Viti

This thread is being opened to discuss and examine the various studies available on the health effects of second hand smoke. Please stick to discussing the documented evidence only, as we have found anecdotal evidence to not be useful on this particular topic.

My position is that the adverse health effects findings have been greatly exaggerated when being given to the public (please note the assumption is that smoking is not a healthy thing to do overall....I will not be taking the stance that there's no health risks). There is evidence that some findings and conclusions that do not agree with the anti-smoking stance have been unannounced/kept hidden, and only seen on the actual studies. The public does not read the studies themselves, only the findings that are published as articles in newspapers and magazines; they are not being given all the facts. This can cause even greater issues if legislation, lawsuits etc are based on faulty data, costing tax payers money.

I wanted to get the thread open for postings, but will not be able to post any of my documentation until later this evening. I look forward to an informative and objective discussion! This is an emotionally charged issue, please let’s not let it degrade to flames and rhetoric if at all possible!

Viti

Okay here we go

On March 9, 1998 The World Health Organization sent out a press release with this headline and opening paragraph

PASSIVE SMOKING DOES CAUSE LUNG CANCER, DO NOT LET THEM FOOL YOU

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been publicly accused of suppressing information. Its opponents say that WHO has withheld from publication its own report that was aimed at but supposedly failed to scientifically prove that there is an association between passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and a number of diseases, lung cancer in particular. Both statements are untrue.

Excerpts from the same press release ( emphasis mine )

The study found that there was an estimated 16% increased risk of lung cancer among non-smoking spouses of smokers. For workplace exposure the estimated increase in risk was 17%.
However, due to small sample size, neither increased risk was statistically significant.

The blame was laid on the small sample size, however What the press released failed to mention was the following fact found on the abstract

CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lung cancer risk.

What the study actually found was that children exposed to second hand smoke were less likely to develop lung cancer

Note, this study is not available online that I can find, the press release and abstract were made available after the British paper reported the findings. I think most will agree that facts were distorted in order to allow for the sensational headline. How many people read the headline only and assumed the article simply backed it up?

The source for all of this is http://www.davehitt.com/facts/ whose site seems to be meticulously documented.

Jabu Khan

Now apply the same public health concern to automobiles, consider not only are emissions an adverse effect but then there are accidents as well. Not that I think anyone should have to spend regular intervals of time next to a smoker. But these bans on smoking in outdoor public places seems a bit extreme especially if its in the middle of city traffic.

Kinross

There was a thread on this a while back. Basicly the EPA blatantly lied because it was told what results it should come up with. This helped the states win the tobacco lawsuits but when it was expossed in congress what the EPA did the news media dropped it.

Now there has not been a link established between ETS and cancer, I think Dr. Rick showed some studies that showed a link between asthma in children and ETS in the home. Now this is an enclosed environmet and the attempts to ban public smoking will have no effect in reducing asthma cases in children.

Jackalope

You've just nailed it. All the hysteria about lung cancer from second hand smoke means that any real risks will now be ignored. Asthma is a very real risk. Public smoking in restaurants are pretty closed environments as well. At least, I've never been to one that allows smoking that actually has a ventillation system up to the task. Among other things, even if one manages to escape the smoke, one usually must pass through the smokers' gauntlet to get to the washrooms. And those are the best case. Usually, the whole place is full of smoke, and some places will look at you as if you've grown another head if you ask if you can sit in a "non-smoking" section. They just don't exist. Visiting relatives in the southwest and the south forceably reminded me of that.

So children would indeed be exposed to quite a bit of smoke if they eat out with their parents in establishments that allow smoking. Also, I have some rather unpleasant memories of school teachers who smoked. Smokers forget or never even notice the huge amount of smoke residue all of them even when they're not smoking. Add in things like day care providers who smoke, and you're starting to get a pretty good allotment of cigarette smoke.

And then there are all of us unfortunates who were exposed to a lot of cigarette smoke as children and have asthma now. The smoke's deadly now. I'm glad I live in a state where I can go out to dinner or out to a club or cafe and not have to worry about if this exposure is going to be one of the ones that lands me in the ER later that evening.

RoddyM

I'd like to respond to the OP but worry that I will be burdened with having to cite "studies" to support anything meaningful I have to say.

I'm familiar with the information and advice such as presented on http://www.davehitt.com. The FACT is that you will never convince the convinced that the confounding factors in their favourite studies render those studies worthless to promote their aims. They will ask you for studies that prove them wrong without understanding that such a thing is impossible.

The same kind of problem is occurring on the thread "The myth of AIDS?".

RoddyM

What about this?

I would prefer to live in a world of smokers than a world of militant do-gooders, fundamentalist, black and white thinking meddlers, people who think that they know that they know better and think that there is such a thing as knowing better.

Do I need to cite a study?

charlie d

Personally, I also think anti-smoking legislation in the US and especially the public quasi-criminalization of smokers are often excessive.

That said, and from a non-expert point of view, I think the known facts are the following:
- first of all, the association of tobacco smoke and a slew of illnesses (lung cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular disease), with their enormous societal burden of death and health care costs is beyond doubt
- the physiological mechanisms involved in these direct smoke-associated pathologies are well known and there is no reason to expect that they would not be at play, at some level, in second hand smoke;
- epidemiological studies of second had smoke effects are certainly a complicated affair, because of several factors (significant temporal delay of many of the effects; relatively smaller differences compared to bona fide smokers, requiring large sample sizes; difficulty, especially until recently, to obtain good, entirely smoke-free control cohorts; excessive reliance, also until recently, on subjective self-reports regarding smoke exposure)
- nevertheless, some associations have been found that are very reliable, for instance about increased rates of respiratory conditions in children of smokers, or about significantly increased health risks of workers in smoke-filled environments (eg, non smoking bartenders have a lifelong risk of lung cancer very close to that of smokers)
- more recent studies incorporating objective measures of second hand smoke exposure (tobacco smoke by-products in hair and urine, for instance) still generally show good association between development of disease and exposure.

While I am aware of objections to the design of some the earlier studies on SHS and disease, I do not know of any significant study showing the contrary. Maybe somebody can point them out to me.

Thus, all in all, I can't blame legislators and public health officials for erring on the side of caution. First of all, one has to remember that the purpose of the law is not necessarily to protect people occasionally exposed to SHS (eg, those who spend an hour or two in a bar once in a while), but those for whom significant SHS is an occupational hazard (ie, the bartenders). Second, there is little downside to the restrictions: while it certainly imposes a burden on smokers, by doing so in may also discourage or reduce smoking, which is a worthy goal (I realize this may sound moralistic, but actually I'd look at it from a purely utilitarian cost/benefit point of view).

Finally, I find it ironic that some of those who argue that the entire medical establishment is in cahoot with big pharma companies to invent diseases as a conduit to push useless drugs on the unknowing public in order to make money also think that the same medical establishment conspires against poor tobacco companies to prevent them from making money by pushing a useless drug (nicotine) on the unknowing public. Go figure.

RoddyM

I agree that the world would be a better place if no-one smoked. It might be a better place for me (a smoker) if the US had a civil war and bombed tobacco fields and cigarette factories.

That might have been a more sensible war than what is being waged on people in other countries that we can say we don't like.

RoddyM

I think I've nailed it. The US needs at least one other civil war before it can reasonably wage war on anybody else and at the same time claim the moral victory.