And this is a report done by the American cancer society.
So… um… yeah, I’m not really sure what to say about that. If I were still a smoker I’d be pissed! Have all these laws banning smoking from public places been based on a lie? Have the rights of private business owners been violated by not allowing their customers to smoke in their restaurants or pubs?
[QUOTE=The Telegraph]
Passive smoking doesn’t give you lung cancer. So says a new report publicised by the American Cancer Institute which will come as no surprise whatsoever to anyone with a shred of integrity who has looked into the origins of the great “environmental tobacco smoke” meme.
It was, after all, a decade ago that the British Medical Journal, published the results of a massive, long-term survey into the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke. Between 1959 and 1989 two American researchers named James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat surveyed no few than 118,094 Californians. Fierce anti-smoking campaigners themselves, they began the research because they wanted to prove once and for all what a pernicious, socially damaging habit smoking was. Their research was initiated by the American Cancer Society and supported by the anti-smoking Tobacco Related Disease Research Program.
If this ends up being true, it should have some interesting consequences, though I’d be surprised if we went backwards and started allowing people to smoke indoors again. Even when I was still a regular smoker, it was still nice not to walk out of a bar reeking of smoke.
I do remember hearing years and years and years ago that second hand smoke shouldn’t be that bad since it’s been filtered through the tobacco, the filter, the smokers mouth, lungs, mouth again and the diluted by the air in the room. What IS bad is the totally un-filtered smoke coming off the end of the cigarette.
Now, let’s not even get started on third hand smoke.
So can inhalation of peanut dust, for people with allergies. In fact, severely-allergic people can die from inhaling peanut dust–very quickly, too. Should we also make peanut consumption illegal in public places?
Remember, most published research findings are false, especially correlational studies like this. Laypeople should not place too much reliance on individual research findings. Contradictory findings usually also exist (and clearly do in this case). It is the emergent scientific consensus, based on all the various published findings and the background understanding of the scientists, that matters.
Also, the Telegraph is a right-wing rag (although admittedly not the worst of them) that just lives to get one in the eye of government regulators. I would not trust it to be reporting on this story objectively and responsibly.
Um, I wasn’t commenting on legislation, so back down. I was refuting that the only harm worth commenting on is cancer.
We don’t make illegal many other things that are harmful (like tanning beds), but much of passive smoking laws were put in place to protect workers who have no choice but to breathe to be employed.
Fair enough, I hadn’t taken that into consideration.
And unless I am completely off the mark in this case, casual contact with peanuts e.g. being beside somebody merrily munching won’t cause a fatal allergic reaction. Or any reaction at all, in all likelihood.
I’m trying really hard, and I can’t think of a single instance where I’ve been unintentionally exposed to peanut dust.
What is the “American Cancer Institute”? I have never heard of this organization, and a quick Google doesn’t turn up anything by that exact name. I’m only getting the well-known American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health).
Assuming it’s true*, smoke still stinks everything up and permeates everything it comes into contact with; it doesn’t just smell bad, it makes everything else smell bad, often permanently. It wrecks expensive electronics; I recall a Doper (MacTech I think) posting links to the insides pictures of computers used by smokers; they looked like a Yellow Sludge Monster had moved in and ate their motherboard. There’s plenty of reasons to restrict smoking.
*And I doubt it; a single study that contradicts many others is best regarded with skepticism, and when someone so obviously biased is talking about it I wouldn’t trust it to mean what they claim it does anyway
What we have here is one study that shows only limited links between secondhand smoke and cancer…contrasted with a large body of evidence from previous studies that indicates otherwise. That latest study does not constitute an aha! moment that dismantles all the previous work.
And that’s one raggy bullshit article you linked to, Shakes.
The Telegraph tries to dismiss concerns over health effects of secondhand smoke by labeling them as actions of “health Nazis”, using the following quote from a doctor cited in the news release:
"“The strongest reason to avoid passive cigarette smoke is to change societal behavior: to not live in a society where smoking is a norm.”
Here’s the full quote (with the part the Telegraph left out in bold print):
““Passive smoking has many downstream health effects—asthma, upper respiratory infections, other pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular disease—but only borderline increased risk of lung cancer,” said Patel. “The strongest reason to avoid passive cigarette smoke is to change societal behavior: to not live in a society where smoking is a norm.”
There remains good evidence that secondhand smoke exacerbates chronic lung conditions and heart disease in both smokers and those exposed to their smoke, plus statistically significant increased cancer risks.
If you click through to the link in the Telegraph article, it appears to have been published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. I assume the problem was in the british reporting.
The Telegraph seems to have misidentified the National Cancer Institute as the American Cancer Institute. Another example of their impeccable reporting skills.
It’s the National Cancer Institute. The “journalist” who wrote the piece presumably replaced “National” with “American” for the benefit of Telegraph readership; it doesn’t look like facts are particularly important to him (and I say that as a smoker who thinks secondhand smoke risk is vastly exaggerated.)
So if I want to smoke in a bar that allows smoking and you don’t like it, why can’t you just go to a bar or restaurant that doesn’t allow it. There’s nothing forcing you to patronize the smoking bar and there’s plenty of non-smoking bars.
Oh, and if you or your lady friend is wearing some kind of irritating cologne or perfume that bothers my asthma, can I ask you to go wear it outside.
Indoor smoking laws are generally for the benefit of employees, who have less of a choice, than other patrons. Of course, the myriad exceptions pretty much put the lie to that.
When smoking is bars was legal here, I never came across any that didn’t allow it. (Not to say they didn’t exist, but I don’t know how common they were.)
Unfortunately that wouldn’t really be practical, just like if someone just reeked of smoke from smoking earlier. But if someone was sitting in a restaurant spraying perfume in the air again and again, yeah, I think they’d probably be told to stop.