Do smokers have any rights?

eco-logic Powerhouse.com ^ | February 15, 2005 | Alan Caruba

[ladtx]

I read an article yesterday that ten years ago if someone had told us that gays would have the right to get married and adopt children but smokers would be fired for smoking, we'd have thought they were crazy.

The world is truly upside down.

[Conspiracy Guy]

That's how I read it.

[SheLion]

And yet the lies go on and on.  Even after scientific proof against second hand smoke scams.

In 1998 the link made by the EPA Report in 1993 between secondary smoke and cancer was thrown out in a federal court because the statistics were bent to support a predetermined conclusion and normal scientific guidelines were ignored.

Practical Implications

• While it is unlikely that there will be a rush to overturn smoking bans and restrictions currently in place, this ruling raises serious questions about whether there is a legitimate basis for severe and overly restrictive smoking regulations.
• Any legislative body currently considering smoking regulations cannot rely on EPA’s now invalid claim that secondhand smoke is a known human carcinogen.
• This ruling should create a new environment to foster the development of practical and reasonable solutions that accommodate the preferences of smokers and nonsmokers alike.
• Since the ruling goes to the very heart of the science concerning secondhand smoke, it supports the industry’s contention that litigation concerning diseases allegedly resulting from secondhand smoke exposure has no scientific basis or merit.

 

[SheLion]

The Tobacco Industry's EPA Lawsuit: Summary and Practical Implications

Court Findings

A Federal Court has ruled that the EPA wrongly classified secondhand smoke as a Group A (known human) carcinogen.

[notigar]

as for the who report:

http://www.no-smoke.org/getthefacts.php?dp=d18%7Cd29%7Cp104

[mugs99]

That's what demonization is all about. That's what's in your future. You, as a smoker, will be portrayed as a sick and disgusting pervert.

My grandpa was a commercial hemp grower during the depression. I once asked him why he and other growers didn't fight hemp prohibition....They didn't realize it would be prohibited. They thought it was just a tax and buying the tax stamp would be cheaper than a costly legal battle. They found out the hard way that the government lies!
...

[SheLion]

The WHO report has been debunked. I am looking for that article. The WHO doesn't talk about this anymore.

[notigar]

You are going to have to explain your car anology. I can't quite follow it.

As for the asthma, maybe, while smoking is going down, more poor people with less insurance are smoking. Their kids get asthma.

[notigar]

Im sorry shelion, are you saying the 1998 who report is debunked, or the WHO correction of the myths surrounding the report has been debuked. I just posted the WHO's response.

[SheLion]

Smoking Does Not

Cause Lung Cancer

(According to WHO/CDC Data)*

Smoking Does Not 

Cause Lung Cancer

(According to WHO/CDC Data)*

By: James P. Siepmann, MD

Yes, it is true, smoking does not cause lung cancer. It is only one of many risk factors for lung cancer. I initially was going to write an article on how the professional literature and publications misuse the language by saying "smoking causes lung cancer"1,2, but the more that I looked into how biased the literature, professional organizations, and the media are, I modified this article to one on trying to put the relationship between smoking and cancer into perspective. (No, I did not get paid off by the tobacco companies, or anything else like that.)

When the tobacco executives testified to Congress that they did not believe that smoking caused cancer, their answers were probably truthful and I agree with that statement. Now, if they were asked if smoking increases the risk of getting lung cancer, then their answer based upon current evidence should have be "yes." But even so, the risk of a smoker getting lung cancer is much less than anyone would suspect. Based upon what the media and anti-tobacco organizations say, one would think that if you smoke, you get lung cancer (a 100% correlation) or at least expect a 50+% occurrence before someone uses the word "cause."

Click here for complete article

[notigar]

But what about the CDC?

[SheLion]

But what about the CDC?

Read my post #130. It includes both the WHO and the CDC.

[notigar]

and this is BS too?:

World Health Organization (WHO)

International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monograph on Active and Passive Smoking

A monograph issued in 2002 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen. The report, which reviewed all significant published evidence related to tobacco smoking and cancer, both active smoking and secondhand smoke exposure, estimated that nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke are 20 to 30 percent more likely to develop cancer. The IARC issued a press release about the findings and also posted summaries of the findings online.

This monograph superceded a report released in 1998 by the WHO, linking lung cancer to secondhand smoke exposure. Big Tobacco's local allies sometimes claim that this report concluded that secondhand smoke is not harmful. Nothing could be further from the truth. Internal tobacco industry documents reveal plans to manipulate the findings of the 1998 WHO report out of fear that the report could have a significant impact on public opinion and smokefree policy efforts.

The WHO issued a press release in 1998 informing the public that tobacco industry misinformation about WHO's position on secondhand smoke should not be believed.

[SheLion]

ABNORMAL LUNG ANATOMY
What Happens With COPD

Asthma

Asthma is not caused by smoking.

The reason asthma develops in one person and not another is not well known. Asthma tends to run in families, but not always.

People with asthma have extra-sensitive airways that overreact to certain environmental elements such as:

• pollens
• fungus
• molds
• animal secretions
• house dust mites
• cold air, etc.

When the airways are exposed to these stimuli, the linings of the airways react by becoming inflamed and swollen. They become "twitchy," meaning that the muscles surrounding the airways tighten and cause the airways to narrow.

Asthma is characterized by episodes of shortness of breath (SOB), tightness in the chest, wheezing and cough, or a combination of the above.

"Pure" asthma can be treated effectively because the changes to the airways can be reversed in most instances. However, if there is a component of emphysema or chronic bronchitis to the asthma condition, the changes cannot be reversed.

For more information about asthma, please refer to the Canadian Lung Association Asthma Resource Center.

 

[SheLion]

As for the asthma, maybe, while smoking is going down, more poor people with less insurance are smoking. Their kids get asthma.

Symptoms decline when families fight allergens at home
Debris from cockroaches and dust mites, fungus spores, pet dander, noxious chemicals. . . . These are a few of the things that can make the typical home a dangerous place for people with asthma. 

Respiratory Infections, Not Air Pollution, Pose Winter Health Threat for Children with Asthma
 
 Although particulate air pollution has been blamed for a wide variety of negative health effects, a three-year study of asthmatic children in Denver, published in the November Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, indicates that it does not lead to significant worsening of asthma during the pollution-heavy winter months. Upper respiratory infections, however, were associated with a significant decline in lung function, asthma symptoms and asthma exacerbations.

"In our study, wintertime air pollution had no significant effect on asthma exacerbations or lung function," said Nathan Rabinovitch, M.D., a lead author of the study and pediatric allergist at National Jewish Medical and Research Center. "Upper respiratory infections, however, doubled the chances that a child would suffer an asthma exacerbation and more than quadrupled the odds that a child would suffer asthma symptoms."

The study monitored 41, 63 and 43 elementary school children during three successive winters in Denver, Colorado, when particulate pollution is worst. The children, aged 6 to 12 years, were mostly urban minority children with moderate to severe asthma. Dr. Rabinovitch and co-investigator Erwin Gelfand, M.D., Chairman of Pediatrics at National Jewish, monitored several health outcomes in the children, including asthma exacerbations, visits to emergency rooms and hospitalizations. They also monitored the children's lung function, medication use, asthma symptoms, and whether they had upper respiratory infections.

The researchers correlated those health measures with daily variations in six air pollutants: particulates less than 10 microns in diameter, particulates less than 2.5 microns diameter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone. In general pollutants were comparable to levels found in most large American cities.

As expected, the raw data did show worse health associated with high pollution days. But when the researchers controlled for potential time-related confounders, such as upper respiratory infections, the correlation disappeared on almost all measures. Higher carbon monoxide levels were marginally associated with increased use of rescue medications (odds ratio: 1.065) and daily symptoms were marginally associated with ozone levels (odds ratio: 1.083).

"It is well known that upper respiratory infections can cause problems for people with asthma, but the air pollutions results were a surprise," said Dr. Gelfand. "We believe that careful monitoring of the children allowed us to filter out confounding factors that would have mistakenly suggested a significant health impact of air pollution."

The researchers are not ready to write off the effects of air pollution during summer. For one, children may be exposed to higher levels of air pollution in the summer because they spend more time outside. Also, ozone, a known respiratory irritant, rises to much higher levels during the summer and may pose more of a problem than particulate pollution in the winter. Next summer Drs. Rabinovitch and Gelfand will begin a study of the health impacts of ozone on children with asthma.

"We believe this is good news for parents of children with asthma," said Rabinovitch. "Instead of worrying about air pollution they can focus their efforts on preventing and treating the real wintertime threat to their children's health - colds and other respiratory infections."
  http://www.nationaljewish.org/news/particle_pollution_rabinovitch.html
November 9, 2004

[CSM]

As to the car analogy, try thinking about it. All these lung cancer sufferers have ridden in cars, therefore riding in cars is associated with lung cancer, therefore riding in cars causes lung cancer.

"As for the asthma, maybe, while smoking is going down, more poor people with less insurance are smoking. Their kids get asthma."

Oh, I get it. As smoking is going down, asthma rates are going up because of increased smoking. Hmmmmmmmm. The better conclusion is that poor people get asthma, therefore we should ban being poor. How about just moving directly into Marx's dream......Methinks you need to lay off the koolaid.

[SheLion]

Thora, and anyone else who would like to rebut the Antis' media blitz today, all you need to do is go to the Helena Study Rapid Responses page of the British Medical Journal itself.   The page has been "disappeared" and hidden from general public view by the BMJ since the release of the study in its print journal on Friday, but is still accessible to anyone who knew the URL from the previous three weeks that the criticisms were published and sat there without rebuttal.  That URL is:

 

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/bmj.38055.715683.55v1

 

The only "Rapid Response" now publicly available to the regular site visitors is simply a bad piece of rap poetry that actually has very little to do with the study.  (it's accessible by going to bmj.com, clicking on "Current Issue", then "Editors' Choice", then the "p.977" hotlink, and then finally "Read responses" on the right side menu).  I think you'll all agree that it's a very poor substitution for the detailed and reasoned criticisms made on the official page that had been on the web since April 5th.

 

I would ask that folks do not at this point blast the BMJ itself for the disappearence of this information.  After discussing the issue with a few email friends I've come to believe that there is at least a *possibility* that the Journal, given its fair treatment of our opposing views in the past, may not be directly responsible for the cover-up.  I should know more in the next day or two as I've emailed the Journal editors and am waiting upon a response.

 

Meanwhile however, the criticisms themselves, the URL of the page where people can go to see them, and the simple fact that the critical web page has been hidden from the general public since the formal printed release of the study on Friday should be spread far and wide for all to see.   The Helena Study is a crock, had NOTHING directly to say about secondary smoke from its own observations, and its presentation by Antismokers over the past year, and particularly the past few weeks, by the Antis and the media has been nothing less than outright public fraud.  (Note again: *please* do not jump into accusing the BMJ itself at this point... they *may* not be a direct party to the coverup of the web pointer, at least not in a conscious attempt to bury our arguments, and have not themselves editorially endorsed the study or its presentations.) 

 

Good luck and be careful in what you say: "Fraud" within the context of scientific discussion is a very serious charge: The BMJ itself has done nothing fraudulent, and even the studies themselves have not been shown to be fraudulent, although we disagree with them or have criticisms of them.  The presentation of those studies to the public is a different story.  That presentation needs to be STRONGLY and PUBLICLY corrected as soon as possible, in letters to editors, phone calls to radio shows, postings on any of the message boards you frequent and so forth.

 

The Antismokers have overstepped their bounds this time: the fraud they're trying to commit in the misrepresentation of the Helena study is basic and clear for all to see who even take a few minutes to investigate: we just need to spur the interest out there to get the investigations made.  Remember though: the target is NOT the BMJ: it took courage for them to give the Antismokers this golden opportunity to make fools of themselves and expose themselves as liars.

[CSM]

What is the acceptable exposure level to SHS? At what exposure level does SHS become dangerous? How many PPM's does it take to pose a risk?

[SheLion]

and this is BS too?:

You can believe what you want but with the war on the smoker's today from the highly paid professional anti-smokers, I tend to believe the true Doctor's and researchers.

If what the anti's say is true, we would all be dead long before this.

The anti's can twist and turn words in the way they want the reports to come out. What is really sad is the general public believes them.

Personally, I'd rather keep on digging deeper and not believe what they are spewing today against smokers and smoking.