Posted on 05/15/2003 11:30:53 PM PDT by Mark Felton
INHALING other people’s tobacco smoke has no effect on heart disease or lung cancer risks, according to a new study.
The results cast doubt on moves to ban smoking in public places and suggest that much of the fuss about passive smoking may have been misplaced.
Two American scientists reviewed evidence from a long-term study in California that enrolled nearly 120,000 adults and monitored their health for nearly 40 years.
The study began in 1959, when the risks of smoking were less well understood.
James Enstrom, of the University of California in Los Angeles, and Geoffrey Kabat, of the University of New York, compared the risks of lung cancer and heart disease between non-smokers married to smokers, and non-smokers married to non-smokers.
They found no difference, suggesting that being married to a smoker and hence exposed to second-hand smoke on a daily basis did not increase the risk of either disease.
This conclusion is in conflict with many authoritative bodies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency and the American Heart Association. But the studies underlying those claims have long been disputed, for a number of reasons. People who say they are non-smokers may in fact be ex-smokers; the actual exposure to smoke is hard to measure; and negative studies — those that find no effect — often go unpublished.
When many studies are pooled to increase their statistical power, only the positive studies go into the pool and create a false impression. The results, say the authors, “do not support a causal relationship between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect”.
The British Medical Journal said that Mr Enstrom had received funds from the tobacco industry for research because it was impossible to get the money from other sources. Mr Kabat said he had not received money from the industry until last year, when he conducted a review for a law firm that has several tobacco companies as clients. Both are lifelong non-smokers, the journal says.
Amanda Sandford, from the anti-smoking group Ash, said: “The authors appear to be deliberately downplaying the findings to suit their tobacco paymasters.”
The British Medical Association said that the study was flawed because it did not collect detailed data on passive smoking.
Tim Lord, the chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, said: “This is a large and very important study . . . taking the evidence as a whole, the inevitable conclusion is that claims made about the potentially harmful effects of passive smoking have indeed been overstated.”
Simon Clark, of the smokers’ lobbying group Forest, said: “We have consistently argued that the jury is still out on the effects of environmental tobacco smoke. This latest study proves our point.”
DEBATE
Should smoking restrictions be relaxed?
E-mial your views to debate@thetimes.co.uk
New York smokers take a defiant puff
THE medical study that suggests that passive smoking is harmless has come too late for the smokers of New York, who are used to being banished outside (Nicholas Wapshott and Sam Gustin write).
Terrell Miller, from Queens, who was smoking outside a bank at the bottom of Broadway, said: “I have an uncle who smokes; his wife didn’t. She is the one who died of lung cancer. Where does that leave us?” Barry Kelleher, 25, a stockbroker, does not believe the study. “It is no major thing to step outside and it should help me stop.”
Katharine Bollinger, from Connecticut, heard the report on the radio. “I thought, ‘See? It does you no harm’,” she said. “But don’t get me started. The whole thing makes me so grumpy.”
Al Francis, outside the Financial District Post Office, said: “It is not just the health, but the smell. In a restaurant if someone smokes it bothers me.”
Ray Rodriguez, 44, a recruiter, does not believe secondhand smoke causes illness unless “you are blowing smoke into someone’s face”.
Tell the ambulance chasers and the morons who 'serve' on tort juries.
I had an aunt who never smoked in her life and died from lung cancer. These deaths are automatically attributed to second-hand smoke.
Never mind the fact that she lived in a major metropolitan area which was perpetually engulfed in a brown cloud of pollution so thick to be seen from space!
In industrial societies, people get cancer. It is not always the cigarette's fault!
Commenting just on the effect smokers have on taxpayer pockets: If not for the taxes (excessive in many states) paid by smokers, our collective pockets would have billions less dollars in them.
Hard enough getting her to smoke outside as it is. ;-)
It breaks all the myths about second hand smoke?
Since noone seems to know what breaking news really is, that one's as good as any.
Unless these people were in a bubble for 40 yrs, had exactly the same type of diet, exercise habits and immune system....or the exact same environmental exposures or levels of stressors... the research is doomed from the start.
However, there are minor health issues, no doubt. Second-hand smoke triggers allergy type symptoms in many people (myself included) for instance.
I think we'd all benefit if:
1. Smokers would consider non-smoking / smoking areas in public places as reasonable. Not as a restriction on your rights, but as a courtesy toward non-smoker's rights to _not_ breathe your smoke. (I'd rather see this a free-market approach however, not a legislative one.)
2. Smokers would STOP THROWING THEIR BUTTS ALL OVER THE PLACE. In fairness, this is more of a problem with everyone not just smokers. There's way too much littering by pretty much everyone nowdays. This is not an enviro-nazi view, just a "do you have _no_ manners?" view.
3. Non-smokers really need to wake up to the reality that we're being very un-fair and heavy-handed with anti-smoking legislation, lawsuits and taxes. It's really crazy. I could basically care less what you do to yourself. Taxes, for instance, should be based on the costs to society for caring for smokers that do not have insurance (and perhaps cleaning up litter, but that's a slippery slope, you'd have to tax everything that can be thrown away.)
So on this issue, I'm quite the fence sitter I guess. ;-)
Do what you want to yourself, but you should expect that non-smokers don't want to be forced to stay inside their homes to avoid your smoke any more than you want to be forced to stay inside your home in order to smoke. The issue should be more of one of courtesy rather than legislation/litigation, but that's not the way things are nowdays it seems. :-(.
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