DoctorJ said:
Dunno if they do or not in that routine, but I know they mentioned him by name in other “psychic” routines.
As the title to the P&T show says, your comment is Bullshit. Your head has been in that tobacco cloud too long. I have done work for the American Cancer Society and there is volumes of proof that second hand smoke causes significant health problems, especially in children.
racer72:
I am not a smoker and never have been, just for the record.
I’d like you to cite your “volumes of proof.” From my own reading I conclude the evidence is scanty and garnished with all sorts of weasel words. The anti-second-hand-smoke crusade is simply an attempt by anti-smoking advocates to take an even higher moral ground by claiming smokers harm more than just themselves. Their main ally is social disapproval, not scientific evidence.
Cecil agrees with me, for what that’s worth (and he’s also a nonsmoker).
But, this isn’t the right forum for such a discussion. If the above column doesn’t satisfy you, I’ll see you in GD.
Fiver said:
And then you cited Cecil’s column.
Um. Did you read it?
“In principle I don’t have a problem with banning public smoking: it’s an annoyance to nonsmokers and a danger to vulnerable folk such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly.”
And
“Smoking opponents say there’s a scientific consensus in the U.S. that ETS is bad, citing an impressive list of articles and official pronouncements–for example, a 1998 review in the Journal of the American Medical Association of 100 studies, 63 of which found some evidence of harm from ETS. I agree ETS is harmful, broadly speaking;…”
He was specifically addressing the cancer issue. racer72 was talking about health problems in children. And Cecil agreed that second-hand smoke is harmful. So exactly who did he support?
Hint: Not you.
David B
Indeed I did:
“the claim that “environmental tobacco smoke” (ETS) seriously threatens the health of the general public, and in particular that it causes lung cancer, is unproven at best.”
And
“a few tentative conclusions can be drawn. The first is that under the most charitable interpretation the EPA’s evidence that ETS is carcinogenic comes perilously close to noise level–”
Yes, racer72 was talking about health problems in children. But the authority he claimed for such a statement was his “work for the American Cancer Society,” so don’t try to tell me Cecil’s column was off point.
I’m telling you that you were off point in referring to it and claiming it supported your position that:
Because Cecil most certainly did explain that “smokers harm more than just themselves.”
I don’t see how anyone could argue against the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. If sucking the smoke out one end and into your lungs is bad, breathing the smoke that comes off the other end must also be bad. That seems self-evident.
Stoid, I believe the question is, how much second-hand smoke do you, as an otherwise healthy adult, have to breathe before it’s harmful? Is living with a pack-a-day smoker in a small house enough to siginficantly increase your risk of lung cancer? How about working in a smokey bar or restaurant? How about occassionally standing next to a smoker on the street?
Obviously somewhere in that continuum there’s a point where we cross from negligable effects to signficant health risks, and where that point is remains up in the air (with the ETS, I suppose.)
The question isn’t whether the second-hand smoke is harmful (it is, after all, pretty much the same stuff that went in the first smokers lungs), but whether the quantities you are likely to inhale second hand creates a significant increase in risk.
Even sitting in my grandmothers living room as a kid (where the cigarette smoke was a visible layer that started about a foot of the ground and rose all the way to the ceiling) I was inhaling much less smoke than her. Whether that level was enough to cause damage, I’ll leave to the experts because I have no idea.
Wow! Did this thread ever jump the tracks!