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."

[Gabz]

LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!

I'm so glad you an I are friends and I know you're not one of THEM!!!!!!!

[Gabz]

Stuff it yourself - the constitution of the state of Florida was amended to remove the ability of a private establishment to permit smoking. That shows me that the private property owners had previously had the consitutional right to do so.

If you don't understand that simple little concept - you are the one with the problem - not me.

[Gabz]

You need to go take a reading comprehension 101 class.

I clearly explained why I am unable to answer your question.

[Gabz]

As I said - you need a readin comprehension 101 class.

[Max McGarrity]

(Are you related by VRWC_minnie, by chance?) PM is the typical corporation, groveling and sniveling and begging the government not to put them out of business. They believe appeasement will protect them, but we know it will only hasten the end. We long ago lost all respect for Big Tobacco when they threw their customers to the wolves.

[Gabz]

Have you even read the admendment? If so, you would find that you might even agree with some of it.

I've read the amendment - there are parts I agree with - of course none of the parts I agree with will any people like you agree with.

[Max McGarrity]

From Gabz: "Thank you for again clarifying that is it perfectly fine with you that the propagation of false information as long as it is done by your side is acceptable."

From "sinFUL": It is despicable that you put those words up to discredit me when I have made no such position and in fact have stated the opposite! But I expect nothing less from your side.

That's exactly what you said. Sorry you can't stand the truth, but next time maybe you'll be more careful about what you say.

[cinFLA]

No analysis needed. I stated in plain terms what each of the two amendments in question say. Your suggestion, that the non-enumeration of a right (e.g. property rights) denies that right to the people, is a contradiction of what is stated in the 9th amendment.

The ninth refers to limits on the US constitution and federal powers thus it does not apply to state powers. Check.

[Eaker]

Perhaps I would be less crass if some people quit attempting to pass assumptions off as facts.

The anti-smoking Nazis are for the most part liars and fools. Many attempt to blame their frailness and the fact that they are from the very shallow end of the gene pool off onto smokers.

Nobody likes a crybaby and for the most part that is all that I have seen from the local Nazis. They like to cite factoids, but when real studies are disclosed they bury their heads in the litter box and keep spouting BS.

I don't care much for carbonated drinks and I also don't crash every carbonated drink thread and call Coke drinkers names and point out that they are terrible parents and the bane of society as the wee Nazis do.

Eaker

[cinFLA]

You see this smoking business has nothing to do with the health of trained hypochondriacts and everything to do with the very future of the Unites States and our 227 years of freedom from tyranny.

We are talking about state laws, not federal tyranny.

[cinFLA]

Stuff it yourself - the constitution of the state of Florida was amended to remove the ability of a private establishment to permit smoking. That shows me that the private property owners had previously had the consitutional right to do so

And your statement above shows that you are totally ignorant on Florida law!

[cinFLA]

I've read the amendment - there are parts I agree with - of course none of the parts I agree with will any people like you agree with.

As I remember, your main point had to do with bars. Why are you thus flailing the amendment? You again "assume" incorrectly.

[cinFLA]

That's exactly what you said. Sorry you can't stand the truth, but next time maybe you'll be more careful about what you say.

Huh? Your post makes no sense.

[NeoCaveman]

If so, please cite the enumeration. If not, then take your not-so-informed opinion of Florida law and stuff it.

The duties of the government are enumerated not the rights of the citizens.

[cinFLA]

That's exactly what you said. Sorry you can't stand the truth, but next time maybe you'll be more careful about what you say.

And I reiterate that I never said anysuch thing. You bother to copy and repost two statements BUT you did not post anything that I posted to that effect. Now go back to your doodling.

[Max McGarrity]

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.

Relatively good analysis from a relative "newbie" to the issue (it's an assumption because I haven't seen you on any of the numerous smoking threads here). We have always made the mistake of assuming corporations behave like normal human beings, and they don't. Industries are also not monoliths peopled by Borg. Yes, there have been some tobacco company researchers who stated clearly that smoking was harmful. (Remember, this has nothing at all to do with environmental tobacco smoke.) Many researchers disagreed with them--in other words, there was no consensus among even the industry's own scientists.

There are millions of "secret" tobacco company documents now online and shepherded by the "estimable" Stan Glantz himself. For a tidy sum, I might add. Most of those documents are no different from those found in ANY corporation, and a few are damning. The key is in being able to distinguish the difference, something antis don't do well. For instance, a memo from a low-level functionary making a completely outrageous suggestion is being touted as PROOF of some nefarious scheme, when in actuality, it was immediately rejected by the company. A letter from a lawyer telling executives how to protect themselves from lawsuits...? That's how they earned their pay.

An interesting letter from an anti-smoker whistleblower named Luc Martial points out that these companies followed the rules they were given, and if they were guilty of misrepresenting their products, the government (who knew every bit as much about tobacco as the companies did) is every bit as guilty. So why now is the government pretending ignorance and putting it to the industry? One reason: deep pockets.

Unfortunately, the pockets they're robbing belong to smokers, not tobacco companies.

There are enough liars in this issue to go around the world several times over, and they are not limited to the tobacco industry. This is a battle of behemoths: Big Tobacco, Big Pharmaceuticals, Big Charities, Big Anti-Tobacco and Big Government. The forgotten victim is the guy paying the bills.

[cinFLA]

The duties of the government are enumerated not the rights of the citizens.

If you are going to step into the middle of the argument, please have the courtesy of reading the complete series.

[NeoCaveman]

please have the courtesy of reading the complete series.

You can't be series.

[cinFLA]

My apology. Please explain your post. I was trying to close out all my inbox before dinner.