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.

[383rr]

The ghost of whiners past.

[Hardastarboard]

We don't have too many freedoms left now. I would point out, though, that pure nicotine is one of the most toxic poisons known to man. There's no question that cigarettes will kill you sooner than you would naturally die.

[383rr]

" unacceptable levels of toluene. "

Sounds like a day at work. We use such things to clean parts. The welding fumes (not to mention paints, gasoline, and other industrial chemicals) I breathe {even through a respirator) are a lot worse than any cig. so, can they out-law welding? Gee, sometimes I wish! Now, I am waiting for some do-gooder to tell me I need to find another job. Beware the evils of second-hand welding fumes!!!!!!!!!!!!

[operation clinton cleanup]

My Grandmother smoked three packs of unfiltered Camels and lived to be 86 year's old. Died from old age.

My Grandmother lived to 82 and never spent a waking moment without a ciggy (as she called them) in her hand.. she died of breast cancer.

[gidget7]

Not just the scientists, the media too, by promoting junk statistics, lose all credibility. Consequently when they state something that is actually true (it could happen someday?) no one will believe them. They are destroying themselves.

The APA is another sector of society that is destroying itself with all the "not credible" tripe they site as fact. The WHO, all sorts of organizations.

[JDoutrider]

BFLR

[ladyL]

I quit smoking after 30 years and developed asthma to which the Dr. said was quite common. I had been completely healthy up to that point in my life and then I was left homebound and on several puffers. After 1 1/2 years I started smoking again and am off all medication. Do I want to smoke? No. Do I feel better. Oh yeah.

[Randy Larsen]

They can prevent death by quitting.

There is NO prevention for death! Yet.

[nicmarlo]

Once you know what you want to prove...the rest is easy!

Very true....and that applies across the board, even to methodologies used in education. Remember the "new math"? It bombed, despite the "scientific" evidence used to promote it as a great way to learn. And "whole language"? Another proven a failure, contrary to all the "scientific evidence" stating otherwise. Whole language only programs were such a failure that then California Gov. Davis REQUIRED phonics instruction be immediately returned to all its schools' curriculum once it was shown that CA students' reading scores were lowest in the entire nation, with the exemption of Guam.

[drlevy88]

Oh, haw. What a straw man. It's not these trace toxins that make smoking deleterious to health.

[gidget7]

"You know, we lose more people on snowmobiles every winter. Young and old. Didn't matter one bit if they smoked or not."


I would have quoted another statistic, much higher statistic too, and sooooo much less PC. One the scientists and health organizations refuse to talk about. In fact, they promote it.

[gidget7]

Very good point, one I have said over and over.

[tiki]

When my sister worked as an emergency room nurse she used to tell me that I just didn't understand all the sickness and disease. I used to point out to her that it was the SICK people who were in the emergency room. Your office and your experience don't equal the world and its a big one with lots of people.

I could give you anecdotal stories all night but that doesn't make it a scientific study.

[SheLion]

We don't have too many freedoms left now. I would point out, though, that pure nicotine is one of the most toxic poisons known to man. There's no question that cigarettes will kill you sooner than you would naturally die.

Oh really!  You should have told that to my grandmother who died at age 86 after smoking three packs of unfiltered Camels a day for many years!

(I don't like people who play God and try to tell me the day of my death.  I put my life in the Lord's Hands.  So be it).

We don't have too many freedoms left now. I would point out, though, that pure nicotine is one of the most toxic poisons known to man. There's no question that cigarettes will kill you sooner than you would naturally die.

Oh really!  You should have told that to my grandmother who died at age 86 after smoking three packs of unfiltered Camels a day for many years!

(I don't like people who play God and try to tell me the day of my death.  I put my life in the Lord's Hands.  So be it).

[ChildOfThe60s]

Thing about this whole debate is there seems to be no middle ground or non-absolutes. And bad science abounds.

Smoking is bad for you. But it's not destroying the universe as we know it. Like most things that are crusaded against by zealots, hyperbole is so rampant that everything is disbelieved.

Not everyone that smokes will get lung cancer - probably not even a lot of them. But 90% of lung cancer patients are/were smokers. Make what you will of that.

No variable of this type is truly able to be isolated completely scientifically.

There is no disputing that lung function is impaired by smoking. How much depends on a variety of interacting variables. Including genetics. There are plenty of smokers that never get lung cancer, but have trouble walking up a flight of stairs. There are plenty of overweight people that have the same problem. The difference is that one can lose weight. Destroyed lung function does not come back.

There is significant *real* evidence that second hand smoke [except in unusual circumstances] is not a health hazard. So the anti cigarette crowd should be making their case against it on other grounds. They won't of course.

Bad science. Manipulated statistics. Poor methodology. Extreme hyperbole. And above all, anecdotes presented as evidence.

[Randy Larsen]

I've read almost every post on this thread up to this point, SheLion, You are one fierce debater! Thank You for taking on this issue with such devotion. You have gained a strong friend...Randy

[tutstar]

lol
Soon it will be safe to lie babies on their tummies again.

[justkillingtime]

That could not have been said better...I have the same examples in my family too....not to say smoking is good for you...but where do the lies and the truth fit in???? And I am supposed to let "the government" decide this for me? LOLOLOL

[SheLion]

I've read almost every post on this thread up to this point, SheLion, You are one fierce debater! Thank You for taking on this issue with such devotion. You have gained a strong friend...Randy

Randy!  Thank you SO much for your support.  I need all the support I can get.

I hate getting nasty and belligerent, but I am so sick and tired of the lies and spin that the anti's are putting out there today regarding second hand smoke.  Makes me want to throw up!

When the war on the smokers didn't work, then the highly paid anti-smokers started this business that our smoke was killing everyone.  Now! Anyone with any common sense should know that this is just ridiculous.  How on earth did we all survive all these years if shs was such a killer?  Even if we didn't smoke, we ALL have been around someone, somewhere that HAS smoked. 

And even the Federal Court threw out the EPA's report about second hand smoke.  But the media and the anti's want to keep this swept under the rug.  Fair and balanced?  Not when it comes to smokers!

Oak Ridge Labs, TN & SECOND HAND SMOKE 

Statistics and Data Sciences Group Projects

I think any anti who tries to dismiss the findings of the U.S. Department of Energy labs at Oak Ridge, should be confronted with the question: "Are you saying that DOE researchers committed scientific fraud and that their findings on ETS exposure are untrue?"

  Federal Court Rules Against EPA on Secondhand Smoke

I've read almost every post on this thread up to this point, SheLion, You are one fierce debater! Thank You for taking on this issue with such devotion. You have gained a strong friend...Randy

Randy!  Thank you SO much for your support.  I need all the support I can get.

I hate getting nasty and belligerent, but I am so sick and tired of the lies and spin that the anti's are putting out there today regarding second hand smoke.  Makes me want to throw up!

When the war on the smokers didn't work, then the highly paid anti-smokers started this business that our smoke was killing everyone.  Now! Anyone with any common sense should know that this is just ridiculous.  How on earth did we all survive all these years if shs was such a killer?  Even if we didn't smoke, we ALL have been around someone, somewhere that HAS smoked. 

And even the Federal Court threw out the EPA's report about second hand smoke.  But the media and the anti's want to keep this swept under the rug.  Fair and balanced?  Not when it comes to smokers!

Oak Ridge Labs, TN & SECOND HAND SMOKE 

Statistics and Data Sciences Group Projects

I think any anti who tries to dismiss the findings of the U.S. Department of Energy labs at Oak Ridge, should be confronted with the question: "Are you saying that DOE researchers committed scientific fraud and that their findings on ETS exposure are untrue?"

  Federal Court Rules Against EPA on Secondhand Smoke

[The Foolkiller]

AppyPappy has found the way to LIVE FOREVER!! "Quitting will prevent death." Who woulda thunk it?