Posted on 07/21/2006 3:15:06 PM PDT by SheLion
Poor Heather Crowe, the Ottawa waitress who recently died of lung cancer and had lent her persona to the anti-smoking lobby as the typical victim du jour. Crowe was said to be a "typical" restaurant worker who spent 40 years working in Ottawa restaurants, all the while breathing the second-hand smoke that’s said to have claimed her life.
There are so many things wrong with Heather Crowe’s case that it begs for an official inquiry, but like all politically correct causes the anti-smoking lobby can do no wrong. Crowe, who really did die of lung cancer, was anything but a typical restaurant worker. Apparently she worked in three different restaurants, starting her day at 6:00 AM and ending her day usually around 2:00 AM the following morning. Most individuals working as servers in restaurants do not work three full shifts per day, totaling upwards of 20 hours.
In the commercials that Crowe made for the anti-smoking lobby she said she wanted "to be the last person to die from second hand smoke." If she did die of exposure to second hand smoke, it’s likely that Crowe was also the first person in the world to die from this condition. There is not one documented case of anyone ever dying of second hand smoke. Anti-smoking groups like to bandy about numbers of people who have died of second hand smoke, however the truth is that no one knows if anyone has died as a result of this because the numbers being quoted are not garnered from death certificates, but are made up through epidemiological estimates that do not involve review of individual death certificates.
What’s more, the numbers most people quote as individuals who are dying of second hand smoke vary from place to place. For instance the anti-smoking lobby of Lambton, Ontario claims that this year alone some 5,000 people will die of second hand smoke there. That seems awfully high, given that the overall population is just over 127,000. Other places use different numbers; Calgary claims it’s 3,000 deaths, while British Columbia claims it will only be 500 deaths this year.
When Heather Crowe was first diagnosed, her doctor told her that she had an inoperable "smoker’s tumor" in her lungs. As a diagnosis, the term "smoker’s tumor" is novel in that it is not a medical term and does not appear in medical dictionaries. It sounds like the doctor who made this diagnosis was following an agenda.
What’s more, when Heather Crowe sought compensation from the Ontario Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (OWSIB), the board ruled in her favor, a fact which many of the anti-smoking lobbyists tout as being proof positive that second hand smoke causes cancer as well as a plethora of other ills. The OWSIB ruling only proves that it pays to have friends in high places, of which Heather Crowe appears to have had many. A number of influential politicians, as well as Dr. Robert Cushman, Ottawa’s Chief Medical Officer of health wrote letters in support of Heather's application for compensation. Crowe’s case was supported by a study emanating from California that claimed restaurant workers there inhaled the equivalent of 1.5 to 2 packs per day. I find it curious that the details of the OWSIB ruling were never made public.
As for the study from California, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) specifies that .5 mg of nicotine per cubic meter is an acceptable level. Testing conducted in 2004 of 18 restaurants in St. Louis Park, Minnesota disclosed that none of the restaurants had second hand smoke levels close to the allowable minimum specified by OSHA. In fact, most were far, far below the minimum.
So why all the hysteria? Can you say money? The anti-tobacco lobby is being controlled in large part and funded by pharmaceutical companies that are doing a land office business in selling smoking cessation medications. That’s the real hidden agenda of which I doubt even the staunchest anti-tobacco crusaders are aware.
But let’s face it, when organizations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) distribute millions of dollars to anti-smoking groups, maybe someone should take a closer look at this foundation. The board of directors of the RWJF includes some very interesting people. Robert Wood Johnson IV is the chairman and CEO of the Johnson Company, a New York investment firm that seems to hold an inordinate amount of pharmaceutical investments. Other directors include what appears to be the entire former board of directors of Johnson & Johnson Company, which incidentally is a major manufacturer of alternative pharmaceutical nicotine products. Robert E. Campbell is the retired chairman of J & J; George S. Frazza and was corporate counsel and member of the J&J executive committee. Edward Hartnett is the retired group chairman of J&J Pharmaceuticals. Ralph S. Larsen is former chairman and CEO of J&J. So, it’s evident there is a lot of interest in the RWJF to encourage governments to impose smoking bans. Could this by any chance have anything to do with the fact that RWJF is holding in excess of $5 billion in J&J shares?
ahh poor baby........
I never said risk should be a factor in oputlawing an avtivity. And I certainly don't think cigarettes should be outlawed.
I have no beef. I'm sure there are smokers who have lived into their 90s, but not very many. Generally when elderly folks are asked how they lived so long, you don't hear "I smoked a pack a day."
Thank you. That's a reasonable position to take.
Well, I would lay a bet that smokers still live longer then an OBESE person!
I cannot believe I'm reading this on a conservative website.
Believe it.
"I beg to differ..........the numbers of smoking bans and other nanny state iniatives that fail on a regular basis does not get widespread media coverage - but believe me, they are occurring.
Denial is such a tough habit to break
Alabama"
Ummmmm...Yes, I believe this is exactly what we're so upset over; the fact that fascist freaks have taken over our country and hijacked our freedom.
"People who fill others' breathing air with noxious cigarette smoke are totally selfcentered and selfish."
Excuse me?!! If you have ever had a BBQ in your back yard, lit a camp fire, had a fire in your home fireplace, or if you currently drive a car you need to back off.
"You ignore the point that no one - not children or adults or elderly - are ever choosing to find themselves in these smoke-filled places. You create them.
You blow off anyone who points out the obnoxiousness of befouling human spaces.
This is no different that leaving your excrement in public places because that's convenient and what you like to do and feel you should have that right because it's not outlawed by the Constitution.
Love for your fellow man and ethics are apparently not part of your upbringing or repertoire. "Obnoxious" comes from the word that means "poisonous."
The callousness of your response speaks for itself and makes my point.
Quid est demonstrandum."
I suggest that you promptly return home to your sealed plastic, steril bubble.
"People who fill others' breathing air with noxious cigarette smoke are totally selfcentered and selfish."
Excuse me?!! If you have ever had a BBQ in your back yard, lit a camp fire, had a fire in your home fireplace, or if you currently drive a car you need to back off.
..
What an illogical comparison! Do you carry a live, smoking BBQ with you into the public places you enter every day and accost your fellow citizens with it at every turn and find that nobody minds? The only way there might be a comparison to a BBQ would be if it was normal to carry a live BBQ into all the public places you visit every day and everybody was cool with that.
Having a BBQ in a private home is optional and choosable or not; walking into a wall of cigarette smoke in public is not.
"I suggest that you promptly return home to your sealed plastic, steril bubble."
I suggest that you promptly stop smoking in public places so that the rest of us don't have to flee home.
If you would have that common courtesy of realizing you don't have the right to walk around in a public forum as a human cigarette smoke generator, it would not come to government being involved.
"I suggest that you promptly stop smoking in public places so that the rest of us don't have to flee home.
If you would have that common courtesy of realizing you don't have the right to walk around in a public forum as a human cigarette smoke generator, it would not come to government being involved."
I suggest that you stop driving your car so that my family and I can leave our houses without being assaulted by your carcinogen spewing box of metal. What gives you the right to think you can expose us to these dangerous, life threatening substances? If you would just stop being such a selfish, immoral person and not drive, carpool, use public transportation, or get off your lazy arse and ride a bike, maybe we would not have to flee the streets every time we see you coming!
PS: I don’t ever want to see you BBQ’ing, having a camp fire. Also, I better not see one whiff of smoke coming from that chimney of yours!
I don't understand the significance of your name...you do not see anything clearly, you are blind to the real issues and from the tone of your posts you sound like a bitter, intolerant person. Get a life please, and leave us freedom loving Americans alone!
"What an illogical comparison! Do you carry a live, smoking BBQ with you into the public places you enter every day and accost your fellow citizens with it at every turn and find that nobody minds? The only way there might be a comparison to a BBQ would be if it was normal to carry a live BBQ into all the public places you visit every day and everybody was cool with that.
Having a BBQ in a private home is optional and choosable or not; walking into a wall of cigarette smoke in public is not."
No, it is not an illogical comparison at all. If you have a BBQ in your back yard you are exposing others, who might not wish to be exposed, to smoke. The smoke from your BBQ or house fire wafts thorough your neighborhood for others to breathe in. These things also produce much more smoke then a cigarette. [Your] views and ideas are illogical hun...wake up and see the reality!
Why would you subnit to that? I love my wife but if she said I was going to be giving samples of bodily fluids to some weenie and it was going to make her $20 a month, she would learn that devotion has its limits. I would never do something like that to her either.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.