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.
-------
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."

[XDemocrat]

Did you read my reply? I didn't ask anyone to stop smoking in public, I know it takes a lot more that that to stop a drug addict. I said I don't go to smoking places because of the problems it causes, and it would only be considerate of smokers to consider the people around them before they light up. I don't have aids, so are you saying it's ok for me to spit on you and you blow smoke on me? Sounds about equal to me.

[SheLion]

Sorry, facedown. That's an ASH site. I never go there. They are hateful people.

Thanks, though!!!

[metesky]

I personally don't mind if people smoke, but I don't want THEIR smoke served with MY steak.

This is one reason why we believe so strongly in property rights and the free market.

To disallow or to allow smoking should be the owners decision, not the governments anyway and the owner would end up with the clientele he/she preferred.

Some owners don't like smoke and some do; some want a restricted group and some have a "come one, come all" attitude.

All we've ever said on these threads is that the property owner has the right to set his own parameters for the consumption of legal products without government interference.

It is the anti-smokers, the liberals, who can't abide the idea of there being a choice.

[SheLion]

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

WAY TO GO JOE!!!!!

[Madame Dufarge]

Try this

[SheLion]

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!

You KNOW it, borisbob! And now with the links Joe and Gabz provided, we have it in print for sure!

[XDemocrat]

I really can't understand why so many of you addicts think it's so bad for me to spit on you, but you should be able to suck on a poison weed, draw the smoke inside you mucous filled, tar coated lungs and then expel it into my nose, mouth and lungs. Could it be that it's because of your addiction and lack of self control you know you could never give up your drug addiction to nicotine and can only try to rationalize it, and just what would an old woman or 15 yr old do to an ex viet nam vet, black belt instructor packing heat?

[SheLion]

Very mature response. I bet it works too! For about the 1/2 second it would take for even a fifteen year old or a woman to respond.

Like I said in my post: I would rather breath second hand smoke ANY day then have some one's body fluids thrown at me. ugh!

[Eva]

My father-in-law also died of lung cancer, at 80, 15 years after he quit smoking. His lungs also looked clear in his check ups, but when he developed the lung cancer, the oncologist told him that the lungs were still damaged, 15 years after he stopped. The sad part is that he was so healthy in every way, when he developed the cancer. He was still running his own tax accounting service, working every day. He probably would have lived to be 100.

[borisbob69]

Get a clue...are you sure your screen name is accurate? You sound like a died-in-the-wool dim lib to me!

Your idea of equal action is juvenile at best. Your deliberate decision to spit on someone vs the unintended entry of our eveil smoke into your personal space highlights the need for people like you to make damn sure you stay away from us...and trust me...I can't imagine a smoker ever volunteering to encroach on your rights. That would require them to be in your vicinity which I suspect is a hate-filled place to be!

[SheLion]

I don't have aids, so are you saying it's ok for me to spit on you and you blow smoke on me? Sounds about equal to me.

Never fear. You and I shall never meet.

And why do you people have the need to get so ugly about this?! We are all American's. That alone, should make us all equal.

[chnsmok]

I think people who jump on the anti-smoking bandwagon, do so because it makes them feel better. By better, I mean, better than you or me. I have been told that my granddaughter-to-be cannot visit at my house. Oh well...

[SheLion]

Try this

Madame, thank you SO much! I'm even getting articles now that I haven't seen before. This means a lot!

Thanks again!!!!

[Red Jones]

you mean those big billboards that shout out that smokers are child abusers are lies??? Oh what a surprise.

[HIDEK6]

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

And yes, folks, he lived to tell about it!

I want what YOU'RE smoking.

[XDemocrat]

Read my original post, as a conservative I didn't ask that anyone give up their privilege to smoke in public, and the only hate involved with me, is the hate to be ill as a result of someone else's addiction. That is why I stay away from second hand smoke as much as possible. I didn't get hostile until I was attacked, and no I don't really spit on any one, just making the point that you probably wouldn't like it any more that I like your smoke. I find the real liberal are the ones without understanding, or humor. Now don't you feel "cough, cough" guiilty.

[metesky]

Let's do a list of your perfectly reasonable responses to smoke:

Spit in face: Assault, fines and/or jail time.

Black belt assault on civilian: Assault with a deadly weapon, fines, long jail time.

Shooting or threatening to shoot person defending themselves from your assault: Using a gun in the commission of a felony = Bring your toothbrush to court with you, 'cause you're takin' the ride.

Did you leave your brains in Viet Nam, or were you stupid before the war?

Another Keyboard Kommando.

[XDemocrat]

Please addicts, reply to my arguments, not my grammatical errors. Sorry about the typing mistakes, my eyes are a little swollen from the neighbors burning leaves, but that's ok, their yard looks nice.

[HIDEK6]

I've spent thousands on allergy doctors and clinics, all of them say my sinus problems are the result of growing up in a house of heavy smokers.

You might be an ex-democrat, but you certainly remain a current victim.

[HIDEK6]

my eyes are a little swollen from the neighbors burning leaves,

Victmimized, yet again, I see.