|
|
|
|
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 5:36:17 PM | | Denial is an ugly thing. It doesn't take a genius to figure out if a child is taking in second hand smoke on a repetive basis that it will harm them. Tobacco companies must laugh all the way to the bank. Yeah believe the companies selling you this junk,I am sure they have your best interest.. Fools | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 5:53:17 PM | Tobacco companies must laugh all the way to the bank. Yeah believe the companies selling you this junk,I am sure they have your best interest.. Fools
Yeah they probably do laugh ....
Tobacco companies must laugh at the fools who are duped into being militant anti-smoking crusaders .
The tobacco companies would say ...." hey you idiots, thanks for all your help . You've regulated us to the point of having a guranteed government supported steady profit stream essentially without competition . Our relationship with the government is symbiotic. Do you think we are not a mega powerful lobby ? Do you not think it's heads we win tails you lose?
All you have done is raised the prices of tobacco product 10 fold for the poor working stiff !
Do you not realise we are a mega billion dollar industry .
Now you're into selling your own freedom down the river .....duh!!!
Do you little busy body fools not know we are onside with the anti-smoking agenda ?
You're playing with the big boys now .
Get with the program ....bub! " | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 5:54:23 PM | To msquared in msg #154:
How many people eat fast food exclusively for a month? I doubt it is comparable to how many smokers smoke every day. I guess you don't get programmes about unhealthy eating, like we do in the UK on a daily basis. In one of these programmes, they are showing that children are exposed to 500 chemicals EVERY DAY. That isn't the # of possible chemicals they might be exposed to. That's the number of chemicals they are definitely exposed to, from non-smoking parents.
He finished the month, and was told he couldn't eat any junk food for A YEAR, or he could lose his life. Cite? I am quite familiar with this documntary, and don't recall every hearing about this detail.
I have NEVER heard any study that said that an athlete could lose their life from smoking even 100 cigarettes a day for only a month. That is because there has never been such a study. I rather doubt you could easily find a group of athletes to agree to participate in one.
While we're at it:
* Each day, 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant
* In 1972, we spent 3 billion a year on fast food - today we spend more than $110 billion
* McDonald's feeds more than 46 million people a day - more than the entire population of Spain
* French fries are the most eaten vegetable in America
* You would have to walk for seven hours straight to burn off a Super Sized Coke, fry and Big Mac
* In the U.S., we eat more than 1,000,000 animals an hour
* 60 percent of all Americans are either overweight or obese
* One in every three children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime
* Left unabated, obesity will surpass smoking as the leading cause of preventable death in America
* Obesity has been linked to: Hypertension, Coronary Heart Disease, Adult Onset Diabetes, Stroke, Gall Bladder Disease, Osteoarthritis, Sleep Apnea, Respiratory Problems, Endometrial, Breast, Prostate and Colon Cancers, Dyslipidemia, steatohepatitis, insulin resistance, breathlessness, Asthma, Hyperuricaemia, reproductive hormone abnormalities, polycystic ovarian syndrome, impaired fertility and lower back pain
* The average child sees 10,000 TV advertisements per year
* Only seven items on McDonald's entire menu contain no sugar
* Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald - he was fired for being too fat
* McDonald's distributes more toys per year than Toys-R-Us
* Diabetes will cut 17-27 years off your life
* McDonald's: "Any processing our foods undergo make them more dangerous than unprocessed foods"
* The World Health Organization has declared obesity a global epidemic
* Eating fast food may be dangerous to your health
* McDonald's calls people who eat a lot of their food "heavy users"
* McDonald's operates more than 30,000 restaurants in more then 100 countries on 6 continents
* Before most children can speak they can recognize McDonald's
* Surgeon General David Satcher: "Fast food is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic"
* Most nutritionists recommend not eating fast food more than once a month
* 40 percent of American meals are eaten outside the home
* McDonald's represents 43% of total U.S. fast food market http://www.vivavegie.org/101book/text/nolink/social/supersizeme.htm
Doesn't look so pleasant now, does it?
To Jiperly in msg #156:
And thats where it comes down to, isn't it? This isn't about punishing people for doing something unhealthy- its about punishing people for doing something in EXCESS- and ANYTHING in excess can kill you- should we start arresting people who eat too much McDonald's? For Running too much? For excessively spending time on the couch? For excessively spending too much time on the Internet? Ask children whose mothers are obese, and the mother cannot clear up the house, or go shopping. The kids have to do it. Their childhoods are spent being a housekeeper to their mother. Ask children of men who had heart attacks while jogging. Not common, but it has happened quite a few times. Ask children of parents who cannot get off the couch to play with them. Ask ex-partners of people who spent too much time on the internet, and ended up in chatrooms or looking at porn. Heck, ask people on POF whose new-found S/O kept going back on POF for more than the forums.
Jiperly, you make a good argument for all of these people to be fined. That way, their kids might have a parent.
To SunnyTexas in msg #163:
Would it bother you if I told you to wipe your butt or brush your teeth? You have expressed how I have been feeling. :applause:
To msquared in msg #167:
Not sure where some people get their info from but I read a couple weeks ago of a 7yr study from the The World Health Organization on 2nd hand smoke and they could find no link between 2nd hand smoke and cancer. I challenge you to give us a link to this study.
See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1384583/posts
See the original PubMed study:
CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lung cancer risk. We did find weak evidence of a dose-response relationship between risk of lung cancer and exposure to spousal and workplace ETS. There was no detectable risk after cessation of exposure. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9776409&dopt=Abstract
That's just the thing. Some adults aren't being responsible for their choices, and their children could suffer the consequences. If they were being responsible, this law wouldn't be necessary, so blame them, not us. According to this, adults should be fined for feeding fast food to their children, and adults should be fined for not having a catalytic converter on their cars as car fumes both float upwards into the car, and stay on the street, so on a busy road, you can no longer walk down the road without choking from the fumes. A problem I had since I was a child, about 15 years before I took up smoking.
To SunnyTexas in msg #175:
Okay, there ya go....we need a law against parents drinking at home with children in their care. Why not? The parent could pass out with mac&cheese boilin' on the stove. Or leave the water runnin' in the bathtub with a toddler in it. That's usually how these things happen to children. But the police overlook alcoholics.
To Eldubu1 in msg #177:
Scorpio: And that's my point...we weren't allowed to. My mother took it as us "nagging" her to quit smoking, when all we wanted was to breathe. The friends I mentioned a few pages back were the exact same. When their daughter would ask if we could roll a window down, she got barked at by her mother to "shut up". It's abuse. People can defend it all they want...it's still abuse.
So many are getting so defensive, but the fact is there ARE parents who don't care if their kids are suffering because of their smoking.
This has nothing to do with excessive smoking, it has to do with forcing others to inhale your second hand smoke. A child has absolutely NO SAY in being exposed to second hand smoke by their parents, or most other adults for that matter. Try getting a backhand across the face someday because you say that you can't breathe in the back seat of the car...see how that makes you feel. This is child abuse.
Please note that I am a smoker, and I am in full support of this law.
To a_sweet_fishy in msg #188:
There already ARE laws to cover these things. Just try passing out drunk and letting your child burn to death in the house, or let the little biter drown in the tub and see what happens. You will be prosecuted but only if you are caught. In these cases it is generally worst case scenario. Same with this law, you will only be punished if you are caught. When it comes to alcohol: There are laws about neglect, which cover IF your child burns to death. There are no laws about prevention of neglect, which cover getting drunk every night, which would could lead to your child burning to death.
When it comes to smoking: There are no laws about neglect, which cover IF your child gets cancer. There are laws about prevention of neglect, which cover smoking, which would could lead to your child getting cancer.
They should be the same: jail for neglect, and fines for a lack of prevention of neglect.
I'm not sure why, but it seems that governments are anti-smoking, but not anti-alcohol. But the police say most of the violent acts come from the alcohol. If the government put a heavy fine on excessive consumption of alcohol, then the police would have the funding to spend on alcohol, and they would be able to make our streets safe. Right now, they can't. Leaving rapists and drug dealers who peddle drugs to children and paedophiles free to do what they want. If they did this, they would still be able to find smokers. But they won't go after alcohol.
However, there is one main difference between alcohol and smoking: No-one ever said that pretty 20-year-old girls slept with ugly 50-year-old politicians because they smoked. But plenty of people said that lots of pretty 20-year-old girls slept with ugly 50-year-old politicians because they drank too much alcohol.
Questions for the non-smokers:
Why is everyone blaming the smoker and not the cigarette manufacturers? Doesn't anyone realise that the cigarette manufacturers put very addictive and very poisonous chemicals in cigarettes, which are thousands of time more harmful than tobacco, such as Cyanide?
Also, why is it illegal for a child to breathe in second-hand smoke, yet it is perfectly legal for cigarette manufacturers to put Cyanide in cigarettes, and not even be forced to tell you which chemicals have Cyanide in it, like with food? Food has to have E-numbers and any chemical additives listed. Why is that law different for cigarettes? Can we say "double standard"? | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 6:04:25 PM | Yeah they probably do laugh ....
Tobacco companies must laugh at the fools who are duped into being militant anti-smoking crusaders .
The tobacco companies would say ...."hey you idiots, thanks for your all your help . You've regulated us to the point of having a guranteed government supported steady profit stream essentially without competition . Our relationship with the government is symbiotic. Do you think we are not a mega powerful lobby ? Do you not think it's heads we win tails you lose?
All you have done is raised the prices of tobacco product 10 fold for the poor working stiff !
Do you not realise we are a mega billion dollar industry .
Do you little busy body fools not know we are onside with the anti-smoking agenda ? "
Get with the program .....bub !
You do realize that higher taxes of tobacco has been linked to lower smoking rates right? And the tobacco lobyists FIGHT these measures. You do know they've had to spend millions defending themselves from the governments attempts to regain the massive amounts of money spent on fighting the health effects of smoking right?
As to the effect of over eating and all that other crap. Yes it is something that needs to be dealt with. Amazingly enough, you can be concerned about two things at the same time! | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 6:06:53 PM | >>> It doesn't take a genius to figure out if a child is taking in second hand smoke on a repetive basis that it will harm them.
And this law doesn't stop them from being exposed- it only stops them from being exposed in a public place.
Its statements like that that keep making me come back to the basis not of the OP, but of what you're implying- that we should ban smoking.
>>>Tobacco companies must laugh all the way to the bank.
Causing children to die of cancer before they can legally purchase their products.....yea....that makes sense.....
Kinda like how McDonald's taught their clown ninjutsu and released him with the command that he murder random customers....
>>>Yeah believe the companies selling you this junk,I am sure they have your best interest.. Fools
No, but thats what the warnings are for- to allow grown and mature adults to see the risks associated and make decisions for themselves | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 6:07:58 PM | | Could care less about the tobacco companies and the adults who are brain washed into finding excuses for smoking but this is about smoking in a car/home with minor children. Smoke all you want ,I really don't give a sh_t just don't force it on a child who can't defend itself.. If you honestly believe that second hand smoke does not hurt young kids I have 100 acres of beachfront in Kansas I can sell just to you at a bargain. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 6:12:40 PM | You do realize that higher taxes of tobacco has been linked to lower smoking rates right? And the tobacco lobyists FIGHT these measures. You do know they've had to spend millions defending themselves from the governments attempts to regain the massive amounts of money spent on fighting the health effects of smoking right?
Now let me see ....government already gets billions in revenue through their cohorts in the tobacco industry ...and yet you feel they are truly combatants ?
I think it might go something like this....ok we'll sue you for lets say 10 billion and we'll keep that nasty import tabacco out and guarantee you 15 billion in profit over the next five years.
Your brothers in the nicotine gum/patch monopoly will make billions as well . We'll take care of them real good like through the FDA . .And all of our buddies in the big law firms will get rich too ! Let's just keep on regulating ....regulation is good for business!
They just love guys like you.
You're actually supporting the multi -billion dollar cash grab by the government- tobacco industry complex. Yeah .....they laugh......You really are a "do-gooder" ....
 | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 6:15:08 PM | | I agree with most of you! I do however believe that imprisonment is order for parents who allow their children to become overweight! It's the # 1 health problem in this country for people under the age of 25 yrs. Funny how we pick and choose what health related issues are pet peeves of our own and justify the ones that effect us personally! | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 6:26:36 PM |
Now let me see ....government already gets billions in revenue through their cohorts in the tobacco industry ...and yet you feel they are truly combatants ?
They just love guys like you.
You're actually supporting the multi -billion dollar cash grab by the government- tobacco industry complex. Yeah .....they laugh......You really are a "do-gooder" ....
Why would they like guys like me, they get 0 dollars from me.
Tobacco companies make more money if they're not taxed, tax dollars don't go to them.
Explain to me how tobacco taxes lead to greater revenues by tobacco companies please, also tell me I contribute to this when I don't actually purchase any tobacco products. Tell me how do tobacco companies profit from smokers who quit smoking due to increased prices or regulation? | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/16/2007 6:48:41 PM |
Why would they like guys like me, they get 0 dollars from me.
Tobacco companies make more money if they're not taxed, tax dollars don't go to them.
Explain to me how tobacco taxes lead to greater revenues by tobacco companies please, also tell me I contribute to this when I don't actually purchase any tobacco products. Tell me how do tobacco companies profit from smokers who quit smoking due to increased prices or regulation?
If you aren't able to follow along and you can't figure that out ....then why not stop doing so much "good" ?
Your "good" is no good.
Now ...why not go back to promoting the "global warming" fraud ? ...you're doing even more "good" there .
Al Bore needs you.
Hint: Oil companies are "onside"
| |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/17/2007 5:59:02 AM |
Why is everyone blaming the smoker and not the cigarette manufacturers?
That is like blaming the grocery store for making you overweight.
Smoking is a personal choice, as is quitting. The law is merely trying to prevent an "adult's" personal choice from affecting minor children, who can't make the choice for themselves.
Even just plain wood smoke is not good for your lungs, and it is not laced with chemicals. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/17/2007 6:20:40 AM | If you aren't able to follow along and you can't figure that out ....then why not stop doing so much "good" ?
Your "good" is no good.
So in other words you've got nothing.
Now ...why not go back to promoting the "global warming" fraud ? ...you're doing even more "good" there .
Al Bore needs you.
Hint: Oil companies are "onside"
and now you'r off topic. I'm guessing you were never on the debate team.
Besides, it's like the fast, food and smoking thing. I can beat you in two arguments at the same time. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/17/2007 8:26:04 AM | To littlewench in msg #212:
Why is everyone blaming the smoker and not the cigarette manufacturers? That is like blaming the grocery store for making you overweight.
This would be like blaming a food manufacturer for injecting Cyanide or Arsenic or bleach into your food, and you ending up in hospital as a result of these chemicals.
Smoking is a personal choice, as is quitting. Quitting something unadulterated is a personal choice. Deliberately adding addictive chemicals and not even saying what those chemicals are, is not fair play.
The law is merely trying to prevent an "adult's" personal choice from affecting minor children, who can't make the choice for themselves. I've already posted that I agree with the law.
Even just plain wood smoke is not good for your lungs, and it is not laced with chemicals. Wood chips are poisonous to smoke and illegal to be mixed with tobacco.
The law does NOT require cigarette manufacturers to list any of their poisonous additives, yet requires food manufacturers to list ALL of their additives. It's a double standard.
How can you convince smokers to give up, when you let the manufacturers get away with poisoning people? | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/17/2007 8:40:21 AM | | i've been a smoker for years, and my car is my car... but my kids lungs are "my kids lungs, so i don't smoke near them in the house, or while they are in the car with me. it's just respect and care for those around you, if smoking is more important than the ones you care about, you and you cigs need to get a room. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/17/2007 10:28:16 AM |
but this is about smoking in a car/home with minor children. Uhhh, no, the law does not specify anything about your home... just your car. Can you explain why? | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/17/2007 11:02:17 AM | | Your question is easy, Carpe. It's called the right to privacy. It has been upheld in case after case involving sex in some form. And the only way to enforce such a law would be to break the law by becoming a peeping Tom **or Tomasia**. Plus there's that pesky amendment about unreasonable search and seizure. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/17/2007 2:19:39 PM |
Why is everyone blaming the smoker and not the cigarette manufacturers?
That is like blaming the grocery store for making you overweight.
Blaming the grocery store for making you overweight, would be like blaming the grocery store for selling you cigarettes, and in the UK, any grocery store that is caught selling cigarettes to anyone under 18 is liable to a fine.
This would be like blaming a food manufacturer for injecting Cyanide or Arsenic or bleach into your food, and you ending up in hospital as a result of these chemicals.
Not sure what your point is.
Quitting something unadulterated is a personal choice. Deliberately adding addictive chemicals and not even saying what those chemicals are, is not fair play.
You kind find a list of those chemicals on numerous web sites. But quittin cigarettes, quitting drugs, quitting alcohl, exercising, losing weight, all personal choice, none are easy, but they ARE personal choice.
Even just plain wood smoke is not good for your lungs, and it is not laced with chemicals.
Wood chips are poisonous to smoke and illegal to be mixed with tobacco.
My point was not about wood chips, I was talking about burning wood, ie camp fire,etc. ANY smoke is harmful to the lungs. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/18/2007 8:38:59 AM | To littlewench in msg 228:
Why is everyone blaming the smoker and not the cigarette manufacturers?
That is like blaming the grocery store for making you overweight.
Blaming the grocery store for making you overweight, would be like blaming the grocery store for selling you cigarettes, and in the UK, any grocery store that is caught selling cigarettes to anyone under 18 is liable to a fine.
This would be like blaming a food manufacturer for injecting Cyanide or Arsenic or bleach into your food, and you ending up in hospital as a result of these chemicals.
Not sure what your point is. Your analogy did not match the circumstances. I was asking why does everyone blame the consumer of cigarettes and not the manufacturer. I was NOT asking why does everyone not blame the grocery store. A grocery store sells food & cigarettes. It does not make food. The consumer and the grocery store have no control over what is put into the cigarettes. Only the manufacturer control what goes into the cigarettes. Why not complain against the cigarette manufacturers, who put Cyanide and Arsenic and bleach into cigarettes? A single small dose of any of these lethal chemicals will kill your children. An equivalent single dose of tobacco will not do that much at all. Why not blame ALL the people who are at fault, and not single out the individuals who cannot afford lawyers to sue you?
You kind find a list of those chemicals on numerous web sites. You can find a list of chemicals that have been found in different brands at different times. But each time a person tried to publish a definitive list for a brand, the manufacturer of that brand changed the chemicals they used. Again, why is it illegal for food to be sold unless it comes with packaging that clearly lists all of the chemicals added, but the law makes no such requirement on cigarettes?
Can we say "double standard"?
But quittin cigarettes, quitting drugs, quitting alcohl, exercising, losing weight, all personal choice, none are easy, but they ARE personal choice. Ask anyone who works in a clinic dealing with drug addiction or alcohol addiction. They work with these people, and they say it is a LOT more than personal choice. Often, it requires therapy to change. From my reading on the subject, the most successful are those who become acquainted with G-d, and give their choice over to him. How is that personal choice?
My point was not about wood chips, I was talking about burning wood, ie camp fire,etc. ANY smoke is harmful to the lungs. The topic is about a law that bans people from smoking in cars with minors, as the minors are near the smoke and would not remove themselves from the car, because they are too young to realise they have that choice. I agree with it, and so do you. Camp fires will cause smoke to be forcibly inhaled to anyone nearby. Yet it is not illegal for people to have camp fires with children near enough to breathe in the smoke, and there is no requirement to keep these kids at a safe distance. Although the kids could walk away from the fire, we all know they are too young to realise they should do this, the same as kids are too young to realise they can just tell the driver of the car to stop, and let them out of the car.
I agree with the law discussed in the topic. I do NOT agree with the double standard of blaming the consumers for their actions and not the manufacturers for theirs. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/18/2007 11:55:16 PM | Forget the law....
Parents who smoke around their kids are just plain selfish. What kind of parent wants to bring harm to their child? Amazing the number of crappy parents who are just too darn selfish to see the light. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/19/2007 6:09:25 PM |
http://www.forces.org/research/files/who.htm
Here's something on it.... I beilieve it's largely being repressed and ignored ....[warning : the following may send militant anti-smoking -busy body- do-gooders into an "unhappy tizzy"] (-;
Interesting that you link to others interpretation of WHO's study, but stay well away from what WHO itself has to state on the subject.
Here is a collection of articles on what WHO actually states about second-hand smoke.
http://search.who.int/search?ie=utf8&site=default_collection&client=WHO&proxystylesheet=WHO&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=utf8&q=passive+smoking | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/19/2007 6:26:56 PM |
Here's something on it.... I beilieve it's largely being repressed and ignored ....[warning : the following may send militant anti-smoking -busy body- do-gooders into an "unhappy tizzy"] (-;
Interesting that you link to others interpretation of WHO's study, but stay well away from what WHO itself has to state on the subject.
Here is a collection of articles on what WHO actually states about second-hand smoke.
Looks like you got served! | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/19/2007 6:32:47 PM | | Being of a generation whose mothers smoked (and drank) while pregnant, smoked in the hospital after they delivered us, smoked at home, smoked in the car, I find the current notion that children will curl up and die at the whiff of secondhand smoke to be kind of silly. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/19/2007 6:38:10 PM |
Being of a generation whose mothers smoked (and drank) while pregnant, smoked in the hospital after they delivered us, smoked at home, smoked in the car, I find the current notion that children will curl up and die at the whiff of secondhand smoke to be kind of silly.
Have you noticed how many health problems our generation has? | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/19/2007 10:32:40 PM | Interesting that you link to others interpretation of WHO's study, but stay well away from what WHO itself has to state on the subject.
Here is a collection of articles on what WHO actually states about second-hand smoke.
I'm just interested in the truth . I prefer the truth . I have no idea why some seem to be on a mission , I guess that's part of the "do-gooder" mentality .
Are you suggesting a bias?
Stay away? ...You're absolutely wrong.
You must have missed this :
Results from this large multi-country study were leaked to the press in March 1998, sending anti-smoking activists into a not-too-happy tizzy. And understandably so. "A ten-year study carried out for the World Health Organisation has failed to find a clear link between passive smoking and lung cancer," wrote Nigel Hawkes, the science editor of The (London) Times in a March 9, 1998 article.
Not true, responded WHO, which promptly issued a press release (March 9, 1998) headlined, "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer, Do Not Let Them Fool You."
Well, we've now had a chance to read the study, which was carried out by WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and, sure enough, it's not good news for the anti-smoking brigade. The WHO study found no statistically significant increased risk for lung cancer from exposure to ETS in the home, at work, in vehicles or in indoor public settings such as restaurants. It even found a decreased risk from childhood exposure to ETS, which, taken literally, would suggest that exposure to secondhand smoke during childhood had a protective effect against lung cancer. (Apparently stunned by their own finding, the study's authors downplayed the decreased risk by referring to it as "no increased risk.")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a pretty exhaustive article full of facts and it has some interesting points about bias:
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/urban.html
Urban Residency Confounds Most Secondhand Smoke Studies
By David Kuneman
Introduction:
Antismoking activists tout secondhand smoke studies as scientific evidence that smoking bans are necessary to protect the public from a serious health hazard. The consensus claim being that secondhand smoke exposure increases risk of dying from lung cancer 20% and that it causes 35,000 deaths from heart disease each year.
Researchers that publish these studies admit they are subject to potential confounding from a host of other risks that might be more particular to nonsmokers exposed to more smoke than the general public, or those with less exposure. They usually make the tenuous conclusion that the possible confounding is not enough to dispute their findings.
However, a fairly thorough summary of commonly recognized confounders is presented in the EPA report: “Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking”, Dec 1992. Among these are history of lung disease, family history of lung disease, heat sources for cooking, cooking with oil, occupation, and diet. Others have claimed recall and misclassification bias are potential confounders.* Even without this possibility, Robert Nilsson, of Stockholm University did conclude these confounders are sufficient to explain most of the increased risk found in second hand smoke studies. ( Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, Vol 34, #1, June 1996) None, however, have considered urban residency.
*(This misclassification might be underestimated because some current smokers may have claimed to be nonsmokers, or smokers who had recently quit, for the purpose of saving money on health insurance premiums. Later, when diagnosed with lung cancer or heart disease, they would have to maintain the fraud, or conceal the fact they had resumed smoking, to avoid probable loss of health coverage just when most urgently needed. Having heard the publicity about secondhand smoke, they would then claim massive secondhand smoke exposure to explain contacting these diseases. In any regard, we cannot assume recall bias or misclassification are similar to those encountered in other kinds of epidemiological studies.)
Lastly, the most common criticism of secondhand smoke studies is that the statistical results are too weak to draw any conclusion. Consider that many secondhand smoke studies report negative results, some in data subsets, which range from RR= 0.9 to 0.6. This would indicate a “protective effect” from secondhand smoke, although no sensible plausibility has ever been proposed. For example, the WHO 1998 study found never-smokers who grew up in smoking homes had 78% as much lung cancer as never-smokers who grew up in nonsmoking homes; Kabat 2003 found nonsmoking males married to smokers had 94% as much heart disease and 75% as much lung cancer as nonsmoking males married to nonsmokers. Brownson, 1992 reported many subsets with 70% risk. EPA 1992 reported: 81% risk Buffler 1984; 75% risk Chan1982; 86% risk Janerich 1990; 79% risk Kabat 1984; 74% risk Liu 1991; and 79% risk Wu-Williams 1990. Considering these results are much more likely to be statistical “bounce”, than proof secondhand smoke is healthful , it appears the standard relative error of secondhand smoke studies is about 20%.Further, there may be many more of these studies which have never been published. Dr, Geof Givens, applied a statistical routine which found it is likely there are many more unpublished secondhand smoke studies with insignificant results and that the estimated excess risk may thus be overstated by around 30%. Indeed, Enstrom and Kabat encountered peer personal attacks and suspension of research funding from the University of California’s Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, when they announced the results of their statistically insignificant secondhand smoke study. Levy and Marimont report the National Cancer Institute’s own guidelines consider any relative risk less than two insignificant. Most secondhand smoke studies report results much lower than two. (Lies, Damned Lies & 400,000 Smoking-Related Deaths)
Non-profit epidemiologists such as Garfinkel, J. Nat. Cancer Inst. 1981, followed the NCI guidelines. Overall, he found nonsmoking wives of smokers of less than 20 cigarettes/day had 27% more lung cancer; those of smokers over 20 cigarettes/day had 10% more lung cancer. Because these results were less than two, and because they followed an inverse trend with smoking habits of husbands, he concluded the results were insignificant. He also performed a matched analysis of a subset his data. When the data were corrected for urban/rural residency, race, education, and occupation, he found an elevated risk of 37% when the husband smoked less than 20 cigarettes/day and an elevated risk of 4% when the husband smoked more than 20 cigarettes/day. Note the impact of correcting the data for some other risk factors, and why any risk less than two stands a good chance of being compromised by secondary factors.
Individual people are too diverse to “average together” in such studies. Association does not prove cause. After all the years of being warned of the hazards of red meat diets, suddenly Dr. Atkins announces such diets do produce weight loss, and in a quick study, the American Heart Association finds less heart disease among those consuming diets rich in red meat and saturated fats. Consider, another example.. the relative risk of magnetic field exposure causes cancer was three. Yet no plausibility was ever found. According to Dr. Steven Milloy, in “Science Without Sense” , 1995, The Cato Institute, other relative risks never found to be plausible are wearing a brassiere/ breast cancer, RR=12,500 ; eating12+ hotdogs-a-month/ leukemia, RR=9.5 ; douching/cervical cancer, RR=4.0. Nilsson reported the editor of the journal “Epidemiology”, Ken Rothman admitted of secondhand smoke studies, “We’re pushing the edge of what can be done with epidemiology”.
Background:
It has always been known smoking patterns vary with degree of urbanization. The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol 14, 1968, p 337 reported urban and rural non-farm dwellers smoked at the same rate, but farm workers smoked less. By 1990, this pattern had shifted so that urban dwellers smoked about 33% more than suburban dwellers, while rural dwellers had intermediate smoking rates.
By, 1998, another shift had occurred. Today, rural dwellers have the highest smoking rates (27% female, 31% male), suburban dwellers the lowest (20% female, 24-25% male) , and urban dwellers are intermediate. ( Health, United States, 2001) However, most secondhand smoke studies were completed prior to this final shift.
Within the last five years, an explosion of concern about urban pollution being linked to increased lung cancer and heart disease has occurred. This concern should have been addressed years ago. “Geographic Patterns in the Risk of Dying and Associated Factors”, U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, reported that between 1960 and 1970 that the highest rates for most cancers were in cities. “Persons at High Risk of Cancer” reported that during the 1970’s, the urban/rural risk of lung cancer from all causes was 1.89 for males, 1.64 for females. Adjusting for 33% excess smoking in cities, this elevated risk then becomes a 43% excess for both sexes.
Recently, these claims have been taken more seriously. Arden Pope, of Brigham Young University found after controlling for smoking, urban dwellers are 16% more at risk of dying of lung cancer from urban pollution. Overall, minus the greater smoking rates in cities, he summarized the scientific literature as indicating a greater risk of dying from lung cancer of 30 to 50% higher in urban areas.* Others have summarized this effect as manifesting itself internationally too, finding an excess overall elevated risk of up to 50%. Later, Pope also found the same is true of heart disease, with, after controlling for smoking, and other assorted risk factors, an elevated risk of 8% to 18% for every ten micrograms/ cubic meter of air of fine particulates. Since a typical city averages about twenty ug/cM the elevated risk then becomes 16% to 36% higher. (Cardiovascular Mortality and Long-Term Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution)
*This agrees well with my adjusted elevated risk of 43% for lung cancer, calculated above.
How would these facts affect secondhand smoke studies?
Most studies of secondhand smoke have been performed in teaching hospitals which are almost all located in large metropolitan areas. In obtaining study participants, then, one would expect nonsmoking spouses of smokers to follow the same urban/suburban residency patterns as smokers do. This would hold especially true for cohort studies where all participants are healthy at the beginning of the study. Rural resident nonsmokers would be less likely to participate because they tend to seek their medical services in small community hospitals, but could be included in case-controlled studies from cancer registries, or from being transferred to a large urban hospital when their health deteriorates substantially. But since these rural residents are less likely to suffer diseases blamed on secondhand smoke due to their living more free of urban pollutants, they are in any case underrepresented even in case-controlled studies. Studies of workplace secondhand smoke would not necessarily follow this same pattern, but they generally find weaker conclusions than the spousal studies do. Anecdotal reports indicate that workplace smoking policies for urban health care facilities ( which are big employers) were the first to ban smoking, suburban employers were second to restrict or ban smoking, while general urban employers ( such as manufacturing) came third. Commuting occurs to such a large degree that the mixing of suburban dwellers working in urban settings and urban dwellers in the suburbs is common. This mixing may indeed be the reason workplace secondhand smoke studies find weaker conclusions than spousal studies.
Taking 33% excess smoking in urban areas as a typical value, representing the period from 1980 to 1995 when most secondhand smoke studies were conducted, then we would expect nonsmoking spouses of smokers to be 33% more often urban residents, as well. During 1980, less differential between urban/suburban residency existed, but by 1995 more differential existed. This, of course assumes the medley of secondhand smoke studies is truly a representative population sampling, otherwise, one must question the validity of any of the data. For the reasons stated previously, rural residency would be underrepresented. But since for most of the period 1980 to 1995, researchers didn’t consider urban/suburban residency an important confounder when sampling populations for participants, they wouldn’t be concerned, or even record residency status or history of residency status. Pope stated urban lung cancer risk was studied during the 1970s, but was all but forgotten during the 1980s because everyone was so focused on smoking. ( first reference cited above) Indeed sample questioners such as those found in the EPA report don’t inquire about urban/suburban residency.
If one were to conduct a lung cancer study of nonsmokers who lived in nonsmoking households, and it happened the population samples consisted of 33% more urban residents in one group, as opposed to the other, then one would find an excess lung cancer rate of 14% in that group. ( 43% X 33% = 14% ) In fact this is what has inadvertently happened during the years most secondhand smoke studies were conducted. This 14% is 70% of the consensus excess lung cancer risk claimed from living with a smoker. ( which is 20%.) Considering the standard errors that are recognized by the authors when conducting such studies, ( usually 30%) an additional positive determinate error of 70% means there is a 40% chance the measured lung cancer risk of a nonsmoker living with a smoker is less than zero.
Similarly, for non-rheumatic heart disease deaths. The secondhand smoke claims concerning heart disease deaths are actually more vague. Unlike lung cancer which is widely believed to be caused mostly by tobacco, many other well established causes of heart disease exist. Obesity and stress may be evenly distributed between urban and suburban dwellers. Stress and smoking may act synergistically to produce more heart disease in cities, but this could be partially offset by smokers generally being less obese. Considering Pope’s average increased 26% risk of dying from heart disease due to urban pollution, a hypothetical study of nonsmokers living in smoke-free households which inadvertently contained 33% more urban residents in one group would find (26% X 33% =) 8.7% more such deaths in that group. According to the U.S. death tables, during 1995, 489,200 deaths due to ischemic heart disease occurred. 8.7% of that number is 42,580 deaths which is in excess of the 35,000 deaths each year usually claimed caused by secondhand smoke. It is easy to see how 8.7% more deaths among nonsmoking spouses of smokers could lead to the claim of 35,000 more heart disease deaths overall. However, part of Pope’s average increased risk may be due to excess smoking-stress synergy in urban areas (discussed above), which could reduce my calculation of 8.7% more deaths in a hypothetical study to a number that when multiplied by 489,200 yields a product closer to the 35,000 deaths usually claimed caused by secondhand smoke.
Conclusion:
Data gathered back in the 1970s, when those who smoke were evenly distributed between urban and suburban residency, produced secondhand smoke studies which generally found lower risk. As the distribution gravitated towards urban residency, the overall risks found in secondhand smoke studies which began gathering data after this gravitation, increased accordingly, but unfortunately, efforts were not made to overcome the play of urban-suburban residency as a confounding factor. Saracci wrote in “Tobacco: A Major International Health Hazard” , IARC Scientific Publications No. 74 , 1986 that “(a) the published studies, when considered by themselves, are compatible with absence of excess risk of lung cancer due to passive exposure to ETS or with the presence of a small excess risk; (b) in the light of the other available evidence, external to the studies, the interpretation favourable to the presence of a risk becomes definitely more plausible than the alternative; ( c) under these circumstances further epidemiological studies aiming at a direct estimate of the risk may be justified provided steps are taken to overcome, in the study design and conduct, the play of biases, some of which have been alluded to. Unless this is done, the studies stand a good chance of contributing results of a confusing rather than of a clarifying nature.”
Case-in-point is the recent study published that found no risk from secondhand smoke, based on Californians who participated in the American Cancer Society CPS-1 study begun in 1959. Kabat, et. al. In 1959, no such urban/suburban smoking differential existed. Later, when the ACS initiated a second study in 1982, CPS-2 did find positive risk from exposure to secondhand smoke.
Urban residency is an important factor that must be accounted for in order to determine if secondhand smoke actually causes disease. I cannot claim every study has been affected the same way by urban residency, but overall, the medley of studies that have been taken together to claim secondhand smoke causes a 20% elevated lung cancer risk and 35,000 deaths from heart disease in nonsmokers probably, on average are affected the way I describe. The authors would have to examine the raw data, and either assign a corrective factor based on residency, or, in the manner of Garfinkel, compare nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers and smokers within the framework of residency. This assessment of urban/suburban living appears to explain virtually all the excess risk of lung cancer and heart disease associated with secondhand smoke exposure. It is possible future research of urban pollution will uncover other health risks that are currently being blamed on secondhand smoke.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Resources:
Below, please review a copy of one figure from a large study by the American Cancer Society, which was authored by Hammond and Horn, 1958, JAMA, 166, 1294-1308 This is an actual "textbook" study. It appears in my textbook, Cancer Epidemiology, Principles and Procedures, John Hopkins Press, on page 97, where it is used to teach epidemiology students how to interpret etiological results. You will note, that in rural areas, lung cancer prevalence among male nonsmokers is ZERO. Therefore, all lung cancers among nonsmokers must be due to urban pollution. Remember that some of these nonsmokers must have been married to smokers in the rural areas, but none developed lung cancer. | |
|
| No smoking in car with minors
Posted: 10/20/2007 7:17:05 AM |
I'm just interested in the truth . I prefer the truth . I have no idea why some seem to be on a mission , I guess that's part of the "do-gooder" mentality .
Are you suggesting a bias?
Stay away? ...You're absolutely wrong.
You must have missed this :
If you prefer the unbiased truth, then why are you getting your information about WHO's study from a site called The Smoker's Club, rather than WHO itself? Looking at the various ads and articles in that site, I dare say they have a touch of bias there. | |
|
|
| Page 9 of 14
|
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 |
|
Home
login 
