Posted on 10/17/2006 1:09:34 PM PDT by trumandogz
TUESDAY, Oct. 17 (HealthDay News) -- A new study finds that at least 1 in every 4 smokers will develop progressive and incurable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a much higher risk than previously believed.
COPD is a respiratory disease that results in blocked air flow to the lungs and grows progressively worse.
For this study, published online in the journal Thorax, researchers at Hvidovre Hospital analyzed data on 8,000 men and women, ages 30 to 60. All were monitored for 25 years as part of the Copenhagen City Heart Study.
At the start of the study, all the participants' lungs were healthy and working normally. However, over the course of the 25 years, the lungs of almost all the male non-smokers continued to function normally, compared to 60 percent of men who continued to smoke.
Among women, 90 percent of non-smokers still had healthy lungs at the end of 25 years, compared to 70 percent of smokers.
Overall, 25 percent of the participants developed moderate or severe COPD over the 25 years. Persistent smokers were six times more likely to develop COPD than non-smokers.
During the 25 years, there were 2,900 deaths in the study group. Of those deaths, 109 were directly attributable to COPD, and nearly all those deaths were in people who were active smokers at the start of the study. Only two non-smokers died of COPD.
The study also found a sharp decline in the risk of COPD among people who stopped smoking soon after the start of the study. Over the 25 years, none of these ex-smokers developed severe COPD.
You sir have drunk the Koolaid for far too long. If you read the article you linked to, it's a 1998 newspaper article claiming that a then-pending WHO study was finding no link between passive smoking and lung cancer. Except that turned out not to be the case. The study, which was actually published in 2002, reached exactly the OPPOSITE conclusion -- it found that there is a very strong link between passive smoking and cancer.
Instead of reading 1998 articles that speculate about forthcoming studies, you might want to read, I don't know, the studies themselves! You might want to let Rush Limbaugh know about it as well...
I don't work for NASA, you idiot.
In the meantime please enlighten us stupid people about the WHO report that suggested that ETS wasn't harmful, which was covered up and swept under the rug.
It didn't. It reached exactly the opposite conclusion. Don't believe me? Read the actual summary monograph yourself.. Tobacco addicts don't just kill themselves, they kill those around them.
GREAT ORATORS OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John F. Kennedy (D)
"Reducing teen smoking has always been America's bottom line." William Jefferson Clinton (D)
"Some moviemakers and television producers agreed yesterday that it needs to be more conscious of how it portrays cigarette smoking."-- Al Gore (D)
"Tobacco addicts don't just kill themselves, they kill those around them."-- Alter Kaker (D)
Since you're now just doing silly name-calling, I take it you've conceded the WHO findings (which you blatantly misrepresented) and agree that passive smoking causes lung cancer.
Sir, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take your word for it that you are really a conservative and a Republican, although I'm starting to have my doubts. That last post was to illustrate how much you sound like Al Gore and BJ Clinton, not to call you names. I'll post the link where I got those quotes. It's from the conservative ACSH, who did the first and most thorough study on the differences between the Right and the Left regarding tobacco control policies.
http://www.acsh.org/publications/pubID.874/pub_detail.asp
You are on the wrong side of this issue if you are a conservative. That doesn't make you a bad person. If there is room in the Republican Party for pro choice folks like Guliani, Whitman and Schwarzenegger, there's certainly room for your disdain for Private Property rights and personal responsibility (hallmarks for a true conservative).
In the meantime, since you refuse to believe one study indicating that there IS NO LINK BETWEEN PASSIVE SMOKING AND DISEASE, I'll give you a link to every study that has ever been done. Some people need to be beaten over the head with a crowbar before they get it. (I mean that figuratively not literally, no need to contact the authorities or hire a bodyguard or buy a 9 mm :)
http://www.forces.org/evidence/financial-ties/index.htm
I'll ask you again, please give me a link to the websites where you got your information from. I appreciate the last link, I'm not done reading it. Give me a link for the Enstrom study and the EPA ruling by Osteen in 98.
Thanks.
Thanks Mr. Orwell and welcome to FR!
Eric Blair 2084Since Apr 25, 2006
In the meantime, since you refuse to believe one study indicating that there IS NO LINK BETWEEN PASSIVE SMOKING AND DISEASE
I believe the study you cited, the WHO study, which concluded that there is a very strong link between passive smoking and cancer. Don't you agree with the very studies you cite?
AK, I've read some of your comments on other threads. (I like the Russian one) Very impressed, you're a good debater. But you've met your match.
But again, you are on the wrong side of the argument as a conservative. Research Frank Mayer on Google. Here is how real right wingers voted in NH. Live Free or Die:
NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIVATE PROPERTY/SMOKER BAN HB 1177:
Republicans voted against the smoking ban 117-47
Democrats voted in favor of the ban 130-47
The bill passed the NH house 177-164
It then went to the NH Senate where it failed 12-11
Republicans voted 12-2 to kill the bill and send it back to committee.
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ie/rollcall/rollcallsbyvotedetail.asp?sessionyear=2006&voteno=56&body=S
Democrats supported the smoking ban 9-0.
Join the rest of us on the right before they ban something that you enjoy but is not good for you.
Charming, however utterly besides the point. I've never argued in favor of banning smoking, just that smoking is a terrible, dangerous, costly addiction that should be margianalized and discouraged everywhere.
Additionally, nearly 1/3 of Republican legislators in heavily-libertarian New Hampshire voted in favor of the ban you cited. Doesn't sound like a real ideological lithmus test to me.
You're now making a libertarian argument about private property rights -- and apparently conceding your earlier, absurd argument that second hand smoke is harmless.
It very clearly isn't.
AK47:
Sorry for the typo. I meant Meyer with an E not A. The founder of the modern conservative movement. He was the guy who introduced the idea of "fusionism": the theory that traditionalists (religious right) and libertarians can form the backbone of the conservative movement together back in the 60's. Google him.
He was a chain smoker who died of cancer in 1972. But at least he died a free man, trying to bring freedom to American political discourse.
Alright, I won't do what most talking heads do on PMSNBC or FOX when confronted with a tough question from Sean or Bill...change the subject.
Let's stay on track. But since you fired the first shot, you will have to give us all some evidence.
Name us one person who has ever dropped dead as a direct result of being in a bar with people who were smoking.
BTTT
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