Posted on 08/01/2006 4:15:27 AM PDT by SheLion
WASHINGTON -- Quietly leaving his post as surgeon general, Dr. Richard Carmona said he would judge himself successful if he had persuaded one student to make good health choices or one mother to stop smoking.
Carmona's report condemning secondhand smoke was a hallmark of his tenure as the nation's 17th surgeon general.
Taxpayers saddled with obesity costs
Taxpayers foot the doctor’s bill for more than half of obesity-related medical costs, which reached a total of $75 billion in 2003, according to a new study.
The public pays about $39 billion a year -- or about $175 per person -- for obesity through Medicare and Medicaid programs, which cover sicknesses caused by obesity including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, several types of cancer and gallbladder disease.
I must be. I have never had a family OR friends who smoked who EVER experienced a horrible death from smoking. So excuse me if I can't share in your misery!
I don't think anything of him. I couldn't tell you the guy's name before I read the article about his leaving office.
I don't recall a single TV interview, any "Clapner" Elders-type scandal, any goofy Koop talking condoms cartoons for the kids....
Maybe he didn't have to go mainstream. Maybe he had some evil subversive underground control on our nation or something, but in my opinion he did what all Surgeon Generals should do. He was not seen and he was not heard.
With that said, I'm not a smoker, but smokers are fighting a battle against more than one man. This dude is just one cog in the huge anti-smoker wheel.
I think anyone who argues that cigarette smoke is not bad for you should be asked this question:
Would you advocate standing next to a pile of tires burning or a pile of leaves burning and inhale the smoke coming from those fires seeing as how the same particulates are in the smoke from those fires as is in cigarettes?
Also, the article doesn't define second hand smoke.
Since you inhale smoke through a filter yet the unfiltered smoke coming off the burning end of your cigarette is unfiltered don't you think that the unfiltered smoke is more dangerous to those around you?
Well, don't hate me because I smoke and I am not in the same boat as you.
Tell you what, I'll go stand in an airtight garage with a bunch of smokers.
You go stand in an airtight garage with a car running.
We'll both stay there for 10 hours.
Any bets as to which of us will walk out of a garage?
Well, by using his high powered title, he really stuck it to private businesses before he left office with his tirade about second hand smoke, the basta$d!
I never heard of this idiot either before this. Except he didn't do much with Katrina either. He was a total waste of tax payers money. I'm glad he is GONE!
I certainly don't hate you -- I don't even know you. But to say you've never known anybody with yellow fingers or any smoker who ever wheezed. Right.
"Then you'd be wrong. I have no idea why the plastic poster in your doctor's office didn't list smoking as a risk factor, but the American Cancer Society, the American Breast Cancer Foundation and the National Institutes of Health all list smoking as one of the leading risk factors for breast cancer.
~sigh.................
RESEARCHERS BLAST CALIFORNIA EPA REPORT: SECONDHAND SMOKE FINDINGS BIASED, FLAWED
01/30/2006-The American Cancer Society stated unequivocally, in a written comment, that it did not agree with Cal-EPA's conclusion that secondhand smoke was a cause of breast cancer, and that published evidence did not support the requisite criteria for causation."
See, this is the kind of thing that undermines any argument you try to mount. The poster you replied to was talking about first-hand smoke. The link you posted has absolutely nothing to do with that.
How did he stick it to private businesses? Did he have the authority to do anything without Congress?
Reminds me of Hans Blix from "Team America, World Police."
Kim Jong Il: Hans Brix? Oh no! Oh, herro. Great to see you again, Hans!
Hans Blix: Mr. Il, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won't let me enter certain areas.
Kim Jong Il: Hans, Hans, Hans! We've been frew this a dozen times. I don't have any weapons of mass destwuction, OK Hans?
Hans Blix: Then let me look around, so I can ease the UN's collective mind. I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in.......or else.
Kim Jong Il: Or else.....what?
Hans Blix: Or else we will be very angry with you... and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are!!
It DOESN'T??!!
Exposures to second-hand smoke lower than believed, ORNL study finds
Roger Jenkins inspects filters designed to collect particles of environmental tobacco smoke. (ORNL photo by Curtis Boles)
Oak Ridge Tennessee, February 02, 2000 — Exposures to environmental tobacco smoke may be lower than earlier studies indicated for bartenders, waiters and waitresses, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
While people who work as wait staff and bartenders may generally be considered to be more highly exposed to environmental tobacco smoke, data from our study suggests that the situation is more complex," said Roger Jenkins of the Chemical and Analytical Chemistry Division.
The study, which involved 173 people employed at restaurants or taverns of varying sizes in the Knoxville area, concluded that exposures to respirable suspended particulate matter (RSP), for example, were considerably below limits established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for the workplace.
Subjects, who were non-smokers, wore pumps that sampled the air they were breathing while at work for a minimum of four hours. Researchers recorded a maximum RSP level of 768 micrograms per cubic meter. The OSHA standard for RSP is 5,000 micrograms per cubic meter over eight hours. Samples from the subjects were analyzed for ultraviolet absorbing and fluorescing particulate matter, solanesol, 3-ethenyl pyridine, nicotine and RSP.
Other constituents of environmental tobacco smoke, sometimes called second-hand smoke, also were not present in the levels previously thought, Jenkins said. For example, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1993 concluded that average RSP levels were 117 and 348 micrograms per cubic meter for bars and restaurants, respectively, while the ORNL study found those levels to be 67 and 135, respectively.
While the higher estimates in earlier studies may be explained by the choice of the establishments in which the studies were conducted, another reason for the difference could be that today's ventilation systems are more efficient, Jenkins said.
The Knoxville study also showed that for bartenders who live with smokers, the away-from-work exposure is at least as important as the at-work exposure. And people who are highly exposed at home tend to be more highly exposed at work, probably because they don't avoid it as much, Jenkins said.
Jenkins' paper, "Determination of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke in Restaurants and Tavern Workers in One U.S. City," is scheduled to be published in this month's issue of Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology.
The "Restaurant and Tavern Workers" study builds upon findings of an earlier ORNL study involving 16 cities and more than 1,500 subjects nationwide. In that study, test subjects wore separate air sampling devices at work and away from work over a 24-hour period. Results from this approach differ dramatically from stationary air sampling, which does not take into account the constantly changing conditions as people move from place to place throughout the day, Jenkins said.
"The fact is that while individuals may live or work in environments where there is smoke, stationary monitors cannot take into account changes in smoke exposure resulting from changes in a person's micro-environment," Jenkins said. "In these micro-environments, a person may be closer to or farther away from various sources of environmental tobacco smoke." .
Over the last six or seven years, more data on personal exposure to tobacco smoke has become available and the methods for measuring and analyzing the smoke have become more sophisticated.
The 16-cities study, the largest of its kind ever conducted in a single country, found the highest levels of environmental tobacco smoke nicotine levels in workplaces where smoking is permitted to be between 9.41 and 14.9 micrograms per cubic meter, far lower than the numbers assumed by EPA and OSHA.
"A well-known toxicological principle is that the poison is in the dose," Jenkins said. "It's pretty clear that the environmental tobacco smoke dose is pretty low for most people." .
Extensive controls were employed in collecting and analyzing the air samples collected by the 1,564 participants in the study, Jenkins said. Test subjects also submitted to saliva tests that would reveal cotinine, a constituent of tobacco smoke. Smokers were excluded from the study.
Cities used for the study were Baltimore; Boise, Idaho; Buffalo; Columbus, Ohio; Daytona Beach, Fla.; Fresno, Calif.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Indianapolis; Knoxville; New Orleans; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland, Maine; San Antonio, Texas; Seattle and St. Louis.
A book that delves into this work, "The Chemistry of Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Composition and Measurement: Second Edition," is expected to be released in March. Co-writers are Jenkins, Mike Guerin and Bruce Tomkins of the Chemical and Analytical Sciences Division.
Authors of the restaurants and tavern workers study are Jenkins, Mike Maskarinec and Amy Dindal of the Chemical and Analytical Sciences Division and Richard Counts of the Computer Science and Mathematics Division.
The research was funded by the Center for Indoor Air Research. ORNL is a DOE multiprogram research facility managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation.
His lying report that hit the media is what further stuck the knife into the backs of private businesses concerning the smoking bans. Now, it just adds more (lying) credence to the professional anti's that want to ban smoking everywhere.
This should be left up to the business owners and their patrons. NOT the government!
Are you disfunctional in reading or what?!
RESEARCHERS BLAST CALIFORNIA EPA REPORT: SECONDHAND SMOKE FINDINGS BIASED, FLAWED
01/30/2006-The American Cancer Society stated unequivocally, in a written comment, that it did not agree with Cal-EPA's conclusion that secondhand smoke was a cause of breast cancer, and that published evidence did not support the requisite criteria for causation.
There. Does the bigger print help you to read better???
Not a reasonable analogy. One adds pollutants to the air (cigarettes) and the other replaces oxygen with corbon monoxide (auto exhaust).
Not even a nice try.
While the higher estimates in earlier studies may be explained by the choice of the establishments in which the studies were conducted, another reason for the difference could be that today's ventilation systems are more efficient, Jenkins said.
Not to mention the fact that there were less smokers in the latter study.
By the way, the definition doesn't differentiate between unfiltered and filtered/inhaled smoke. The latter having most of the carcinogens and particulate absorbed by the smoker and the filter while the unfiltered smoke goes directly into the innocent bystanders lungs. But, you don't care about others - just your own gratification.
Say what you will, smoking isn't good for you but so are many other things.
ETS doesn't even have a preponderance of evidence that it causes anything that harms the human body.
The only reason you would be for banning it is just like almost every other antismoker out there.
You just don't like the smeeeeeelllll.
I was sickened many times as an infant and young child from secondhand smoke. Once to the point of nearly dying.
As an ex-smoker, now quit for over 30 years, I've seen both sides of the fence.
And smoking can harm children. Period.
Again you're ignonring the issue. You can argue all you want about one particular study linking breast cancer to SECOND-hand smoke, but the link to FIRST-hand smoke is a solid as anything can be.
You do? You mean you have no insurance, other than several million dollars you've put aside to fully self-insure? Because that's... unusual.
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.