The risks of smoking are greatly exaggerated

TheRecord.com ^ | 20 November 2002 | ERIC BOYD

[SheLion]

Too much is made of the 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke. We're told these chemicals are so harmful that they are responsible for the deaths of millions worldwide. Untold in this "war on tobacco" is that each of the plants we consume consists of an equally daunting thousands of chemicals many of which are recognized poisons or suspected cancer-causing agents.

Cayenne peppers, carrots and strawberries each contain six suspected carcinogens; onions, grapefruit and tomato each contain five -- some the same as the seven suspected carcinogens found in tobacco.

High-heat cooking creates yet more dietary carcinogens from otherwise harmless chemical constituents.

Sure, these plant chemicals are measured in infinitesimal amounts. An independent study calculated 222,000 smoking cigarettes would be needed to reach unacceptable levels of benzo(a)pyrene. One million smoking cigarettes would be needed to produce unacceptable levels of toluene. To reach these estimated danger levels, the cigarettes must be smoked simultaneously and completely in a sealed 20-square-foot room with a nine-foot ceiling.

Many other chemicals in tobacco smoke can also be found in normal diets. Smoking 3,000 packages of cigarettes would supply the same amount of arsenic as a nutritious 200 gram serving of sole.

Half a bottle of now healthy wine can supply 32 times the amount of lead as one pack of cigarettes. The same amount of cadmium obtained from smoking eight packs of cigarettes can be enjoyed in half a pound of crab.

That's one problem with the anti-smoking crusade. The risks of smoking are greatly exaggerated. So are the costs.

An in-depth analysis of 400,000 U.S. smoking-related deaths by National Institute of Health mathematician Rosalind Marimont and senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute Robert Levy identified a disturbing number of flaws in the methodology used to estimate these deaths. Incorrectly classifying some diseases as smoking-related and choosing the wrong standard of comparison each overstated deaths by more than 65 per cent.

Failure to control for confounding variables such as diet and exercise turned estimates more into a computerized shell game than reliable estimates of deaths.

Marimont and Levy also found no adjustments were made to the costs of smoking resulting from the benefits of smoking -- reduced Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, less obesity, depression and breast cancer.

If it were possible to estimate 45,000 smoking-related Canadian deaths as some health activists imagine -- and Marimont, Levy and other respected researchers think it is not -- then applying an identical methodology to other lifestyle choices would yield 57,000 Canadian deaths due to lack of exercise and 73,000 Canadian deaths blamed on poor diets.

If both the chemical constituents of tobacco smoke and the numbers of smoking-related deaths are overstated -- and clearly they are -- how can we trust the claim that tobacco smoke is harmful to non-smokers?

The 1993 bellwether study by the Environmental Protection Agency that selectively combined the results of a number of previous studies and found a small increase in lung cancer risk in those exposed to environmental tobacco smoke has been roundly criticized as severely flawed by fellow researchers and ultimately found invalid in a court of law.

In 1998, the World Health Organization reported a small, but not statistically significant, increase in the risk of lung cancer in non-smoking women married to smokers.

Despite these invalidating deficiencies, the Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization both concluded tobacco smoke causes lung cancer in non-smokers.

One wonders whether the same conclusions would have been announced if scientific fraud were a criminal offence.

When confronted with the scientific uncertainty, the inconsistency of results and the incredible misrepresentation of present-day knowledge, those seeking to abolish tobacco invoke a radical interpretation of the Precautionary Principle: "Where potential adverse effects are not fully understood, the activity should not proceed."

This unreasonable exploitation of the ever-present risks of living infiltrates our schools to indoctrinate trusting and eager minds with the irrational fears of today. Instead of opening minds to the wondrous complexities of living, it opens the door to peer ridicule and intolerance while cultivating the trendy cynics of tomorrow.

If we continue down this dangerous path of control and prohibition based on an unreliable or remote chance of harm, how many personal freedoms will remain seven generations from now?

Eric Boyd of Waterloo has management experience across a wide range of sectors.

[Max McGarrity]

Sigh. Tell that to all the folks in my waiting room....Since I’m an oncologist and my patients all have cancer, don’t you think a comment like that would be considered a tad cruel? ...I would advise you against participating in threads like this one - delusional people who spout nonsense like "The risks of smoking are greatly exaggerated" are not interested in discourse...

Dr. Luv, I've had this discussion with friends who are also doctors, one a cardiologist and one a pulmonologist (I see my doctor every week--at the club, but haven't stepped foot in a doctor's office for thirty years). I don't doubt that most of your patients either smoke or have smoked, since a majority of older Americans grew up in a smoking culture, but that does not translate to most smokers get cancer or heart disease or emphysema or any of the other "smoking-related" illnesses. What you seem to overlook is that there is no reason for healthy smokers to ever see you or for you to ever see them.

Was a time when doctors were revered and respected; now they're more often considered arrogant and overbearing. Your comments here are one reason that's true.

[Max McGarrity]

The government has no business regulating it unless it harms kids. A woman who would rather smoke than see her child healthy is an abomination. I took one of these kids to the morgue once.

Sounds as if you'd be okay with Big Daddy reaching into private homes and cars to prohibit "smoking around kids," right? How far are you willing to take that? Is the mere RISK of some unprovable harm enough? That's a dangerous path to start down, and I'm surprised to see it here. Except from minnie-mouse, of course.

[Max McGarrity]

Re the EPA report: Federal courts are not medically knowledgable to make such decisions and despite the gracious nodding from the smoking community, the court justices often render "quack" rulings. (Ex. 9th Circuit - Pledge of Allegiance)

It didn't take a rocket scientist, nor someone "medically knowledgable," to see how the EPA lied, cheated and committed fraud. You're absolutely right, justices DO often render "quack" rulings, but in this case several EPA scientists resigned because of this travesty of a report. EPA appealed but the appeal hasn't been heard.

[metesky]

I emailed Gary Bain and Marlene and told 'em both to quit blubbering.

[metesky]

You do come across as a digit sniffer...

[golder]

Perhaps you should define, "destroyed lives." Sweet Jesus, I previously gave you credit for having a
brain, and educating it.

[The Raven]

Libs, environmentalists, etc - all exagerate. That's their main problem as it goes to integrity.

[I'm_With_Orwell]

Precisely how have you determined that I am not honest?

Dr. Luv,
Max's assertion that you are not honest is probably better expressed as the proposition that the entire medical community is not totally honest regarding smoking.

The medical fraternity has happily facilitated and perpetuated the idea that any level of smoking for any period of time so massively increases your chance of an early death that anyone who smokes must be retarded ("intellecually challenged", in PC - polite company, in the historical sense).

There is no "safe" level of smoking, as far as MD's are concerned. One smoke a month is as bad as 1,000 smokes a month.

This "dishonesty" has resulted in the present second-hand smoke hysteria, wherein people inhaling the odd whiff of smoke believe their health is seriously at risk.

A further "dishonest" ommision by the medical community is the proposition that cancer is not one disease, but over 200. However, virtually every cancer known to man (bar those now shown to be due to viruses, polyps, radiation, etc.) are sheeted back to smoking, so long as the patient is a smoker. If the patient is not a smoker, the cancer is from "causes unknown".

Various mechanisms have been suggested to explain why smokers should develop cancer at a greater rate than non-smokers in areas of the body not directly exposed to smoke. However, when a smoker looks at the studies to do with, for example, penile cancer for which smoking apparently increases risk, the additional risk from smoking is approx. 0.005% greater for smokers than for non-smokers. Yet, these "scientists", who increasiningly rely upon study-specific grants to pay their rent and therefore require some positive results in order to have their funding continued, seem to go unchallenged and even congratulated by the medical community.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that smokers begin to believe that clinicians are prepared to applaude dubious, inconclusive and sometimes downright fraudulent (eg. EPA 1993 SHS study) "research" in the belief that such approval and bastardisation of the scientific process is justified because....wait for it - the end justifies the mean.

I am an educated, intelligent individual who smokes. I recognise there are risks involved in my behaviour. Part of that risk is that I may have a greater chance of visiting one of your colleagues in future and being given some bad news (but, then, were I not to smoke I would still have a significant chance of that - 1 in 3 if statistics are to be believed).

So, the "dishonesty" of which Max speaks is not necessarily personal dishonesty on your part, but a perception which smokers have garnered by the medical profession's participation and acclaimation of dubious and exaggerated risks of both active and passive smoking over the last couple of decades. It does your credibility no good in our eyes and, eventually, not in the eyes of the general public, either.

[golder]

Sigh. Tell that to all the folks in my waiting room....

Would that be the free hospital waiting room? I smoke, it won't cost you one precious dime. My guess is, your paranoid, "societal costs argument" goes out the window when we look at your prodigious child making habits.

[Revelation 911]

as you linger on into your dotage, pontificating and boring the hell out of anyone within hearing distance.

....a rather personal attack for stating my own opinion. Is this "superior" dance a result of nicotine, or are you normally this constipated?

[Dr. Luv]

My hubby reads your posts and he said "Thank God we aren't paying health care from HIM! We'd sure find another DOCTOR real quick!"

You want to go to a physician who might agree with your sanctimonious creed? "The risks of smoking are greatly exaggerated"

What kind of physician might that be? Not an oncologist, I assure you...

[Revelation 911]

"The lifetime health cost for a smoking man is $72,700 and $94,700 for a smoking woman. For nonsmokers, the cost is $83,400 for a man; $111,000 for a woman.

"If people stopped smoking today, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs." --New England Journal of Medicine,1997;337:1052-7.

no arguing with statistics

those little white specs are cancer - the dark areas are tar

Why you would want to pay someone for the right to kill yourself is your business. Moreso, why you would want to aid your government in the process of doing so is your business as well. Those two reasons are why I quit.

I can only hope you understand that there are people that hope you choose to quit because we love you and enjoy your company.

I miss my Grandafther dearly, and wish he was here to see my children.

Dont steal that from your grandchildren...dont let tobacco do that on your behalf.

God bless you

[Revelation 911]

Was a time when doctors were revered and respected

.....when blood letting was popular (sarcasm)- sorry, couldnt resist

[golder]

After all, no one should deny other people's right to fart as much as they want. In the privacy of their home or in specially-designated public spaces, such as restrooms.

I'm a bit confused, my freedom loving fellow poster?

I owned a small, very popular, small restaurant. As luck would have it many of my patrons were politically correct, government employed, self aggrandizing, self righteous, non smoking, pseudo christian, busybody pigs. The restaurant was popular because the owner loved his business to the point of cooking much of the food himself. That same cook smoked. Every 60 to 90 minutes he paused to step out back for a quick smoke. Some of those self righteous pukes got wind of this practice. They proceeded to do the only proper, responsible, government response. They notified the local health department, they, intern, notified the owner cook. He was admonished for said activities, warned of the dire consequences, and directed to stop illegal activities.

The owner cook, sold the beautiful, small restaurant of 20 years, very quickly.

Presently he drinks and frolics, his former customers, smoking and non smoking, are searching for a beautiful, Epicurean delight they are likely not to find.

Welcome to America.

[Evil Inc]

Just applied for life insurance and they did ask me to sign release to check for AIDS.

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

I am sorry that this happened to you. Evidently, your customers were wrong. I do not understand what was illegal about having a smoke. Is there such a regulation, stating that cooks must not step out for a smoke?

[Kozak]

Funny thing. Of those who get lung cancer the correlation with smoking is enourmous. Of those who DIDN'T same thing! Another amazing cooincidence, women, who used to smoke in far fewer numbers got lots less lung cancer, again with correlation for smoker, and as the rate of smoking in women increased to male like numbers guess what? Ditto heart disease and emphysema.

Look smoke if you want, but don't delude yourself that it's harmless, grow up.

[AppyPappy]

Sounds as if you'd be okay with Big Daddy reaching into private homes and cars to prohibit "smoking around kids," right?

I suppose you are okay with people beating their spouses and kids as long as the government doesn't stop it.

Hyperbole goes both ways.