smoking is now sadly illegal? I have to tell you that I am a machine enthusiast and I have developed an absolute crush on the CM-12. I would love to install a couple in his place and a SmokeMaster as well. Filtration folks tell me that mixed technology is the most effective stategey. But I doubt that enough of LightningBoy's customers would be willing to flout the law to give the CM-12 and SmokeMaster a real test. In Free St. Louis, we still have plenty of unventilated bars so I think this is the best place to give filtration technology a real try.
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/d...ments/cm-
12.pdf
http://www.air-quality-eng.com/d...uments/c-
12.pdf
Doctor,
The fact you were dealing with "health professionals" seems an odd justification.
If you recall a few motnhs back, you said that you would support a warning instead of a ban, but could not dream up a sufficient warning. Why? Because bartenders just don't have a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of science to fully grasp terms like RR and PEL. So any warning would leave them insufficiently warned about the dangers.
But the people on the board of health are all "trained health professionals." It's rare that you would encounter a group with such a firm grasp on the science and the terms. Surely, this is an audience custom ordered for sober analysis, and one fully capable of assessing the risk expressed in techinical terms. Finally, a group of people who can hear "RR of 1.19" and fully understand the cataclysmic danger that term entails.
So did you express the danger in terms of RR and PEL and leave it at that? No. You abandoned those scientific terms in favor of a rhetorical somersault.
I might add that the "trained health professionals" would seem to be ill equipped to notice and adjust for the somersault you performed. The device that you used had nothing to do with RR or lung capacity or anything of the sort. The misleading assumption dealt with the number of hours that bartenders work. Do they teach saloon demographics in medical school? Are medical doctors more likely to have a background in waiting tables? I see no evidence to support that.
If anything, I would suggest that the only group likely to be able to adjust for your rhetorical device would be--bartenders. They are the ones with the firmest grasp on how many hours bartenders really work.
Similarly, if I went to the Board of Health in Daytona, Florida, and expressed the dangers of inhaling stockcar fumes in terms of 40/40, would there be any reason to believe that Doctor X would know enough about how many hours a stockcar driver is in the car to take my data and extrapolate something useful out of them? Or would it be better for me to run the numbers and provide the data in terms of the danger a stockcar driver actually faces?
I would submit that a person aiming to convey the truth would do the latter. And I would submit that an avowed critic of stockcar driving who came in and expressed the danger in terms of 40/40, despite knowing full well that stockcar drivers NEVER work that long, would open himself to criticism for playing with the numbers. And I would submit that such a critic of stockcar driving, if he valued his reputation, would avoid even the appearance of that kind of impropriety. That is, if the science os on his side, he ought to stick to it. Particularly if he notices that scads of people on his side of the dabate are abandoning the truth in droves.
So I guess my question becomes: Who IS capable of understanding the health threat in terms of RR and other technical terms? Bartenders don't know enough or aren't smart enough. And such terms clearly don't do the trick for the trained health professionals on the board of health.
Weird.
Bill said; "Walt, I would love to. But isn't LightningBoy's restaurant in Ohio where public indoor smoking is now sadly illegal?"
True enough.
Sadly, Ohio is no longer a free state.
My "regular" patrons (comprised of approximately 90% smokers) are not happy about it either, but none will deliberately put me in a bad position by flouting the Ban.
My restaurant has become somewhat of a curosity, (which is good for business) as people come in specifically to look at the Anti-Ban literature, signs, and other promotions of Freedom of Choice I have displayed on walls, windows, and doors.
Once they come in out of curosity, they come back for the food.
Our vocal opposition to such fascism has helped to keep the business open. Everyone else in town just rolled over and quietly accepted it.
(TC's best case scenario.)
While I can't afford the stiff monetary penalties for non-compliance, I can still shout about the absurdity, and inequities of the ordinance through visual aides on display.
LB, IF I lived in Ohio, I'd patronize your (forced) smoke-free restaurant too, only because your not rolling over and accepting it quietly like a good little stepford-child.
Lynda F, You have a standing invitation. Anytime.
That goes for you too Doctor Siegel, but you'll have to agree to stand out front with me and some of my patrons to make your best attempt at providing a 'sufficient warning" about why I'm standing outside MY own property.
I'm sure you'll be a big hit.
Other independent restaurants in town are suffering far worse than I, but then again, they just gave up.
Thanks LB, but I am nowhere near Ohio and have NO intention of ever visiting the state. Hell, I have NO intention of ever going back to visit the state I came from (NY).........hehehehehe
Nope, my only travel plans are to that deserted island I keep looking for....or a cave somewhere.
Well, I guess you could do the studies in a "cigar bar", which is a euphemism for "smoke 'em if you have 'em".
Actually, in upstate NY (don't know about the city) if you don't have employees there's no smoking ban. There are quite a few upstate clubs that permit smoking and a few owners-only bars that permit smoking. Any business that is manned by owners/co-owners can be, and often is, a place where smoking is allowed.
Some bars have waivers, others openly thumb their noses at the ban, although you may have to put a "deposit" on an ashtray.
I've been in places where they announce last call to the general public and tell their smoking clientele and friends to drink slowly. After all the strangers, anal-retentive types, and anti-smokers leave, the bartender locks the doors, turns on the smoke-eaters and tells everyone to light up, whereupon everyone has another round and, finally, a round on the house. The music is rocking, the place comes to life with laughter and a sense of freedom -- just like the old days. An entirely different change in mood takes place compared to the previous hours, which were subdued, dull, and more like a Victorian lady's prohibitionist tea party than a bar.
To be somewhat compliant with the law, no tips change hands. But you know how it is -- sometimes money falls out of your pocket onto the barstool, especially after a few drinks. Or there's an envelope under the bartender's windshield wiper with a note that might say "Happy Birthday" or "Happy Anniversary".
It's interesting to observe. Anyhow, there are places where you can perform those tests.
Ultimately though, people don't roll over so easily, which probably deprives a lot of control freaks of a good night's sleep. But that's just an added benefit.
I only write because it becomes unwieldly when people are given incorrect information. To correct it takes so much effort -- like correcting a rumor.
LeanderJ wrote:
Actually, in upstate NY (don't know about the city) if you don't have employees there's no smoking ban. There are quite a few upstate clubs that permit smoking and a few owners-only bars that permit smoking.
That's not what the law is. There is no owner/operator as sole employee (no other employees) exemption. The closest thing to come to what you describe is membership associations. All duties must be performed by members of the association with no compensation.
(NYS Law)
But hey, if this is what the owners believe and allow smoking, I'm not gonna be the one to tell them
More examples of "science by press release":
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot....ss-
release.html
Hi, guys,
just in case anyone else reads over this thread...
1st, while my busted gut mends - re 'On the 220' - James Austin, if you ever publish an anthology of 'adapted' poetry, please let me know - I love your work.
2nd point - re 'spit tobacco' -exposing others in public places to body fluids really is an actual health hazard, even apart from AIDS, TB, and the numerous killers.
How many people spitting into a cup would it take to clear a restaurant of fleeing hand-clasped-over-bulging-mouth-to contain-heaving-stomach-customers?
How many innocents could be trampled and/or choked on vomit?
And - most importantly - the staff are expected to deal with and be exposed to this?
Or is this occurring in the streets?
Where is this supposed to be acceptable?
One more point - I keep seeing people repeating that Constitutional rights are only protected from governmental abuse, not from that of corporations/business.
Constitutional rights cannot be denied to anyone by anyone.
However, the rights of private property owners are equally protected.
Reason must be applied - something verboten under current Big Lie and confusion strategies.
Therefore, Jehovah Witnesses can't claim that their right of freedom of speech enables them to hold you captive on your doorstep or living room for however long they choose to promote their views, although they are, of course, free to practice/discuss their religion in their churches and homes and among themselves, without unwelcome intrusions from competing religious groups.
Their urgent desire to 'save' your soul from iminent peril and convert you to their notion of the 'one true faith' cannot outweigh your right to save yourself from any such potentially unwelcome effort, whether for your own good or not, by anyone else's standards.
And no-one can enter your private property demanding that all smoking cease - oh, wait, I forgot some of us are less equal than others. Never mind.
Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger
Written By: Jerome Arnett, Jr., M.D.
Published In: Environment & Climate News
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Publisher:
The Heartland Institute
http://www.heartland.org/Article...cfm?
artId=23399
Exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) is an unpleasant experience for many nonsmokers, and for decades was considered a nuisance. But the idea that it might actually cause disease in nonsmokers has been around only since the 1970s.
Recent surveys show more than 80 percent of Americans now believe secondhand smoke is harmful to nonsmokers.
Federal Government Reports
A 1972 U.S. surgeon general's report first addressed passive smoking as a possible threat to nonsmokers and called for an anti-smoking movement. The issue was addressed again in surgeon generals' reports in 1979, 1982, and 1984.
A 1986 surgeon general's report concluded involuntary smoking caused lung cancer, but it offered only weak epidemiological evidence to support the claim. In 1989 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with further evaluating the evidence for health effects of SHS.
In 1992 EPA published its report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," claiming SHS is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon).
The report has been used by the tobacco-control movement and government agencies, including public health departments, to justify the imposition of thousands of indoor smoking bans in public places.
Flawed Assumptions
EPA's 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.
Even so, the EPA report was cited in the surgeon general's 2006 report on SHS, where then-Surgeon General Richard Carmona made the absurd claim that there is no risk-free level of exposure to SHS.
For its 1992 report, EPA arbitrarily chose to equate SHS with mainstream (or firsthand) smoke. One of the agency's stated assumptions was that because there is an association between active smoking and lung cancer, there also must be a similar association between SHS and lung cancer.
But the problem posed by SHS is entirely different from that found with mainstream smoke. A well-recognized toxicological principle states, "The dose makes the poison."
Accordingly, we physicians record direct exposure to cigarette smoke by smokers in the medical record as "pack-years smoked" (packs smoked per day times the number of years smoked). A smoking history of around 10 pack-years alerts the physician to search for cigarette-caused illness. But even those nonsmokers with the greatest exposure to SHS probably inhale the equivalent of only a small fraction (around 0.03) of one cigarette per day, which is equivalent to smoking around 10 cigarettes per year.
Low Statistical Association
Another major problem is that the epidemiological studies on which the EPA report is based are statistical studies that can show only correlation and cannot prove causation.
One statistical method used to compare the rates of a disease in two populations is relative risk (RR). It is the rate of disease found in the exposed population divided by the rate found in the unexposed population. An RR of 1.0 represents zero increased risk.
Because confounding and other factors can obscure a weak association, in order even to suggest causation a very strong association must be found, on the order of at least 300 percent to 400 percent, which is an RR of 3.0 to 4.0.
For example, the studies linking direct cigarette smoking with lung cancer found an incidence in smokers of 20 to around 40 times that in nonsmokers, an association of 2000 percent to 4000 percent, or an RR of 20.0 to 40.0.
Scientific Principles Ignored
An even greater problem is the agency's lowering of the confidence interval (CI) used in its report. Epidemiologists calculate confidence intervals to express the likelihood a result could happen just by chance. A CI of 95 percent allows a 5 percent possibility that the results occurred only by chance.
Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology's gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.
This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19--an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality--the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.
EPA Study Soundly Rejected
In November 1995 after a 20-month study, the Congressional Research Service released a detailed analysis of the EPA report that was highly critical of EPA's methods and conclusions. In 1998, in a devastating 92-page opinion, Federal Judge William Osteen vacated the EPA study, declaring it null and void. He found a culture of arrogance, deception, and cover-up at the agency.
Osteen noted, "First, there is evidence in the record supporting the accusation that EPA 'cherry picked' its data....
In order to confirm its hypothesis, EPA maintained its standard significance level but lowered the confidence interval to 90 percent. This allowed EPA to confirm its hypothesis by finding a relative risk of 1.19, albeit a very weak association.... EPA cannot show a statistically significant association between [SHS] and lung cancer."
The judge added, "EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before the research had begun; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate its conclusion; and aggressively utilized its authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme to influence public opinion."
In 2003 a definitive paper on SHS and lung cancer mortality was published in the British Medical Journal. It is the largest and most detailed study ever reported. The authors studied more than 35,000 California never-smokers over a 39-year period and found no statistically significant association between exposure to SHS and lung cancer mortality.
Propaganda Trumps Science
The 1992 EPA report is an example of the use of epidemiology to promote belief in an epidemic instead of to investigate one. It has damaged the credibility of EPA and has tainted the fields of epidemiology and public health.
In addition, influential anti-tobacco activists, including prominent academics, have unethically attacked the research of eminent scientists in order to further their ideological and political agendas.
The abuse of scientific integrity and the generation of faulty "scientific" outcomes (through the use of pseudoscience) have led to the deception of the American public on a grand scale and to draconian government overregulation and the squandering of public money.
Millions of dollars have been spent promoting belief in SHS as a killer, and more millions of dollars have been spent by businesses in order to comply with thousands of highly restrictive bans, while personal choice and freedom have been denied to millions of smokers. Finally, and perhaps most tragically, all this has diverted resources away from discovering the true cause(s) of lung cancer in nonsmokers.
OSHA ON SECOND HAND SMOKE
Air quality test results by Johns Hopkins University, the American Cancer Society, a Minnesota Environmental Health Department, and various researchers whose testing and report was peer reviewed and published in the esteemed British Medical Journal......prove that secondhand smoke is 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations:
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com
All nullify the argument that secondhand smoke is a workplace health hazard.
Especially since federal OSHA regulations trump, or pre-empt, state smoking ban laws which are not based on scientific air quality test results.
Mark Wernimont
Watertown, MN.
US Supreme court decision 1992 NEVER OVERTURNED...
A U.S. Supreme court decision during the early 1970's ((Lloyd Corp v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551 (1992)) said a place of business does not become public property because the public is invited in.
So, by that same reasoning. A restaurant or bar is not public property. We need to support small business and stop regulating them out of business.
Richard Doll was the British doctor who discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer. Here's what he said about the risks of shs.
"His findings have sometimes sparked controversy. So too has the man.
In 2001, he riled the anti-smoking lobby after appearing to downplay the risks from second-hand smoke.
In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, he said: "The effects of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn't worry me."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/heal...th/
3826939.st...
In Ohio, a year after the comprehensive smoking ban, 8 Senators have introduced a bill: SB346 to provide exemptions to the ban for family-owned businesses and private clubs. I have attached a letter the Senator wrote to the SmokeFree organization a short while ago.
Smoking bans are raging through the country and the world, and much of what we read is based upon poor science and exaggerated claims. Read the results of the largest study ever conducted on shs. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm...
Smoking bans are not about health. They are about money and control and the movement toward prohibition. Read how and when this movement started. "In 1975, British delegate to the World Health Organization, Sir George Goober informed that august body of the means by which smokers could be encouraged to quit:“foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily” to secondhand smoke." http://fightantismokertyranny.bl...ogspot.com/
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