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."

[Leonard210]

Thanks SheLion. I wasn't sure if you were hangin' around. If the Washington Post has quoted from a study, you could have just posted the WP and/or WT articles. I personally don't mind if people smoke, but I don't want THEIR smoke served with MY steak. The question of cancer may be overexaggerated as the above articles point out, but that doesn't make it a right for people to smoke; which is the approach of many on our team.

[CaptRon]

Couple of years ago an article was posted here that I believe was the WHO study in question.

While the body of the article went on and on about the dangers of second-hand smoke the footnote stated that the increased danger was statistically insignificant! In fact, it went on to say the drinking raw milk was more dangerous to your health.

I've been trying to find this article again for quite some time.

[SheLion]

can agree with this, but it doesn't change the fact that it plays hell with my severe allergies, and sinus infections. One whiff of cigarette smoke and I can't breath for over 24 hours. I can't go to restaurants, clubs, theaters, concerts etc. if there is smoke present. That's my problem and I don't want to make anyone stop smoking, but at the same time, smokers need to be considerate of others and not smoke in their presense, in public unless they ask if it's ok first. Of course I have a bad spitting habit and sometimes hit others in the face. This is ok too, isn't it?

Well, in this day and age, I am not sure where you go that you have to be around cigarette smoke anymore.  Most restaurants have non-smoking sections.  There are no smoking in theaters, ever.  No smoking in Super Markets or the Post Office.  Or Elevators.  Or Government Buildings.  Where do you go that you are exposed to smoking?

Clubs? Private clubs?  You know there will be smoking there and also in bars.  Concerts? Most are outside.  No smoking in doors at a concert because of the fire code.  I am just confused about where you have to go to put up with smokers.

As for asking someone in public to put out a cigarette, is a bit inconsiderate.  When your in a public place, the public is all people's.  If you see someone smoking on the street, just cross the street.  Smoker's are as considerate as can be, unless they are trampled on and treated poorly in a smoking section of anyplace.

As for your spitting in someone's face:  do you have aids? That could be a REAL health problem. I'd take breathing in second hand smoke ANY DAY to having someone's body fluids hit me.

[CDHart]

"I won't screw up my kids' health on the basis of any studies, that's for sure!"

Good for you! I grew up with a smoker, and my husband and I both smoked for 35 years. I was given less than a year to live in 1998 because of lung cancer, and thanks to God and some excellent doctors and a special diet, there is no trace of it to date.

But even if you don't get cancer (and you may need to have a specific gene or something) you sure do damage to your lungs and those of people around you. The medical profession calls it Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and it can kill you just as surely as lung cancer.

Carolyn

[drjoe]

One whiff of cigarette smoke and I can't breath for over 24 hours


Well, perhaps the solution is for you to have one whiff of cigarette smoke. No more breathing followed by no more problem.

[SheLion]

Who cares if it causes cancer or not?

If any of you smoke around your kids, you should be jailed! I personally suffered more grief than I can tell you due to the fact that I lived with two chainsmokers (had no choice, I was a kid!) in a small apartment for 10 years. Second hand smoke hurts peoples' lungs more than you could imagine!

I was hacking and wheezing whenever I tried to play football or even do a 1 mile run in P.E. class. The physician who examined me was convinced I had asthma, and I was put on a steroid-based inhaler medication for years! (Strangely, it never helped - I wonder why?!?!?) This could have kept me out of the Army!

But lo and behold, as soon as I am moved out within a few months I am running 2 miles in under 13 minutes! Please don't destroy your kids' lungs. If you have to smoke, do it outside and don't make them the victims! This is still a source of tension between my mom and me... I have told her that when her grandkids arrive they will not be visiting her house if I can smell even a trace of tobacco there, and that more likely she'll just have to come to my place. I won't screw up my kids' health on the basis of any studies, that's for sure!

If anyone of us smokes around our kids we should be JAILED?  And your an AMERICAN SOLDIER? Who's rights are YOU fighting for!

Your getting a little nasty to me, so don't mind a little retaliation, ok?

My husband is a Viet Nam Vet.  TWO Purple Hearts.  Thank God he lived to bring them home.  My husband was and IS a smoker.  Our parents smoked  as well as our grandparents before us.

We gave birth to a beautiful baby healthy 8lb 12 oz girl.  She grew up, she smokes, and she recently gave birth to a strong, beautiful healthy baby boy!  As parents, we never "blew smoke" in our baby's faces!  But growing up in a smoking household has prevented her AND us and all people that we know that smokes with children, never to have contacted asthma.

You grew up in a "small apartment with two chain smokers."  Why, as a kid, were you inside all the time?  Most kids I know can't wait to get outside to play.

Guess what?  I was a professional dancer.  I started smoking at age 16 and started dancing when I was 8, and danced until I married at age 26.  Smoking never ever slowed me down. (And surely not breathing my parent's Second Hand Smoke!)  Not once. When a person eats right, exercises, smoking is not going to hinder you until you become an elder.

Your going to deprive your mom from seeing her grandbabies just because she smokes?!  I think your mom is better off without you.  I'm sure your mom would have the good grace not to smoke around your kids, but just because you can SMELL it in her HOUSE! Yes, she is better off without you, Soldier Boy!

[Just another Joe]

If any of you smoke around your kids, you should be jailed!

Now you're REALLY talking about overcrowding the prisons.
Don't talk to me about going to jail for smoking around kids. It's easy to tell that you already have an ingrown bias.

[borisbob69]

When I came across this the first time...I mentioned it to several people and nobody believed it...but it's always nice to be exposed to the scientific vs the emotional truth!

[SheLion]

The question of cancer may be overexaggerated as the above articles point out, but that doesn't make it a right for people to smoke; which is the approach of many on our team.

Doesn't make it a RIGHT? Since when is it not a right to use a legal commodity?

[laredo44]

Please don't destroy your kids' lungs.

When you make statements that have no basis in fact, you appear an idiot.

[SheLion]

Well, the ARTICLE says it's a real study. But as I say, I could not even confirm the AUTHOR at the UK newspaper! This is very suspicious, much like "study says little green men held at Wright-Pat."

That's ok. Those of us that have been following this study understand what is going on.

Sorry I couldn't provide that link yet, but when it's pulled from the Net, it's very suspicious that they don't want the truth to be known out here. But we will find it!

[Gabz]

Your scepticsm is understandable.

Here is a link to the abstract of the study, originally published in the Jounal of the Nationall Cancer Institute:

Multicenter case-control study of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung Cancer in Europe

This was one of the largest, most comprehensive studies done. It was done by the International Agency for Reasearch on Cancer. (IARC)

[Dr. Frank fan]

One whiff of cigarette smoke and I can't breath for over 24 hours.

I am awfully sorry to hear about your tragic passing, upon whiffing cigarette smoke and subsequently dying of asphyxiation.

By the way, how did you type your post, being dead, and all?

[1Old Pro]

Old news. But they are right, it never was allowed to see the light of day.

[Eastbound]

Always timely. Once a month at least. Thanks again.

[Dr. Frank fan]

The question of cancer may be overexaggerated as the above articles point out, but that doesn't make it a right for people to smoke;

You're right, the exaggeration of risks of second-hand smoke doesn't "make smoking a right". Smoking is, by default, a right already, unless reason can be given for why it shouldn't be. One such reason, for example, could have been: because second-hand smoke causes cancer. But, if that risk is exaggerated, then....

[vin-one]

you go girl.
I grew up in a small house with Multiple chain smokers,
Used to be able to see a blue cloud of smoke taking up the whole middle level of the room
I never had any problems with sports, running, or whatever.
some people are just overly sensitive.

[Eva]

Sadly, you are wrong on your evaluation of the dangers of smoking.

You may not live to be an elder, if you are a heavy smoker. It has been proven that the earlier you start smoking, the more damage it does to your lungs and the higher the likelyhood of cancer.

My father had a massive heart attack at 48 and died at 52 from a heart condition that was severely exascerbated by his heavy smoking habit. His mother died of lung cancer at 59 and my maternal grandfather died of lung cancer at 59, also (both smokers). That is not very old.

I have other relatives that have died of smoking related cancers, too, but they at least lived to be senior citizens. Still, it is not a pleasant way to die.

[facedown]

Is this it? International Consultation on Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) and Child Health 11-14 January 1999 Geneva, Switzerland

[Just another Joe]

To download a copy of the study, go HERE. You will need adobe acrobat reader, at the least, to read it.