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."

[Max McGarrity]

I know better than to answer you, ditz, but I have nothing better to do while waiting for a lengthy download on my slow connection so I'll make an exception to my "ditter-free" rule. The point you so conveniently overlooked was that an airline, like every other private business, should have that CHOICE. You guys sure get a bee in your bonnet at the thought of choice, don't you? Guess like the Aussie newbie, you need Big Daddy gubmint to make your choices for you. I don't.

[laredo44]

I simply think that if they choose to smoke cigarettes as the mechanism for delivery of the chemical they crave, they ought to be prevented from doing so anywhere where ANY person might be offended.

Why single out smokers? Why not get right along to your perferred conclusion? Everybody should be prevented from doing anything anywhere where ANY person might be offended. And, more importantly, you get to decide who has been offended. Why so prissy as to hide your true self, tyrannt?

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

I posted this off rushes site 1 year ago basicly the same study just different players I dont have the link anymore i wish i did

[Ditter]

My nicname is Ditter, that is babytalk for sister. Why do you think you have to insult me? Is that easiest for you? You can't speak to my post any other way? I was not rude to you & I am not a ditz. You come off looking like a big fat bully.

You seemed to have conveniently overlooked the first sentance of my post, I am in favor of businesses doing what they need to do to accommodate their customers. If the airlines want to have all smoking flights I am fine with that, but a smoking section on a plane pleases no one but the smokers.

[seams2me]

.....and this just in....passive sex does not cause pregnancy......

[SheLion]

I posted this off rushes site 1 year ago basicly the same study just different players I dont have the link anymore i wish i did

A year ago? No kidding. And off of Rush's site. Well, must be something to it (although we all know there is), if Rush recognized it.

[Great Dane]

I can remember back in the bad ole days of smoking on airlines when I would arrive sick at my holiday destination.

Funny...... I have a friend, a non-smoker who now gets sick on planes due to lack of fresh air intake.

[Great Dane]

And........he has to stand on a CHAIR!

LOL, I could say something rude, but he would get sooo offended.

[Max McGarrity]

I knew I'd be sorry I answered your post, and I am. You insult smokers practically every time you post (not this time...but the snide comment at the end of the message I answered is just too typically anti). I don't like antis. I don't like people who twist what someone else said to make a point. I don't like when you pick out one part of what I've said and pretend I meant something I didn't. In other words, I much prefer "ditter-free" days, and will remember next time.

[Ditter]

I have made some insulting comments to smokers but I have been insulted more times than I have insulted them. You insulted me the first time I made a comment & nothing has changed. Why do you think I bug you?

I wanted to discuss smoking on airplanes, you brought it up & now you don't want to talk about it. Why? Because I am right, thats why you don't want to talk about it. Of course you'd like smoking sections on airplanes, you'd feel perfectly justified when you lit up. The whole plane would smoke up but you'd be in the smoking section so that would make it fine with you. You'd be obeying the rules to heck with the people who can't tolerate it. Let'em walk.

[Max McGarrity]

I have made some insulting comments to smokers but I have been insulted more times than I have insulted them. You insulted me the first time I made a comment & nothing has changed. Why do you think I bug you?

You're not important enough to "bug" me. Every time you post on these threads you insult a quarter of the population so as far as I'm concerned, you've earned every insult you get.

I wanted to discuss smoking on airplanes, you brought it up & now you don't want to talk about it. Why? Because I am right, thats why you don't want to talk about it. Of course you'd like smoking sections on airplanes, you'd feel perfectly justified when you lit up. The whole plane would smoke up but you'd be in the smoking section so that would make it fine with you. You'd be obeying the rules to heck with the people who can't tolerate it. Let'em walk.

I don't want "smoking sections" on planes--unless the owner of those planes wants them. It's far more pleasant to be in a smoking-only place than have to share it with a bunch of finger-wagging, pinched face, tight hairnet antis.

Ditter, it's become very obvious that you don't like me, and that's fine, because I don't like you, either. So let's just agree to keep our noses out of other folks' business; you refrain from talking to me and I'll have far more pleasant "ditter-free" days.

[SheLion]

LOL, I could say something rude, but he would get sooo offended.

I tried to ignore it. heh!

I think all he can do now is SIT in a chair and read what we post. I figured he registered just to get in here and trash us. ~sigh