Second Hand Smoke is too bad for you

[Monty]

Apology accepted, Poly. Thanks.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Shodan

So the answer is yes, SHS definitely causes SIDS. Is that correct? Or is there some difference between causation and “it’s a risk factor”?

I realize this is the Pit and everything, but I am still mildly surprised that even raising a question would set you off.

“You” was not directed at me, but permit me to quote from Ch 5 of the report:

@Measure for Measure

I see that the body of the report used stronger causal language: “The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and sudden infant death syndrome.” p. 194.

Presumably, suggest < infer < establish .

I think I would prefer “SHS [del]definitely[/del] causes SIDS.”

In other news, nobody has answered my concern about how firsthand smoking is apparently only 4-5 times more deadly (with regards to coronary disease) than secondhand smoking. This paper notes an oddity about seconhand smoke exposure:

@the link above

As Hammond et al. (1995) stated, even though an exposed nonsmoking person is inhaling as much nicotine as a smoker smoking one cigarette, at the same time the nonsmoker is being exposed to as much benzene as a smoker inhales in smoking 3.5 cigarettes, as much 4-aminobiphenyl as smoking 15 cigarettes, and as much NDMA as smoking 50 cigarettes.

I think we can say that the current report won’t be the last word on the subject, not that anyone claimed otherwise.

[Shodan]

@Jackmannii

And the illogic of implying that one can dismiss research findings in unrelated areas if the allegation were found to have merit.

If that’s illogical, what was the point of your post about the correlation between tobacco funding and research quality?

how about answering that question regarding Iraq war justifications and other Administration foreign policy positions, for example?

If you could read a little more closely, you would note the following exchange:

@Jackmanii

“The Bush Administration LIED to get us into war in Iraq. Therefore nothing that the Administration says on any aspect of foreign policy should be believed. We don’t have to consider each case in turn - if they deceived us on one thing, everything else is a lie too.”

Does that make sense to you, or is it (like your statement) a handy way to avoid having to use logic and facts to make an argument??

@Shodan

Actually, it makes perfect sense to me.

So if someone says “does that make sense to you” and the response is “that makes perfect sense to me” and you find that evasive, perhaps that explains something about your troubles with my posts. And I wouldn’t necessarily say the fault is all on my side.

Regards,
Shodan

[calm_kiwi]

@jsgoddess

So, would you stop smoking if it were illegal? My guess is no.

YES. I may be a vile smoker but I am not a law breaker.

Truth be told I would probably thank the govt for maing smoking illegal, I have cut down fron 25 a day to 10 a day and just can’t seem to quit.

Calling Nanny State

[wonky]

@calm kiwi

YES. I may be a vile smoker but I am not a law breaker.

Well, I am not a smoker, but if I were a law wouldn’t stop me. People already smuggle cigarettes from places with lower taxes. What’s a little extra smuggling?

[Polycarp]

@Mtgman

I accept pollution from cars, factories, etc. as necessary evils. They should still be minimized whenever possible, or outright eliminated if possible. I guess where the analogy fails for me, when extended to smoking, is the “necessary” part.

Right. “Necessary” is inappropriate as a criterion. The output of power plants, for example, would be lowered if people did not use air conditioners, used their computers only for limited purposes, did not run electrical entertainment devices (stereos, TVs, DVD players, etc.). We’ve done the unnecessary SUV usage concept a dozen times already. And so on. The burning of tobacco for personal use is certainly a luxury. I think what I’m saying is that it falls within the general criterion of “things people can do by choice which are, when done with courtesy and care for others’ needs and desires, not subject to regulation by others.” And I’d be inclined to pit the obnoxious smoker whose personal “right” supersedes the allergies of another forced to breathe his secondhand smoke.

The question is, where are these places where someone can smoke without threatening the health of non-smokers? I was a bit shocked myself to find ambient smoke levels at 1% in LA. If the Surgeon General’s report is correct in their finding of “no safe levels” then 1% is probably already over the line when it comes to potential harm to non-smokers.

L.A. is a remarkably exceptional situation – a city in a basin with thermal conditions that tend to concentrate pollution. There are, no doubt, others. But L.A.'s dispersal and lifestyle make it the bellwether for any pollution problems.

My home is exurban – on the edge of a small crossroads community. I have neighbors, to be sure. But aside from the small two-room house next door occupied by a single man who smokes, all my neighbors are at least 200 yards away. Given the prevailing wind flow here, nearly all the gaseous output of our home, from cooking smells to cigarette smoke, is carried across an open field into a wooded area about 90% of the time. Far more, and more concentrated, smoke is produced by the neighbors’ barbecues and the folks three houses down (and a good tenth of a mile away) who have a burning barrel for combustible rubbish.

Smoking on a restaurant patio adjacent to a public sidewalk in the city is one thing; smoking at my home is quite different in terms of what carries to pollute the environments of others.

I’m on record as favoring designated smoking areas and making the boundries between them require explicit consent to cross. What I don’t see is the “rights” angle. The old saw “your rights end where my nose begins” seems to apply here. Smokers can’t control where their smoke goes, and some of it certainly gets up the nose of non-smokers.* I think everyone should have the right, by virtue of their vested interest in the environment we all have to share, to control what other people voluntarially put into the environment. This can be accomplished through regulation, just like we do with industry and other sources of pollutants. In general these sources of pollutants are trade-offs with the useful products which are the primary goal of the pollution-generating activity.

Rights is, probably, a false usage. How about “liberties”? I have the privilege of doing what suits me that does not cause measurable harm to another. Granted that the mobile home we rent being here keeps this property from being developed with a more expensive structure that would pay more property taxes and tend to increase the neighbors’ property values – that sort of intangible falls outside ‘measurable harm.’ If Tom burns incense and listens to Korn at loud volume in his apartment with paper-thin walls, he’s bothering the neighbors. But if he does that in a cabin a half mile from the nearest neighbor, he has a liberty to do so. And Mr. & Mrs. Elderly have every right to play their Guy Lombardo records at low volume, and coat their aguey bodies with Baume Bengué, during the day, in both scenarios. I’m trying to create a logical scenario demonstrating that personal liberties depend to some degree on how much they inconvenience neighbors.

[calm_kiwi]

@jsgoddess

Well, I am not a smoker, but if I were a law wouldn’t stop me. People already smuggle cigarettes from places with lower taxes. What’s a little extra smuggling?

That may be true but I am a smoker and I have never smuggled a fag (however you translate that word) nor would I if it were made illegal.

I would become VERY cranky for a while and then I would become a nonsmoker. I guess I need Nanny-state perhaps I am not able to go through the cranky stage unless state ordered(good thing I was never a drug addict…well other then nicotine).

The state has already made me cranky much of the time why won’t they finish the job? Smoking is illegal in EVERY workplace so obviously that includes resturants and bars. I am waiting for groundskeepers and postmen/people to claim discrimination and it be illegal EVERYWHERE but home.

Honestly just making it illegal everywhere would be a good thing, as much as it makes Nanny State the winner.

Smokers are the new lepers.

[Jackmannii]

@Jackmannii

And the illogic of implying that one can dismiss research findings in unrelated areas if the allegation were found to have merit.

@Shodan

If that’s illogical, what was the point of your post about the correlation between tobacco funding and research quality?

First of all, I did not make any general statement about “the correlation between tobacco funding and research quality”, but to the integrity of SIDS/SHS research when funded by the tobacco industry. I am especially cautious about evaluating and accepting any research when the conclusions favor the profits of an industry funding the study. There is no such conflict of interest involved in the research into SHS risks. In fact, physicians, public health agencies and researchers are working against their own financial interest in studying and publicizing SHS dangers. Less disease = lower income. And in the case of researchers, accepting that there is conclusive evidence on SIDS and SHS means diminished research dollars to study the subject in the future.

So while I don’t automatically dismiss any research based on funding source, I think it would be foolish to view public health statements made by the Surgeon General and the tobacco industry with equal skepticism.

@Shodan

So if someone says “does that make sense to you” and the response is “that makes perfect sense to me” and you find that evasive, perhaps that explains something about your troubles with my posts.

Your response was evasive in that you answered a question I did not ask (I wanted to know if you felt it legitimate to dismiss anything a particular source had to say if one conclusion by that source was felt to be overstated). True, there are better examples of your evasiveness. I have repeatedly asked you to bring up specific criticisms of research methodology to back your vague claims that the evidence does not support conclusions about SIDS risk and SHS, and you have failed to do so. Your suggestion that SHS is being confused with other SIDS risk factors has been repeatedly refuted, by reference to studies that have controlled for these factors - but you are unwilling to concede that you were wrong.

Small hijack - hope your back is improving. Disc problems are a bitch, as I have cause to know.

[Shodan]

@Jackmannii

First of all, I did not make any general statement about “the correlation between tobacco funding and research quality”, but to the integrity of SIDS/SHS research when funded by the tobacco industry. I am especially cautious about evaluating and accepting any research when the conclusions favor the profits of an industry funding the study.

A distinction without a difference, if you don’t mind my saying so.

There is no such conflict of interest involved in the research into SHS risks.

I didn’t say there was.

Your response was evasive in that you answered a question I did not ask (I wanted to know if you felt it legitimate to dismiss anything a particular source had to say if one conclusion by that source was felt to be overstated).

Again, if “does this make sense to you” wasn’t the question you wanted answered, then it is not quite fair to expect me to know what it was.

True, there are better examples of your evasiveness. I have repeatedly asked you to bring up specific criticisms of research methodology to back your vague claims that the evidence does not support conclusions about SIDS risk and SHS, and you have failed to do so.

Perhaps it will help to mention that I am not making claims - I am asking questions.

ISTM that you are drawing distinctions in your own posts that are not particularly clear, and not drawing them in mine - where they may be equally unclear.

Small hijack - hope your back is improving. Disc problems are a bitch, as I have cause to know.

Actually, I am off for another MRI right now. Thanks for asking.

Regards,
Shodan