Doc, - "If there is not evidence that a nonsmoker who is exposed to secondhand smoke for 30 minutes is at the same risk of a fatal heart attack as an active smoker, then ASH is wildly deceiving the public and the scientific integrity of the tobacco control movement is in serious question."
We're not talking about a hurried press release touting the latest manufactured study results here, so the "we can't list all the possible caveats" excuse doesn't wash. "That dog won't hunt"
This statement is apparently appearing in a downloadable *.pdf available from their site.
Although I didn't see a readily available link for it specifically, (I get waaay too nauseous if I spend more than a few minutes there so I couldn't stay for long.)
From their site: http://ash.org/heartstudy.html
"Additionally, laboratory data suggest that even 30 minutes of exposure to a typical dose of secondhand smoke induces changes in arterial endothelial function in exposed non-smokers of a magnitude similar to those measured in active smokers.21"
As ill as it made me to be there, here is the reference #21 where they cite regarding this statement:
"Otsuka R, Watanabe H, Hirata K, Tokai K, Muro T, Yoshiyama M, et al. Acute effects of passive smoking on the coronary circulation in healthy young adults. JAMA 2001;286: 436-41. [Abstract/Free Full Text] "
So,...once again, it's another case of a study making a citation of another study, that cites another study, that cites another, and another, and,.......
Beyond this, You're doing it again.
Still unable to accept the reality that the TC "movement" is nothing more than a grant generating ATM.
I'm not holding my breath Doc.
These people don't give a rat's rearend about any of your "challenges" and you really need to get that through your head. You're grandstanding and it will accomplish absolutely nothing.
If you really want to make a difference accept that your colleagues are all liars and charlatans and actively work to reverse much of the damage you and they have done to others with your decades of lies and deceipt.
Are you up to that type of a challenge, Doctor, a challenge that would actually mean something?
Doctor, this article today will get your dander up some more, Bill too...
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/
...cf492636666.txt
Doc, don't be holding your breath, I'd hate to see you listed as a "smoking related" death due to dying from holding your breath for an honest response from these despots.
Gilster, thanks for that. Amazing how cancer caused by chewing tobacco has the same rate of survival as lung cancer (5 years), isn't it?
Gee, Bill..........whatever will you do now?
Mike wrote:
"I am not, and have never, challenged the notion that 30 minutes of secondhand smoke exposure could potentially trigger a heart attack in someone with severe coronary artery disease."
Since ASH specifically stated that it "can raise a nonsmoker's risk" instead of stating "always raises all nonsmokers' risk", it appears to me that ASH's statement is consistent with Mike's statement.
ASH's statement would be technically correct even if applied to just one nonsmoker.
It makes no sense why Mike continues to criticize many different health organizations over slightly different interpretations of scientific evidence, while Mike remains silent about the many blatantly false statements posted on this blog by FORCES fanatics who claim that tobacco smoke pollution poses no health risks.
Bill G:"ASH's statement would be technically correct even if applied to just one nonsmoker."
Bill, Peanuts kill, that's technically correct, right?
Boink...could of had a V-8
Gilster---"Boink...could of had a V-8"
...and you stayed at a HolidayInn Express too!!!
Bill, kindly notice the first sentence there: “Even for people without such respiratory conditions, breathing drifting tobacco smoke for even brief periods can be deadly.”
Once the average person reads that, they won’t read or care about the rest. All they’ll remember is: “Even for people without such respiratory conditions, breathing drifting tobacco smoke for even brief periods can be deadly.”
Those are the exact words. AND those words are an outright lie. You know it, and I know it. So what part of that isn’t clear to you?
It could also be “technically correct” that smoking causes NO harm given the numbers of smokers and those exposed to SHS, who live to be ripe old ages and die of old age rather than some cancer, etc.
You want to deal with technicalities now?
I'll save them the trouble.
A simple search of cdc.gov using the phrases "30 minutes" and "tobacco smoke", and following document was the third item returned:
http://www.cdc.gov/search.do?q=%...oe=utf8&
ie=utf8
"Preemptive State Smoke-Free Indoor Air Laws --- United States, 1999--2004"
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/
mm5410a4.htm
In this document, it states:
"In addition, other findings suggest that passive exposure to tobacco smoke for as little as 30 minutes compromises coronary circulation in nonsmokers and that nonsmokers who are exposed to typical levels of secondhand smoke incur approximately one third the tobacco-related increased heart disease risk of someone who smokes 20 cigarettes a day (
."
Compromises coronary circulation? Typical levels? We'll see.
The citation for this item no 8, is:
Pechacek TF, Babb S. How acute and reversible are the cardiovascular risks of secondhand smoke? BMJ 2004;328:980--3.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/f...7446/980?
ck=nck
And contained in the Pechacek and Babb document is the following text:
"Additionally, laboratory data suggest that even 30 minutes of exposure to a typical dose of secondhand smoke induces changes in arterial endothelial function in exposed non-smokers of a magnitude similar to those measured in active smokers.21"
(to be continued)
Endnote 21 is a citation to, you guessed it, the Otsuka study:
Otsuka R, Watanabe H, Hirata K, Tokai K, Muro T, Yoshiyama M, et al. Acute effects of passive smoking on the coronary circulation in healthy young adults. JAMA 2001;286: 436-41.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/con.../full/286/4/
436
Otsuka is an absolutely terrible study, and the exposure used in the study is absolutely NOT reflective of typical levels. The observed results do NOT represent a "compromise" of coronary blood flow.
1) Exposure in Otsuka is not a "typical level"
Per table 2 of the Otsuka study, the level of carbon monoxide in the apparently unventilated "450 cm x 300 cm with a 250-cm ceiling" smoking room was in excess of 6.0 PPM.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/
con...TABLEJCI10005T2
Note that Pechacek and Babb also cite Repace's Delaware study as endnote 26 at least twice:
http://www.tobaccoscam.ucsf.edu/
...aceDelaware.pdf
On the bottom of the chart 3 on page 29 is observed levels of CO in the Delaware establishments. The worst one measured 3.0 PPM of Carbon Monoxide. The others range from 2.0 to I believe 2.6.
2) The claim that SHS "compromises coronary circulation" is misleading:
Per the section labeled Hemodynamics in the Otsuka study:
"Passive smoking had no effect on hemodynamic parameters including heart rate, blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, and heart rate–blood pressure product in each group"
What it did have effects were a) measured Carbon Monoxide, and b) Coronary Flow Velocity Reserve.
While these are both measureable and observable changes, these symptoms I would propose are subclinical, transient changes in blood chemistry and cellular metabolism, and are not representative of a "compromise" of coronary circulation.
3) The Otsuka study is flawed in it's implementation due to poor sample size, lack of control, and lack of followup testing
In addition, I would subit the other flaws I observe in the Otsuka study:
a) It used 30 subjects, which is a pathetically small sample.
b) no control exposure was used, say, automobile exhaust, or mercaptan, or perhaps a high fat meal.
c) Effect was measured once after exposure. Followup measurements to determine duration and persistence of effect were conveniently not done.
while Mike remains silent about the many blatantly false statements posted on this blog by FORCES fanatics who claim that tobacco smoke pollution poses no health risks.
And yet, you have still NOT presented us with proof that WE are wrong. You don’t even say WHICH statements are false. The best you can do is, once again, name call? You’re as bad as a schoolyard bully.
Tobacco smoke poses NO health risk to normal average healthy person (the majority of the population that is). IF it did, none of us baby boomers would still be alive, for surely we would have died by now given that we were exposed to SHS 24/7/365 growing up.
Care to explain why I’m still here Bill? And then tell me who I can sue since I’m NOT dead or ill.
Bill doesn't want to say which of us are FORCES fanatics, either. Hmmm. Seems he's the one blowing smoke.
From the Times link earlier, comment
we do not need no nanny state and dictators to cause more divisions. With the way that smokers are treated in this country it is clear that the goverment is making these laws because the british people have gone weak and is excepting dictatorship, smokers should refuse to pay national insurance and have nothing to do with polititions who take away people's freedom, bar and pub owners should also sue the goverment for damages against there busnesses and for forcing them to treat there customers like animals
I knew they would wake up eventually 
There's another example of inaccountability. In Ontario they have been dealing a uranium prification and mining site that was built in the 40's. The gov't won't even look at the site because its viewed as low level danger (due to when it was built, not the exposures).
Residents just released a study they paid for that talks of high bone cancer, hypertension, and Leukaemia rates. Now the gov't says they need to look at the report.
"Miller, who also founded the group Families Against Radiation Exposure, said he's particularly concerned since Cameco has a number of projects pending. One of them involves remediation at a plant that was forced to shut down in July after it was discovered that uranium and arsenic were leaking into the soil.
He's also worried about what safeguards are being implemented to ensure radioactive dust that will no doubt be "stirred-up" during the cleanup doesn't pose any further harm.
An environmental assessment found there to be no significant issues associated with dust from the cleanup which is expected to take six or seven years, Case said."
http://www.thespec.com/News/Cana.../article/
280985
How many people actually believe that 6-7 years of high metal radium and uranium, as well as arsenic, radon and lead exposures is not harmful; yet 30 minutes of casual exposure to SHS is going to cause a heart attack??
Lets get some perspective on this issue shall we??
Lynda,
Bill hates it that we Forces Fanatics are still alive, healthy and breathing on our own. The reason he doesn't back up his statements (wish I could call them arguments) is because he is waiting for us all to drop so he can use us once again. I plan to stick around and needle him for a very long time too and I bet you will be sticking it to him too! Don't you just love it?
Unlike Bill, I understand where the Doctor is coming from though and why he says and does what he does. Unfortunately, I also believe this is all for his reputation, once TC has crumbled. He really isn't concerned about any of us and our rights or freedoms, which is why I want to convince him to take the highroad. I figure he was brainwashed once, maybe he can be again.
To LighteningBoy,
We need a revolution, a movement or whatever you want to call it. Would you consider being our Martin Luther King Jr.?
Mr. G, In an effort to dumb it down in the same way that Mr. Glantz might approve of (leaving out all those pesky caveats)
There is no one to one relationship between smokers and Cancer or "smoking related disease"
There is no one to one relationship bewteeen ETS and Non-smokers and any cancer or "smoking related disease."
Not every smoker gets cancer or a "smoking related disease", just as not every non-smoker gets cancer or a "smoking related disease"
Therfore, ...you have no case.
Wow, being a "scientist" is easier than I thought.
Since I've been smoking for 35 years, the preceeding statement constitutes the entire unquestionably conclusive results of a massively expensive 35 year long study on this topic.
The RR is 00.0000 with a 99.99999% CI.
I have reached a consensus with the primary researcher (me), and the main subject of the study (me) and we now require reimbursement for time and material expenditures made over the course of the study period.
I am now clearly, fully qualified to testify at city council meetings, health board meetings and big tent revivals. (two shows on Sunday)
The results have not been peer reviewed or published yet, so you'll just have to take my word for it for now.
Where's my grant money?
LightningBoy
I have now peer reviewed your study and am wholly in agreement with your findings.I will cite it when and wherever possible
Why they want your tobacco
http://www.wired.com/science/dis...007/06/
nicotine
Which fits neatly with this
"The "problem" for the pharmaceutical industry is twofold. Healthy people avoid consuming pharmaceuticals. Illness generates profits to drug companies, mainly through their exclusive sale of patented drugs"
http://campaignfortruth.com/
Eclu...leadarticle.htm
From The link Rose provides above:
http://www.wired.com/science/dis...e/dis...007/06/
nicotine
"About half the cigarettes in this country are bought by people with psychiatric problems -- high percentages of people with depression and schizophrenia smoke, for example."
So,....some Thirty MILLION smokers are now depressed and/or schizophrenic as well as being simply addicted, unemployable, undereducated, poor, and burdens on the HealthScare industry to boot?
TC knows no shame.
Clearly no claim is too wild,...Oh wait, I'm starting to sound like the Doc.
Bill G---"ASH's statement would be technically correct even if applied to just one nonsmoker."
And the name of this one lone non-smoker is
__________________________________
(please print clearly)
Thank you.
.
Gilster---"Boink...could of had a V-8"
Forces Fanatic---"...and you stayed at a HolidayInn Express too!!!"
So easy a caveman could do it.
LightningBoy
A great many years ago before all this started, I heard that schizophrenics chained smoked because it improved the neural conectors in their brains.
That stuck in my head, which is why I started researching tobacco as a herbal medicine rather than a recreational drug.
They have known it all along.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
je...ra_b_72483.html
The media start to report about this challenge....
"Is there, or is there not, solid scientific evidence that a nonsmoker who is exposed to secondhand smoke for 30 minutes is at the same risk of a fatal heart attack as an active smoker? Yes or no?"
Definitely yes! Since there is no risk for a smoker (or else he/she wouldn't be called smoker but a dead body), there is no risk for a nonsmoker. Zero=zero. Q.E.D.
From Gilsters link, this is certain to crank up Bill G's endothelial dysfunction:
"* Of all mouth and throat cancers diagnosed, 75 percent are caused by tobacco; half of the people diagnosed with oral cancer survive five years after their diagnosis.
* Some of the other effects of smokeless tobacco use include addiction to nicotine, oral leukoplakia (white mouth lesions that may become cancerous), gum disease and gum recession (when the gum pulls away from the teeth).
* Spit tobacco possibly increases the risks for heart disease, diabetes and reproductive problems, which are now being studied.
* Spit tobacco use may cause your heart rate to increase and raise your risk for a heart attack or a stroke.
* A pinch of tobacco held in your mouth for 30 minutes delivers as much nicotine as three to four cigarettes."
Bill, since your interventions on this blog, I have converted to SPIT. Please reassure me, they MUST be lying, mustn't they?
About the Otsuko study-- which seems to be the source of all the 30 minute talk, repeated ad nauseum in a number of other papers, thus creating the illusion that many different studies have independently reached the same conclusion, when in fact they're all simply citing Otsuko---
The big thing to know is that Otsuko didn't find what they're claiming he found. In fact, he says specifically that the ONLY thing he found was a (reversible) difference in coronary reserve flow. Reserve flow is called on when you're chased by a bear. Not when you're sitting around jawing in a bar. Nor would it mean you couldn't run like hell from the bear just because your coronary reserves were a tad lower.
The other thing to know is that the only way Otsuko could arrive at this finding was to artificially stimulate the hearts of his 30 subjects by injecting them with...um... blocking on the drug, but something like adrenaline.
I only beg to differ that the CO levels of 6.0 ppm were inordinate. According to the EPA, the TLV (Threshhold Level Value-- amount below which there are no bad effects) for CO exposure are:
9 ppm hourly for 8 hours
35 ppm for 1 hour
But EPA is cautious because:
70 ppm is the no effect level for "most people."
Further, a lot of experiments have been conducted on people with existing heart trouble that exposed them to over 200 ppm and then made them exercise and found...nothing; no ill effects. In many cases their own blood levels of CO exceeded 6.0.
Finally the amount of CO measured in one airport bar where researchers counted 60 simultaneously going cigarettes was... 9 ppm.
Sources:
"CO: Evaluation of California Air Quality," OEHHA, 2000, and www.coheadquarters.com. and
(bar stat) Corporate Responsibility Consulting study of Manchester (UK) Airport Hotel Bar, "Ventilation Strategy at the Airport Hotel," January 2003
:
Correction:
should've been blood levels of 6.0 %, What I'm talking about is the amount of CO found in the blood. Whwn CO mixes with-- is carried by-- blood it's measured as carboyxhemoglobin. It reduces the body's capacity to use oxygen by.. whatever its percent. The amount in the air that's needed to get even a 6% reduction seems to have been over 250 ppm.
:
Walt, I would disagree that Otsuka's exposure levels were anything like "normal." Remember that the AVERAGE CO level in the middle of airplane smoking sections (conditions FAR smokier than any concerned nonsmoker would subject themselves to for 30 minutes) was only 1.5 ppm of CO.
Otsuka exposed his subjects to 400% of that level.
In the comment area above this one (Quotes) I look at Glantz's claims on platelet aggregation and secondary smoke in more detail.
Now, I also want to note something about what Dr. Siegel said here:
"I am not, and have never, challenged the notion that 30 minutes of secondhand smoke exposure could potentially trigger a heart attack in someone with severe coronary artery disease."
I believe it would be just as accurate to say ""I am not, and have never, challenged the notion that sticking your tongue out at someone could potentially trigger a heart attack in someone with severe coronary artery disease."
After all, in certain situations sticking your tongue out at a person could get them quite upset and cause a precipitous rise in blood pressure and such, thereby triggering a heart attack.
A more interesting question though is this: The antismoking campaign has obviously resulted in many highly upsetting interactions and situations for people, situations where people's angers flared and where people were falsely made to believe that their lives were being imminently threatened.
How many heart attacks may have resulted from this? Perhaps in all reality, far MORE than would have ever occurred from secondary smoke!
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/
Here's your quote of contention:
"[SHS] can raise a nonsmoker's risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker"
You neglected to mention the superscript #7 which follows this statement. If you do read the #7 and if you look elsewhere in the document it is clear that they are referring to people with an existing heart condition.
What more do you want?
Abert-I've read reference 7 and nowhere does it say that the risk of an exposed nonsmoker after 30 minutes of secondhand smoke exposure rises to the same level as that of an active smoker.
If you can cite the evidence in reference 7 that documents that the risk of a fatal MI in a nonsmoker exposed for 30 minutes is the same as that of an active smoker, I'd be very astounded.
What more do I want? The truth would be a good start.
MJM is very astute in reading between the lines and noting that while I don't dispute that 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke could trigger a heart attack in someone with severe coronary artery disease, I also don't dispute that eating a hamburger, getting into an argument, or mowing a lawn could also trigger a heart attack in such a person.
The point is that if you have coronary artery stenosis so severe that a mere 30 minute exposure can trigger a heart attack, then there are a lot of things that could also trigger that heart attack. You are a heart attack waiting to happen. What you need is bypass surgery or angioplasty. Avoiding secondhand smoke is not going to prevent you from having a heart attack. Something else will trigger it if you are in that bad shape.
Michael Siegel wrote:
"Avoiding secondhand smoke is not going to prevent you from having a heart attack. Something else will trigger it if you are in that bad shape."
Could you put that in bold at the top of the website and add, "ATTENTION ALAN"?
Thank you.
Dr. Siegel wrote:
Avoiding secondhand smoke is not going to prevent you from having a heart attack. Something else will trigger it if you are in that bad shape
And thus the proof that smoking bans are not needed. Someone that ill has the responsibility to protect im/herself, it is not up to you to force the rest of us to provide the protection.
And thus the proof that smoking bans are not needed. Someone that ill has the responsibility to protect im/herself, it is not up to you to force the rest of us to provide the protection.
This bears repeating AND emphasizing as we've been saying this all along.
Dr. Siegel - You are absolutely right. They are misrepresenting things in order to promot agendas.
I'm a little late and Thursday has already been. I just got here and started reading a couple of hours ago. I'm wondering if they ever provided any evidence. (I doubt it, LOL) If so I would like to see that.
Anyway I just wanted to say I liked your piece. I know you catch quite a bit of flack from both sides but I enjoy most of your writings. And although I don't agree with you on everything, I believe that you mean well and truly desire to do the right thing.
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