[justshutupandtakeit]

I have seen great damage done by smoking within my own family but do not support the campaigns to completely eliminate it. You seem to be among the minority of smokers which does not try to deny its destructiveness. Look at the comments here many of which are of the "well my mom smoked and I am ok" type as though that was a refutation of the points the doctor made.

Of course, he did not say "Every smoking mom will have children with defects" but merely pointed to the increase chance of such defects. If defects are normally 20 out of a thousand and with smokers 30 out of a thousand the vast majority of births to smokers will NOT have defects even though these numbers show a 50% increase in birth defects.

[Gabz]

You obviously did not read anything I posted regarding this ...... even the 78% increase risk they claim is not statistically significant. If they were talking about an increased risk of over 200% it would be a different story, because then it would start being in the realm of a significant increase in risk.

[Publius6961]

Look at the comments here many of which are of the "well my mom smoked and I am ok" type as though that was a refutation of the points the doctor made.

Actually it is a refutation.
No "as though" about it. It clarifies the silliness of the 78% increase BS. A 78% increase of a 0.02% incidence is meaningless.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Remember that most people don't believe in numbers anyway.

[Joe 6-pack]

You know, I personally consider my tobacco habit not only unhealthy, but sinful, principally because I know its effects, and that's something I struggle with. Having said that, I don't consider tobacco itself "evil," and in recent years it has been suggested that it may have some properties that warrant further research in regards to therapeutic properties for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, (which I have seen do great damage in my family, BTW) and even HIV. There is also a WHO study on the effects of second hand smoke which indicate they are essentially negligible. The study results have been largely suppressed, and certainly ignored by the major media.

My contention is, if tobacco use is such a threat to society, initiate the Constitutional process to pass an amendment to bar it; perhaps it will be more successful than alcohol prohibition, but I doubt it. Of course this has not been done because tobacco taxes have been such a cash cow for the state and federal governments (talk about addiction!). Short of that, all due consideration must be placed on the fact that a governmental entity is trying to regulate a legal activity on private property. Now, I'm not questioning a government's right to do so; I'm glad that local rules prevent my neighbors from establishing a shooting range in the yard of our relatively dense, suburban community.

The regulation of these activities, however, should be as limited as possible. Given review of the above-mentioned WHO study and copious amounts of personal experience, it is my opinion that the vast majority of anti-smokers are primarily that way out of annoyance or dislike, or out of misinformation. Establishing laws regulating behavior because of personal taste and faulty data is embarking on a slippery slope few of us want.

[Mears]

There could be other commonalities among the mothers that had children with these birth defects yet they ALWAYS blame the smoking.

Maybe they all drank coffee.

Maybe they all chew gum.

Maybe they are all brunettes.

Maybe they all watch 20 hours of TV a week.

The list goes on.....................