Secondhand smoke poses heart attack risk [junk science alert]

MSNBC.com ^ | April 23, 2004 | Marc Kaufman

[The kings dead]

For the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning people at risk of heart disease to avoid all buildings and gathering places that allow indoor smoking.

The CDC disclosed its new advisory in a commentary to a study published in the British Medical Journal yesterday, saying doctors need to warn people with heart problems that secondhand smoke can significantly increase their risk of a heart attack. The agency said that as little as 30 minutes' exposure can have a serious and even lethal effect.

The commentary accompanied a study showing that the number of heart attacks in Helena, Mont., decreased substantially after the city banned indoor smoking, then rose quickly to its former level after the law was struck down in court. [...]

[Sidebar Moderator]

Regarding #1, Fox is now excerpt-only. I know it's hard to keep track.

[SheLion]

Then just ban the damn chit and be done with it. Smoking never hurt anyone in MY family! And plenty of them smoked and or smokes. I'm totally sick of this illerate reporting. Just ban it and put a lot of people out of work!

[The kings dead]

Excerpt from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100318,00.html :

[...] Assuming the study information presented is accurate, fewer heart attacks seem to have occurred during the six months of the smoking ban.

But a similar short-lived dip in heart attacks rates also occurred in Helena four years earlier in 1998. If whatever caused the 1998 dip happened again in 2002, the Miracle of Helena is really the Mirage of Helena. [...]

Another glaring problem is the researchers’ failure to study any pre- or post-ban patients to medically determine the causes of the reported heart attacks. Given all the genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors that combine to cause heart attacks, it is quite bogus to attribute them to secondhand smoke, especially without examining any patients. [Especially since 38% of those having heart attacks are current smokers. - The kings dead] [...]

[CholeraJoe]

I live in Helena, MT and know the two docs who published the study described in the article. Their data is so cruddy and suspect as to be nearly worthless. In my opinion, it was contrived, not collected.

[CholeraJoe]

See #5.

[Gabz]

CJ...................The study was also debunked.

I'll look through my files....I've got something on it, also from the BMJ.

[Leisler]

I remember that "study." It was posted here on FR. The Helaina death rate went from something like 2 deaths in a quarter to 3. The study population base was so small as to be a joke. It would of given a F to a student who was a week into a statistics course, let alone statistical epidemiology. Further proof that the CDC employees are generation group think yuppies who lemmimng like follow their, ahem, "cultural" peers. Just like the EPA, the CDC has become a political organization, not scientific. I doubt the media will print the savage letters to the BJM that will becoming in by the boatload from honest scientists. Junk media meets junk science. At least the National Enquirer gets some real scoops, has Batboy, and keeps Kerry and his Alien puppet masters in the spotlight.

[Gabz]

You will find letters to the BMJ regarding this nonsense at the link below.

BMJ Rapid Response

An abstract of the study is also available at the link.

[hauerf]

If the data in the study show also that local temperatures dropped during the ban and then rose sometime after the ban was lifted and if the results can be extroplated globally for a multithousand year interval, then clearly Helena has given us our first break in the problem of global warming since Bush killed the Kyoto treaty.

[CSM]

"That study found that during the six-month period in 2002 when the ban was in effect, the number of heart attacks reported by Helena's heart hospital fell by 40 percent."

I thought this claim was debunked already. Some association numbers issue, or something. Do you remember the details of debunking?

[genefromjersey]

I can remember (before retirement) standing OUTSIDE a government building,and listening to employees inside gripe and groan about second-hand smoke blowinging into the building when the door was opened.

These SAME employees would go out on lunch or coffee break
and "fire up a couple of J's" - returning all giggly and high, and bringing the smell of second-hand marijuana smoke into the building with them.

[Uncle George]

I predict; 100% of cigarette smokers will die of HEART FAILURE.

[Gabz]

check my link in post #9

[waverna]

What a waste of time. Here on Long Island there are NO buildings and gathering places that allow indoor smoking.

[Gabz]

I predict, 100% of non-smokers will die of HEART FAILURE.

[Leisler]

BMJ motto, "All the Science fit to print."

[Gorzaloon]

The reported increase in heart attack rates due to second hand smoke may be true.

The heart attacks are a side effect of hysterical diarrhea experenced by antismoking activists when they sniff a trace of it.

[Agnes Heep]

Secondhand smoke simply fouls God's fresh, clean air. But anecdotally, I can tell you that it's the residual smoke that embeds itself in your furniture, draperies, carpets and other things that I would suspect does the most damage. I can't go into a place that's been heavily smoked in, even if there's no smoking going on, without my heart accelerating. It doesn't settle down for hours afterward.

[templar]

So, what makes this study "junk science"?