Posted on 01/10/2003 7:41:00 PM PST by Max McGarrity
Secondhand smoke "might make your hair smell," but it's not a proven health risk, Bears-coach-turned-restaurant-owner Mike Ditka said Thursday, leading the charge against a proposed restaurant smoking ban in Chicago.
With a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, Ditka said his steelworker father was living proof that it's baloney for medical experts to claim that exposing a restaurant employee to an eight-hour shift's worth of secondhand smoke is the equivalent of smoking a half a pack of cigarettes.
"My dad smoked four packs of Luckies from the time he was 12 until the time he was 60. He lived to 80. He died of hardening of the arteries. He didn't die from what smoking caused. He worked in the steel mill where every morning, you woke up and there was half an inch of soot on the cars," Ditka said.
"People who have survived in industrial areas of our country late into their 80s and 90s have inhaled more smoke than all the smoking in the world can give you. I find it hard to believe that people try to shove the secondhand smoke theory down your throat because I don't believe it. I don't believe it even hurts you. It might make your hair smell a little bit, but that's about it."
Ditka said he has nothing against Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), the City Council's leading anti-smoking crusader. He simply believes the restaurant business would "suffer tremendously" if Burke and Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith (28th) persuaded their colleagues to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.
"These people who are popping off and throwing their weight around better open up their eyes and understand that you've got freedoms in America. If you don't want to come in this restaurant, don't come in. If you don't want to go where people smoke, don't go. They run the City Council. Let the people down here run the restaurants," Da Coach said.
Reminded that smoking has been banned for years in California restaurants and bars, Ditka said: "That's fruits and nuts. That's what they are. A lot of liberals. . .. All the do-gooders in the world. The people in California who abolished smoking are the same people who want to legalize marijuana. Come on. Give me a break."
At a Health Committee meeting earlier this week, restaurant owners attempted to slow the anti-smoking steamroller.
They warned that a Chicago-only restaurant smoking ban would send customers fleeing to the suburbs and prompt conventions to move elsewhere. They argued the ban would create an enforcement nightmare, with confrontations between tip-seeking servers and their customers.
Mayor Daley sympathized, called for more City Council hearings on the controversy and backed away from his earlier endorsement of a restaurant smoking ban.
On Thursday, restaurant employees held a news conference at Ditka's Restaurant, 100 E. Chestnut, to reiterate those arguments and pile on a few more.
"This city is rich in character--full of taverns, neighborhood joints, steakhouses and family restaurants. A smoking ban would completely expunge that character. It would absolutely reduce this city to another generic, dime-a-dozen, two-bit town," said Glenn Garlisch, a waiter at the Chicago Chop House, 60 W. Ontario.
Or maybe he has seen the studies. The hundreds of studies and millions of dollars spent have failed to prove the harm allegedly caused by environmental tobacco smoke. Only the press releases published by those who gain to benefit financially say otherwise.
"In general, there was no elevated lung cancer risk associated with passive smoke exposure in the workplace. ..." Brownson et. al., 1992 "Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer in Nonsmoking Women" American Journal of Public Health, November 1992, Vol. 82, No. 11
"... an odds ratio of 0.91 ... indicating no evidence of an adverse effect of environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace." Janerich et al., 1990 "Lung Cancer and Exposure to Tobacco Smoke in the Household" New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 6, 1990
"... the association with exposure to passive smoking at work was small and not statistically significant." Kalandidi et al., 1990 "Passive Smoking and Diet in the Etiology of Lung Cancer Among Non- Smokers" Cancer Causes and Control, 1, 15-21, 1990
"Among women exposed only at work, the multivariate relative risks of total CHD were 1.49 ... among those occasionally exposed and 1.92 ... among those regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, neither of which is statistically significant according to commonly accepted scientific standards." Kawachi et al., 1997 "A Prospective Study of Passive Smoking and Coronary Heart Disease" Circulation, Vol. 95, No. 10, May 20, 1997
"No association was observed between the risk of lung cancer and smoking of husband or passive smoke exposure at work." Shimizu et al., 1988 "A Case-Control Study of Lung Cancer in Nonsmoking Women" Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 154:389-397, 1988
"We did not generally find an increase in CHD [coronary heart disease] risk associated with ETS exposure at work or in other settings." Steenland et al., 1996 "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Coronary Heart Disease in the American Cancer Society CPS-II Cohort" Circulation, Vol. 94, No. 4, August 15, 1996
"... no statistically significant increase in risk associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke at work or during social activities...." Stockwell et al., 1992 "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer Risk in Nonsmoking Women" Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 84:1417-1422, 1992
"There was no association between exposure to ETS at the workplace and risk of lung cancer." Zaridze et al., 1998 "Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Risk of Lung Cancer in Non- Smoking Women from Moscow, Russia" International Journal of Cancer, 1998, 75, 335-338
"There were no significant differences in air quality between the tobacco-smoke components in the air of the pub and those of similar non-smoking establishments."--Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, May 11, 2001
The peer-reviewed study, conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory found "the level of exposure to secondhand smoke for bartenders, waiters and waitresses in smoking-permitted establishments is considerably lower than the federal air quality limits established by the federal government."--Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, February 2000
"Passive smokers inhale the equivalent of just six cigarettes a year from other people's smoke, according to the largest ever study of actual exposure levels of non-smokers." --Electronic Telegraph, August 16, 1998
Or maybe it's just common sense since smokers, who ingest both direct smoke and shs, generally smoke for decades before any damage can be assessed, if then, and environmental tobacco smoke is diluted by ambient air 100,000 times, making even measurement of toxins difficult. ("ETS is over 100,000 times more diluted than mainstream smoke, is less humid, and has very few volatile compounds. Since ETS is even more diluted than sidestream smoke, fewer than 20 ETS chemicals have been determined directly. Experts assume that the remaining substances in ETS are similar to those in sidestream smoke."--The Oncology Channel, Risk Factors. (Major "assumption" since the levels are too small to be measured.)
"Even from the scientific literature it is difficult to conclude whether the increased risk of lung cancer due to exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), as reported in many epidemiological studies, is based on sound data from reliable studies, or rather on passionate assertions derived from unsound investigations. The average intake of toxic and genotoxic compounds due to ETS exposure is so low that it is difficult, if not impossible, to explain the increased risk of lung cancer as found in epidemiological studies. The uncertainty is further increased because the validity of epidemiological studies on passive smoking is limited severely by numerous bias and confounding factors which cannot be controlled for reliability. The question of whether or not ETS exposure is high enough to induce and/or promote the carcinogenic effects observed in epidemiological studies thus remains open, and the assumption of an increased risk of lung cancer due to ETS exposure is, at present, more a matter of opinion than of firm scientific evidence."--International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, Volume 74 Issue 4 (2001) pp 231-241
Or maybe he has seen the studies. The hundreds of studies and millions of dollars spent have failed to prove the harm allegedly caused by environmental tobacco smoke. Only the press releases published by those who gain to benefit financially say otherwise.
"In general, there was no elevated lung cancer risk associated with passive smoke exposure in the workplace. ..." Brownson et. al., 1992 "Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer in Nonsmoking Women" American Journal of Public Health, November 1992, Vol. 82, No. 11
"... an odds ratio of 0.91 ... indicating no evidence of an adverse effect of environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace." Janerich et al., 1990 "Lung Cancer and Exposure to Tobacco Smoke in the Household" New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 6, 1990
"... the association with exposure to passive smoking at work was small and not statistically significant." Kalandidi et al., 1990 "Passive Smoking and Diet in the Etiology of Lung Cancer Among Non- Smokers" Cancer Causes and Control, 1, 15-21, 1990
"Among women exposed only at work, the multivariate relative risks of total CHD were 1.49 ... among those occasionally exposed and 1.92 ... among those regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, neither of which is statistically significant according to commonly accepted scientific standards." Kawachi et al., 1997 "A Prospective Study of Passive Smoking and Coronary Heart Disease" Circulation, Vol. 95, No. 10, May 20, 1997
"No association was observed between the risk of lung cancer and smoking of husband or passive smoke exposure at work." Shimizu et al., 1988 "A Case-Control Study of Lung Cancer in Nonsmoking Women" Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 154:389-397, 1988
"We did not generally find an increase in CHD [coronary heart disease] risk associated with ETS exposure at work or in other settings." Steenland et al., 1996 "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Coronary Heart Disease in the American Cancer Society CPS-II Cohort" Circulation, Vol. 94, No. 4, August 15, 1996
"... no statistically significant increase in risk associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke at work or during social activities...." Stockwell et al., 1992 "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer Risk in Nonsmoking Women" Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 84:1417-1422, 1992
"There was no association between exposure to ETS at the workplace and risk of lung cancer." Zaridze et al., 1998 "Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Risk of Lung Cancer in Non- Smoking Women from Moscow, Russia" International Journal of Cancer, 1998, 75, 335-338
"There were no significant differences in air quality between the tobacco-smoke components in the air of the pub and those of similar non-smoking establishments."--Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, May 11, 2001
The peer-reviewed study, conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory found "the level of exposure to secondhand smoke for bartenders, waiters and waitresses in smoking-permitted establishments is considerably lower than the federal air quality limits established by the federal government."--Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, February 2000
"Passive smokers inhale the equivalent of just six cigarettes a year from other people's smoke, according to the largest ever study of actual exposure levels of non-smokers." --Electronic Telegraph, August 16, 1998
Or maybe it's just common sense since smokers, who ingest both direct smoke and shs, generally smoke for decades before any damage can be assessed, if then, and environmental tobacco smoke is diluted by ambient air 100,000 times, making even measurement of toxins difficult. ("ETS is over 100,000 times more diluted than mainstream smoke, is less humid, and has very few volatile compounds. Since ETS is even more diluted than sidestream smoke, fewer than 20 ETS chemicals have been determined directly. Experts assume that the remaining substances in ETS are similar to those in sidestream smoke."--The Oncology Channel, Risk Factors. (Major "assumption" since the levels are too small to be measured.)
"Even from the scientific literature it is difficult to conclude whether the increased risk of lung cancer due to exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), as reported in many epidemiological studies, is based on sound data from reliable studies, or rather on passionate assertions derived from unsound investigations. The average intake of toxic and genotoxic compounds due to ETS exposure is so low that it is difficult, if not impossible, to explain the increased risk of lung cancer as found in epidemiological studies. The uncertainty is further increased because the validity of epidemiological studies on passive smoking is limited severely by numerous bias and confounding factors which cannot be controlled for reliability. The question of whether or not ETS exposure is high enough to induce and/or promote the carcinogenic effects observed in epidemiological studies thus remains open, and the assumption of an increased risk of lung cancer due to ETS exposure is, at present, more a matter of opinion than of firm scientific evidence."--International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, Volume 74 Issue 4 (2001) pp 231-241
I hope that includes YOUR anecdotal opinion, as well.
"A growing number of researchers are puzzled by increases in the number of cases of lung cancer among non-smokers. "Almost half the patients I've seen in the two months I've been here have been non-smokers. So I think there is something specific to this environment here," Dr. Wallace Akerley, pulmonary cancer specialist, said."
BTW, I don't consider you an "anti-smoker," just a nonsmoker who has been deceived by a very rich, very slick, very deceptive bunch of thugs. And I thank you for understanding and appreciating private property and the free market.
If second-hand smoke causes bronchitis, then why have the rates of bronchitis remained relatively constant over the last thirty years, while the smoking population has more than halved? What do you have to say about the 10-year-old with bronchitis whos parents do not smoke?
I have relatives in Aliquippa ... IMO, it was a better place when the steel mills were belching smoke while providing good jobs ... and people had a lot more freedom than they have today.
Thanks, Max. I've learned some things and will likely approach issues like this differently in the future.
Certainly, since I've already explained my earlier statements, and admitted they were based simply on emotion ... and my husband is complaining that I'm FReeping too much! ... I hope I won't be violating FR policy if I just cut loose from this discussion!
Thanks again for your patience with a chick who jumps to conclusions without looking!
You have me confused with "TAX-CHICK" I've never known anyone who died of second-hand smoke either.
I agree ... true and sad.
guess who might be Illinois' new Senator!
Go Ditka!
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