Posted on 11/13/2002 9:23:09 AM PST by 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."
Strange......... where is the outrage.
The majority are now non-smokers, how can smoke be such an irritant, you must be mixing your smoke with car fumes and all other kinds of polution.
A bit cranky sometimes, an understatement to say the least, make that extremely cranky 100% of the time, and I doubt if it has much to do with smoke.
Here are your exact words that started this entire line of comments:
I disagree with anyone that posts false information, however, my time is limited and I reserve my posts for those that portray smoking in a positive manner. (emphasis added)
To be perfectly fair, Gabz, his statement that you directly quoted does not say that that he considers propogation of false information as acceptable when it is done by "his side". He stated that he disagrees with anyone who does that but doesn't reply to such posts (those from "his side") due to time limitations. As a matter of fact, I've seen the same type of "giving a pass" by people on both sides of this debate to members of their respective sides when inaccurate information or statements are posted that is not accorded to members of "the other side".
LOL, you're kidding, I got one of those on a Kosovo thread a while back, I posted him and said, he could say whatever he wanted in public, turned out he had done the same to a number of other posters, once exposed he kind of diappeared. :-} don't suppose there is any hope of that with cinFla, huh...... didn't think so.
Nope, not related to the minion. And I'm pretty sure I was a member long before he was a minion. Perhaps someday I'll be promoted to VRWCcommander, but then I'd have to watch my back all the time for some minion who wants to be a commander.
You don't have to, trust me we don't want to be anywhere near you, your attitude could rub off...... eeewwwww.
I dunno.........hmmmmmmm.........strange is right!
How are you, Great Dane?
You've got that right - they had what, something like $6million - to Wendy's $2,000?
And horse's butt's like stanton Glantz claim that any opposition to the anti-smoker laws is totally funded by Big Tobacco. Good Grief.
Oh my, and whom may one ask decides what is false information, surely you are not setting yourself up as an expert on truth or false, what are your qualifications.???
Nope. Don't think so either. She has already thrown accusations at Gabz and Max. Saying they have "slandered" her. Go figure. Sounds a little weak in the brain area, if you know what I mean.
I'm not so much a newbie to the issue as one who usually passes on the conversation because of the vitriol from both sides of the issue. In fact, you and I have had some discussions in the past, and I am typically more likely to reply to you than to most others on these threads because you tend to be one of the more reasonable parties in the discussions. I usually piss off both sides when I comment, but tend to really irritate the more militant of the smokers than the "antis".
As a non-smoker with minor (sometimes major) allergies that are intensified and aggravated by cigarette smoke, I can certainly understand those who push for regulations on smoking in public enclosed places. I also respect the right of property owners to allow or not allow smoking on their property. I seldom go into bars because the smoke tends to be more than I can handle without getting physically ill, but if I decide to go into a sports bar to watch a ballgame, etc. I try to find a spot that minimizes the amount of other people's smoke I have to inhale. I have often stated that a little bit of courtesy on both sides of the issue would be beneficial, but usually neither side can recognize how utterly rudely, inconsiderately, and downright childishly they are behaving.
As for ETS, both the title of this thread ("Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer - Official") and the claim that "Second-Hand Smoke Definitely Causes Cancer" are equally incorrect. The evidence is inconclusive. It seems there is sufficient research to show some correlation between long-term exposure to second-hand smoke and numerous health problems that any claim that second-hand smoke is completely harmless should be considered suspect. On the other hand, there are plenty of folks who smoke every day (or are exposed to SHS every day) and live to be 100 before they die of something completely unrelated to cigarettes; so cigarettes won't definitely kill you. Does that mean that your cigarette smoke has no adverse health effects on others that are forced by their proximity to you to breathe it?
I don't want anyone telling you that you can't smoke if you want to. It's your right to light up and inhale the (probably toxic) smoke if you choose. At the same time, if we have to share space on an elevator, or in a plane, or at a sporting event because I happened to purchase a ticket for a seat next to yours, is it too much of an imposition on you that I be allowed to breathe air free of cigarette smoke?
However, there was a specific reference to a prominent, paid anti smoker being made, and a blatant out right lie made by him. And that is why I have a problem.
As for the rest of your comments - I really can't disagree with you.
How much trouble is it to spend about $39.00 on a sound card? You miss out on so much of the enlightening and entertaining material I bring to the forum, especially in WFTD.
Cindy oh Cindy, Gabz doesn't have to discredit you, you are doing a good job of it all by yourself, you're almost funny.
Why is it, that most of us in here on the Smoking Threads are over 45-50 and older. We were born into smoking households. Entire families smoked. We grew up, started smoking, hung out in bars and discos and restaurants, even before they had the huge smoke eaters. We smoked and breathed in all the other's smoke. How come we are still alive, and healthy?
It wasn't until the anti-smokers started spewing all this second hand junk that the non-smokers started getting scared of US! Now, how the hell did our generations, and generations before us are still getting out of bed each morning and stretching our arms high and saying "Ah, it's going to be a beautiful day?"
We had no asthma. Our kids had no asthma. There was never any problem until the Clinton years and then the war on the smokers began. Do you have any idea of what I am asking? Anything? I am not being smart here. I really would like to know what your thinking.
Even with the Department of Defense's report about second hand smoke not being a killer, yet, non smokers still do not want to be around us. It's politically correct to not want to be around smokers, but it's politically incorrect to lie about the truth.
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