Assignment America: Smoke screens/One of the best articles I have read!

NEW YORK, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- If you were to be strapped down on a surgical table while four guys exhaled smoke directly into your mouth and nostrils for 30 years, you MIGHT get lung cancer 40 years after they stopped -- but it's not likely.

I'm using this absurd example, because ALL of the other examples in the available scientific literature are equally absurd.

The second-hand smoke scare is a political farce. It was invented in the mid-1990s by the Clinton administration -- it has Hillary's hands all over it -- because anti-smoking radicals, who tend to be like anti-abortion radicals in their zealous devotion to the cause, actually convinced the Environmental Protection Agency to change its "conventional standard for statistical significance" so that second-hand smoke could be proven to be a killer.

Normally nobody but specialists would care -- substandard scientific reports get released all the time -- except that it's now being used to justify anti-smoking legislation that, in the case of New York City, could result in smokers not even being able to light up in their own clubs, their own bars, and, in one case, their own apartment buildings -- even if the place is clearly marked as a smoking establishment.

If Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, they won't even be able to smoke in smoking lounges, cigar bars or tobacco shops.

Wouldn't the American way be to put a big sign on the front of your restaurant? "People Smoke In Here -- Don't Come In If It Bugs You." And then let everyone act like grownups?

The simple fact of the matter is that by about 1990 everyone had reached a compromise on this issue. Smokers would sit in smoking sections.

Ventilation systems would be installed in public buildings. Everyone would live and let live.

Not good enough for the smoke-haters. They knew that arguing against a legal substance on the basis that it was hurting the people who LIKED IT was a losing battle, and un-American besides. But if they could somehow prove that innocent people were dying ...

And so they proved it with "junk science." The Bush administration recently rejected a scientific report, 30 years in the making, signed by some of the top researchers in the world that said fossil fuels were the principle cause of global warming in the form of air pollution. The reason Bush rejected the findings: it was "junk science" from "the bureaucracy."

If that was junk science, then the second-hand smoke research comes from a junkyard infested with giant rats and scavenging stray dogs. Most of the available studies have "confidence intervals" right around 1.0 -- which means no confidence at all. And almost all of them fail to take into account the other sources of air pollution. It's as though our polluted air were made up of 140 parts car exhaust, 70 parts smoke from fossil-fuel-burning factories, 40 parts methane, and .0000001 parts smoke from that guy on the corner sneaking a cigarette on his lunch hour. So what do we do?

The fact is, there have been 40 epidemiological studies of second-hand smoke, almost all of them based on the experience of non-smokers married to smokers. Thirty-two of them found no evidence of second-hand smoke causing any disease at all. The other eight showed "weak association" -- but in some of the studies there was actually a NEGATIVE result, indicating that non-smoking spouses of smokers are LESS likely to get a serious disease.

Of course, the ones that showed a negative result were thrown out as wacky, but the others are equally wacky. For one thing, they're all infected with what science calls "recall bias." People interviewed are asked to reconstruct smoking patterns over their entire lifetimes, and it's been shown time and again that their memories are faulty, and in many cases, designed to mislead. The non-smoker frequently turns out to be a smoker for a portion of those years; he changes his story for insurance reasons or because of pending litigation. And the non-smoker with lung cancer tends to seek external causes and fasten on the most convenient one, even when we know that a person living in an urban area is subject to multiple possible causes of lung cancer, most of them far more potent than cigarette smoke.

Complicating the issue is the media treatment of second-hand smoke. If you say something often enough, it acquires the patina of truth even if the original basis for it is phony. I could use dozens of examples, but I'll just use the most recent one that I know of. Here's the lead paragraph from a July 12 article in the Globe and Mail, the Canadian newspaper:

"People who are routinely exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke, such as workers in bars and restaurants, can see their risk of lung cancer triple, a new study says. The Canadian study provides some of the most compelling scientific evidence yet for a total ban on workplace smoking, including bars and restaurants."

Okay, now let's look at the study the article was based on. It was published in the International Journal of Cancer and signed by a lead researcher for Health Canada -- a government agency with a vested interest. (Public health agency research tends to be uniformly alarmist.) Even so, the Globe and Mail's report leaves out the most important conclusion in the study:

"Although more years of and more intense residential passive smoke exposure tended to be associated with higher risk estimates, no clear dose-response relationship was evident."

Any particular reason this would be left out? Other than that it's inconvenient? Of course, to report the data without any agency spin on it, you would need to study the tables, evaluate the "confidence intervals," allow for "recall bias," and do all the other things scientists normally do, and journalists SHOULD do.

Apparently Australian journalists are a little more diligent. When the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council released a second-hand smoke report in 1997, the authors decided to omit the statistical tables entirely because they feared the press might study them.

An outraged judge eventually censured the government agency for what he called lying by omission -- the same thing that happened in a North Carolina court case, when a judge said the Environmental Protection Agency's report was rife with "cherry picking" of statistics, and had excluded half the available studies for no good reason. Later the Congressional Research Service issued a blistering report of its own, essentially calling the EPA study irresponsible and alarmist.

The reason the issue of second-hand smoke is such a raging issue right now is that it's being used as the rationale for additional anti-smoking laws. Waiters, bartenders and cooks need to be protected. This is what Bloomberg is basing his whole campaign on.

People might not LIKE smoke. They might find it unpleasant. But it's a huge jump to say it's actually harming their bodies, as though they were coal miners, soon to be diagnosed with Black Lung Disease. In fact, we have two studies that measured Environmental Tobacco Smoke -- the scientific name for it -- and came to the conclusion that, first of all, the smoke inhaled from the air is chemically and physically different from the smoke inhaled from the end of the cigarette, and, secondly, people who work eight hours a day in heavy-smoking environments had the following CE's (Cigarette Equivalents):

That's cigarettes PER YEAR. The worst case they could find had the bartender adding to his cancer risk at the rate of 4.3 cigarettes per year, which is, of course, like saying somebody who eats six Lifesavers is a candidate for heart disease.

Even more to the point, scientists computed what would happen if a 20-by-20-foot room with a 9-foot ceiling were filled with smoke, and then compared that exposure to the EPA's lowest published "danger" doses. Here are the results:

For the lowest level of danger for benzopyrene, you would need to have 222,000 cigarettes burning in the room. For the lowest level of acetone, you would need to burn 118,000 cigarettes. For the lowest level of hydrazine, you would need 14,000 cigarettes. And for toluene, you would need a cool million smokes, all burning at the same time. Unless, of course, you opened the door or window -- then you would need more.

John C. Bailar, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine recently, said that, if you sum up all the available evidence, the MOST alarming case you can make for second-hand smoke being related to disease is "We don't know." (He was primarily writing about heart disease, but the conclusions on lung cancer are similar.)

Bailar was being polite. We know. Get a ventilation fan. Put up a sign. Go to separate rooms. But let's not start a whole new era of Prohibition in which people have to open speakeasies and private clubs just to enjoy a meal or a drink. We can't all afford to go to Paris to smoke.

(John Bloom, a smoker, writes a number of columns for UPI and may be contacted at joebob@upi.com or through his Web site at joebobbriggs.com. Snail mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, Texas 75221.)

hard evidence? rigor mortis?

sorry, I couldn't resist.

I agree with all of your stances about the 2nd hand smoke hype, but I can't stand smoke and I am glad that it is out of work places. I remember the days of going to work and coming home stinking of smoke. I grew up with my dad smoking and I couldn't stand it. Nothing like good clean air. I don't agree with the exessive "sin" taxes, nor the government lawsuits. I also don't agree with removing smoking from all bars. After all, that is part of the scene. However, removing smoking from general office space and planes (I think they should provide a small filtered room for smokers on planes) is a blessing. JMO

You are in denial. Your responses sound like the typical BS of a heroin junkie. But you just keep on puffing. You'll show us all won't you. What an idiot you are.

Hey moron, what's with the spittle-flecked posts?

What a wonderful thing the Internet is for hate-filled losers like yourself. A home, at last, for the bitter and marginalized who rightly find themselves at the bottom of the pecking order.

I'll bet the other kids are impressed now, huh?

However, removing smoking from general office space and planes (I think they should provide a small filtered room for smokers on planes) is a blessing. JMO

You have a fairly open opinion and I appreciate that.
Your above statement, however, should have been instituted by the business owners, not the government.

I remember the days of going to work and coming home stinking of smoke. I grew up with my dad smoking and I couldn't stand it. Nothing like good clean air.

I can respect that. I worked in a smoke-free environment with designated smoking areas and can understand where you are coming from. My son doesn't like it either - I don't smoke around him.

I'll bet the other kids are impressed now, huh?

To sad. I guess this is the way he gets rid of his pent up hostility. Spewing hate at adults who choose to smoke a legal commodity.

He just hit and ran. Couldn't stick around to weigh the issue. Just a hate filled person.

I never had hard drugs in my life, except when I went in for surgery. Does that count? heh!

BM, if you were born before, oh, say 1965, chances are pretty good that either your mother smoked or a majority of your contemporaries' mothers smoked.

I think all of us are aware of the statistics involved in smoking. We'd be pretty umbday to not know after the 38 years of warning labels, media howls, etc.

None of the regular posters to the property rights and smoking threads has ever suggested that smoking is a harmless endeavor and practically all of us have lost either a relative and/or a friend to any debilitating disease the most paranoid hypochondriac could name.

Still we do it. Why?

Actually, fellow citizen, it's none of your or anybody else's business why. We don't ask you to justify any of your legal activities to us, we'd like to recieve the same courtesy from others.

My great-grandfather used to smoke stogies and eat raw garlic to make people keep their distance.

I like that.

"...because anti-smoking radicals, who tend to be like anti-abortion radicals in their zealous devotion to the cause..."

HEY SMOKERS - notice the guy takes a dig at pro-lifers as well.

Also - people were talking about second hand smoke long before Hillary showed up.

And for those that doubt the harmful effects of cigs, will you at least admit that it is not good for the skin - and makes the teeth look pretty unattractive?

To me it is just another disgusting vice. You can pay 8 bucks a pack and do it if you want - just don't expose me to it. Does anyone not think that airplanes are far better places because they don't allow smoking on them anymore? And as a former firefighter, I can say that I worked on several jobs - both fatal and nonfatal, where cigarettes were the cause.

Lucky you, to be living in such a nice place. Most of my illnesses came from the work place (factory). Paint fumes, along with chemical fumes and welding fumes makes for a lot of sick people. Then, there are workplace injuries that aren't compensated and all the previous mentioned are considered hazards of the job and are ok. I guess if there's money to be made, then a few deaths here and there is the norm and should be expected. Well, there is money to be made from cigarettes. It looks like the government makes more than the corporations. I just bought a carton of Winston with a $7.50 off coupon while I'm waiting for my six cartons ordered on the net for $83. It's my form of NAFTA.

And as a former firefighter, I can say that I worked on several jobs - both fatal and nonfatal, where cigarettes were the cause.

I resent that. What else were the issue besides a cigarette? Was the person drunk? On drugs? Old and feeble? A person smoking a cigarette in a house just doesn't throw it on the carpet and walk away.

There has to be more to the circumstance for you to say this. You can't just lump it all in "oh it was a smoker."

To me it is just another disgusting vice.

That's your opinion. Not ours.

You can pay 8 bucks a pack and do it if you want

I roll my own and get a carton for $8 dollars thank you.

... where cigarettes were the cause.

oh puhleeeeeeeze !
surely you can do better than that ??

and i've driven by accidents where ruta-friggin-bagas were the cause ...

Guess the truth hurts sometimes.

Several fires where the person fell asleep with a lit cig. One fatal fire where that happened. And the person that was killed was not the smoker - but was sleeping upstairs and the smoker fell asleep on the living room couch. Many non-fatal fires where the person falls asleep with lit cig.

Another fatal fire where the mom thought the cig was out in the ashtray. She went to a neighbor's house 2 doors down (50 feet away). Came back less than 15 minutes later and a fire was going. Kid (two year old)was sleeping upstairs. Dead from smoke inhalation. Now you can say the mom was stupid - no doubt - but a kid is still dead. I carried his lifeless body to the ems crew after two other firefighters found him and handed down the ladder to me.

I go out of my way not to expose my smoke on anyone nor would I impose my beliefs on anyone else, either. I might stink to high heaven but my teeth are white. I've never had trouble getting a man or making friends but I know a lot of non-smokers who have. Maybe they need to chill out and light up so they can relax. But who cares?! Isn't being rude considered a vice?

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