Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer - Official

13 November 2002

[SheLion]

UK Sunday Telegraph...
Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer - Official


Headline: Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer - Official
Byline: Victoria MacDonald, Health Correspondent
Dateline: March 8, 1998

The world's leading health organization has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could even have a protective effect. The astounding results are set to throw wide open the debate on passive smoking health risks.

The World Health Organization, which commissioned the 12-centre, seven-country European study has failed to make the findings public, and has instead produced only a summary of the results in an internal report. Despite repeated approaches, nobody at the WHO headquarters in Geneva would comment on the findings last week.
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The findings are certain to be an embarrassment to the WHO, which has spent years and vast sums on anti-smoking and anti-tobacco campaigns. The study is one of the largest ever to look at the link between passive smoking - inhaling other people's smoke - and lung cancer, and had been eagerly awaited by medical experts and campaigning groups. Yet the scientists have found that there was no statistical evidence that passive smoking caused lung cancer.

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The research compared 650 lung cancer patients with 1,542 healthy people. It looked at people who were married to smokers, worked with smokers, both worked and were married to smokers, and those who grew up with smokers. The results are consistent with there being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer.

The summary, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, also states: "There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood." A spokesman for Action on Smoking and Health said the findings "seem rather surprising given the evidence from other major reviews on the subject which have shown a clear association between passive smoking and a number of diseases."
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Dr Chris Proctor, head of science for BAT Industries, the tobacco group, said the findings had to be taken seriously. "If this study cannot find any statistically valid risk you have to ask if there can be any risk at all. "It confirms what we and many other scientists have long believed, that while smoking in public may be annoying to some non-smokers, the science does not show that being around a smoker is a lung-cancer risk."

[VRWCmember]

Hi Gabz.

I think PM is probably providing all this info as damage control rather than out of the tender goodness of their ever so honest hearts. As to whether or not they are liars, I think plenty of documentation has been brought to light that for years PM and other tobacco companies were more aware of the health risks associated with smoking than they had claimed and also tried to conceal or misrepresent those health risks. Does that mean they are incapable of publishing truthful information? No, I would say not. Even a congenital liar like clinton could occasionally tell the truth when it was in his best interest to do so.

I merely posted the PM website info because I found it recently (a very impressive, rather expensive brochure published by PM with weblinks, indexes, etc.) lying around at my office. I looked at it, expecting it to have a lot of double-speak, downplaying risks, criticizing research, etc. but instead found that it seemed to be a straightforward presentation of factual data.

[Cosmo]

The fact is, in the 90s federal Judge Osteen forced the EPA to vacate their chapter on second hand smoke, citing a U of Chicago doctor who had enlightened the court as to the flaw of the metaanalysis used to demonstrate a causal link between second hand smoke and various diseases of the lungs. I've seen the individual studies, some with sample sets as small as n=16, and some that if taken separately, demonstrated a tangible benefit from being exposed to second-hand smoke. (See data on coal-mining towns in Poland for examples of this)

[VRWCmember]

top orthopedic surgeon
And she asks about feet???????

Maybe she had "orthopedic" confused with "pediatric".

(wait, that's children isn't it. How about podiatrist.)

[Gabz]

I didn't put up those words to discredit you -just to show where you were coming from.

And I don't see where you have stated the opposite.

I asked you what would be considered basic Yes/No questions by any anverage person, but you chose to ignore the question and attack me.

I expect nothing less from your side.

[Gabz]

But that's the rub; there is no right!

Ah, but you are wrong. If there was not a right of the business owner to permit smoking in his establishment - why did the Florida constitution need to be changed to prohibit it???????

[cinFLA]

Ah, but you are wrong. If there was not a right of the business owner to permit smoking in his establishment - why did the Florida constitution need to be changed to prohibit it???????

I spend days on this board trying to find someone that would provide where that right was enumerated. Nobody could. Either provide me that enumeration or please shut up.

[Leisler]

This Doctor says that there is no proof that ETS causes cancer. And he is correct. He laments that there isn't proof, but honesty compells him. Check his bio.

John C. Bailar III Professor Emeritus 5841 S. Maryland Ave. MC 2007, Rm W255 Chicago, Illinois 60637 Phone: 773-834-0172 Fax: 773-702-1979 E-mail: jcbailar@midway.uchicago.edu

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EDUCATION

• Ph.D. (Statistics) 1971, American University
• M.D. 1955, Yale University
• B.A. (Chemistry) 1953, University of Colorado

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Trends in cancer
  
• Assessing health risks (such as new chemicals)
  
• Misconduct in science

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Bailar JC III, Gornik HL. Cancer undefeated. New England Journal of Medicine, 336:1569-1574 (1997).
• Bailar JC III. The practice of meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 48(1):149-157 (1995).
• Bailar JC III. Current knowledge about the cancer latent period: The contribution of epidemiology. In: Maltoni C., et al., Eds., The Scientific Bases of Cancer Chemoprevention. Proceedings of the International Forum on the Scientific Bases of Cancer Chemoprevention, 31 March - 2 April 1996, Bologna, Italy. Elsevier: 65-71 (1996).
• Bailar JC III (Chair), Angell M, Boots S, et al. Ethics and Policy in Scientific Publication, Council of Biology Editors, Inc., Chicago: xiii + 290 pp (1991).
• Bailar JC III, Mosteller F, Eds. Medical Uses of Statistics, second edition. New England Journal of Medicine Press, Boston: xxvii + 449 pp (1992).

MAJOR COURSES

• Introduction to Epidemiology

OTHER ACTIVITIES

• Editorial Board, New England Journal of Medicine
• Board (Chair), National Institute of Statistical Science

LAST UPDATED: August 21, 2001

Department of Health Studies

The University of Chicago

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[cinFLA]

I asked you what would be considered basic Yes/No questions by any anverage person, but you chose to ignore the question and attack me.

OK, here is a yes/no question from me to you - Do you still beat your wife? Remember your rules; only yes or no.

[Leisler]

Not that you would know, ever, but there are enumerated rights and unenumerated rights. It is in the ninth and tenth amendments to this really old archaic document called the Constitution. Find a conservative and they can help you with it. I won't mention Locke, Burke, Madison or the others as they often used big words, very long sentences and none of their works have pictures.

[VRWCmember]

Thanks for the information. Just to be clear, the statement is that "there is no proof that ETS causes cancer" as opposed to a quite different statement (apparently NOT made by this doctor, yet asserted by some on this forum) that "ETS doesn't cause cancer". Correct?

[Madame Dufarge]

Hormesis.

[Gabz]

Hi, right back to you!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't argue with anything you've said, and I probably wont'.

However, I will argue with the anti-smokers who scream bloody murder about how the tobacco industry can't be trusted and only tell lies and then embrace them when the TC's say something that supports the position of their cause.

But I do think you know and understand where I am coming from.

[cinFLA]

Not that you would know, ever, but there are enumerated rights and unenumerated rights. It is in the ninth and tenth amendments to this really old archaic document called the Constitution. Find a conservative and they can help you with it. I won't mention Locke, Burke, Madison or the others as they often used big words, very long sentences and none of their works have pictures.

You missed the thread or you would not be bringing up this much discussed topic. It gives the rights to the states. Not that you would know anything about states rights. Go get a conservative to explain it to you.

[Gabz]

The fact is, in the 90s federal Judge Osteen forced the EPA to vacate their chapter on second hand smoke,

The problem is the EPA and all the anti-smoker organizations refuse to accept this fact.

[Gabz]

Thank you - that was exactly the point I was making :-)

[cinFLA]

It is in the ninth and tenth amendments to this really old archaic document called the Constitution.

Why do you bring up the 9th - it refers to rights enumerated in the constitution. The 10th passes to the state rights NOT prohibited by the constitution.

Besides, if anyone really believed your statement, why do we have these law all over the nation WITHOUT legal challenges???????

[Leisler]

Have another cocktail. You couldn't be more in error, both in fact, law, and political theory. Like the powers of state government aren’t limited!

Admit it, you're a type of conservative. Not in law or political theory, but by instinct, like an old Prussian, or slave owner or some other type of reactionary bigot to liberty.

[cinFLA]

It is in the ninth and tenth amendments to this really old archaic document called the Constitution.

Why do you bring up the 9th - it refers to rights enumerated in the constitution. The 10th passes to the state rights NOT prohibited by the constitution. Besides, if anyone really believed your statement, why do we have these law all over the nation WITHOUT legal challenges???????

[cinFLA]

Have another cocktail. You couldn't be more in error, both in fact, law, and political theory. Like the powers of state government aren’t limited!

Admit it, you're a type of conservative. Not in law or political theory, but by instinct, like an old Prussian, or slave owner or some other type of reactionary bigot to liberty.

Great! Nothing to add in a factual manner so you result to slander. Typical liberal swag.

[VRWCmember]

You are a little off in your analysis of the 9th and 10th Amendments.

The 9th states that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution does not disparage other rights not enumerated but yet retained by the people.

The 10th states that any powers not granted by the Constitution to the federal govt (nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution) are reserved to the States and to the People.