Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer

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.
-------
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.

-------

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."
-------

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."

"...The same result will happen with the defacto smoking bans all it will do is remove the resolve of citizens and further cheapen the respect for legitimate law and civil duty to respect the law that binds us together..."

There is an old Roman quote to the effect that, "The more laws, the more crime."

This has a few different insights. Naturally as more laws are passed, what used to be free becomes illegal. But also at a deeper level, as the citizenry become more corrupt and base and criminal, there is the need for more laws.

Today, the enemy of all LEOs and decent people is the political class. Every cop, sheriff, agent who is made to do nanny state chin wiping is one less that isn’t available for rape, robbery and murder. For instance the arrest rate in DC is under 50%, thus the conviction rate is under 40%. Now a lot of those convicted are fellow criminals or low rent family member, pretty clear cut. But for street murders during robbery of mutual strangers, or home invasion the conviction rate is around 25%. Naturally self defense in your home or on your person is illegal (more laws) in the District.

So, although the anti’s have some truth to the nature of smoking and second hand smoke, they do so without the regard that that the enforcement, already poor, against murder, robbery and rape is weakened. And thus, not too indirectly, they are junior partners of the predators amongst us.

Speaking of respect for the law, my parents taught me that respect and it began before I can even remember it. I must have been about 4 when I pocketed some bright colored clothespins from a local store. I know I wasn't old enough to realize when Mom saw them she'd know immediately that I didn't buy them. They did make great trucks for a few minutes...until she swooped down on me like an agenging angel, picked me up by my collar and marched me directly back to the store. Don't think my feet once touched the ground. She stood at the doorway with her arms crossed--that was a verrrrry bad sign--while I tearfully apologized to Mr. Gibson for STEALING and made arrangements with him to come by every day for a month to sweep out his store. I could barely handle the broom, but I managed. When we got home I got the hairbrush. Amazing how much I loved that woman and still thank her for just such lessons as that.

On the other hand neither of my parents put up with injustice and both believed in fighting for what they believed. Guess some of that rubbed off, too.

Bad laws deserve the anarchy they create and it's the duty of every American to disregard such laws wherever possible until they can be repealed.

Basic manners should preclude individuals from undertaking activities which inflict nasty-smelling fumes on complete strangers. Society rightfully would frown on my behaviour if I made a habit of farting towards other diners every fifteen seconds; likewise, if I walked around spraying slightly-diluted excement all over people (in an oil-base, so that it didn't simply evaporate), folks who smelt bad all day as a result of my actions would have a right to be upset. And I arrogate to myself the right to be similary infuriated when I STINK al lday as a result of some nicotine addict's requirement to satiate their chemincal dependency and shower me with the effluent.

Can you explain to me why virtually every anti-smoker nico-Nazi I've encountered here and elsewhere is obsessed with bodily functions and scatalogical references?

DUDE!! You have every right in the world to put your own money where your big mouth is and open a FART-FRIENDLY restaurant!! Fart all you want, but keep it there where only other farters will be affected. Then those who CHOOSE to work in a fart factory can do so; those who CHOOSE to patronize such an odious establishment can do so; and those of us who just want to socialize with other smokers have that choice, too.

CLEARLY it depends critically on the CONCENTRATION and DURATION of such exposure - bar staff in hotels, for example, face a high concentration and prolonged duration, wheras diners face a low concentration and short duration.

Monitored studies from DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratories show hospitality staff are exposed to about SIX CIGARETTES A YEAR, not enough to be of concern. Hardly the 24/7 exposure for 40 years necessary to reach those statistically insignificant findings from EPA and WHO. Those who would be bothered by six cigarettes a year could always go elsewhere to work. No one has the absolute right to work in any particular place, a small fact that antis tend to overlook. But at least you got the "dose makes the poison," and most antis can't grasp that.

Smokers are just people who, as teenagers, were SO desperate to belong to ANY group that they took great pains to overcome the natural revulsion to inhaling burning vegetable leaves. that sort of low self-opinion is sad,

Bullshit. Sounds to me like a whole heap of sour grapes, like maybe you were the class nerd that no one liked.

but it is NOT an excuse to ruin my capacity to enjoy a decent meal. Otherwise we just have a free-for-all, and anyone who makes my shirt stin kas a result of their smoking, risks me standing on a chair and urinating all over THEIR clothes.

Oh, stop acting like a jerk. The ONLY way my smoking has a chance to ruin your meal is if you CHOOSE to eat in a smoker-friendly restaurant. Aren't you grown up enough to make that decision for yourself? REAL men are.

You'd have to "stand on a chair," huh?....

Yes, I know that the main issue both of you guys have is that you think smoking stinks.

You are not alone there, but you must also realise from the many smoking posts you have participated in that even amongst never-smokers and ex-smokers, there are others who don't mind the smell of smoke.

And this is where it comes down to your values - do you support the right of 25% of your fellow citizens to do something that you personally find objectionable, or do you consider the discrimination/segregation/overt taxation/humiliation/castigation/zero-accommodation of that very large minority to be acceptable?

I suggest to you that most conservatives would say, "No. I will put up with a certain level of discomfort to support the rights of that significant minority."

The alternative - which is presently playing out - of forcing all smokers outside, regardless of how cold it is, or how old they are and, in extreme cases, of "smoke-rage" resulting in murder of smokers, should be too appalling for even those who despise the smell to consider.

Like I've said, we aren't going away, so what would you propose we do?

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.