OK, I was so ragingly PO’d about the Journal Star’s Pekin school consolidation editorial today that I’m probably the last one in the local blogosphere to notice that I was quoted in the Chicago Tribune regarding my “Smoking Mad” post.
They obviously didn’t realize that I’m not an anonymous blogger anymore, since they just quote me as “Knightindragonland.” I guess I’ll forgive them if they run a front page apology.
…
That is obviously a joke. They could call me Jiminy Cricket if they want … they got the URL right! Wooooooohoooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
Hat Tips: Eyebrows McGee, Billy Dennis.
11 responses so far ↓
1
Eggs Ackley
// Apr 3, 2007 at 9:04 pm
OK, and my comment was in the same issue of the Trib. Care to respond?
The statement from the American Cancer Society: “Working eight hours in a smoky bar or restaurant is the equivalent of smoking 16 cigarettes.” Wow. I smoke 10 cigarettes during an eight-hour period. I could stop buying cigarettes and work in a bar. This propaganda is just so absurd. The scary thing is that it seems the majority of the public is buying it.
If cigarettes are deadly poison, why isn’t there a push for making cigarettes illegal to make or sell? Can you say excise taxes to the Illinois treasury? And that’s in addition to sales tax. If cigarettes are a health issue, ban them totally.
Any politician first in line for this one?
2
Michelle
// Apr 3, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Who is this naive person who thinks the government makes everything that is harmful illegal, and who cannot distinguish between propaganda and research-supported facts? I’d really like to know  of what school system is this person a product?
3
knightindragonland
// Apr 4, 2007 at 5:43 am
Why isn’t there a push to make cigarettes illegal? Hmmmm … maybe the BILLIONS of dollars the cigarette manufacturers spend every year on lobbying and advertising has something to do with it.
Cigarettes ARE a public health menace, and that has been clearly proven by over 40 years of research … some of it done by the tobacco industry itself and deliberately withheld from the public.
Yes, cigarettes probably should be banned completely. However, we have the example of history to guide us. Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s was an abject failure. The modern “war on drugs” is an abject failure. Therefore we should seek out alternatives to simple prohibition in order to encourage smokers to quit.
Workplace smoking bans have definitely helped encourage smoking cessation. Hopefully public smoking bans will do the same, as well as clearing the air for non-smokers everywhere who don’t want to participate in this habit.
Eggs admitted to being a smoker. Sounds like someone is rationalizing because admitting the truth to themselves would be too frightening. It’s a common behavior in anyone with an addiction or other self-destructive habit. Deny, deny, deny that there is a problem at all, and then shift any residual blame away from the purveyors of their desired substance and toward those who would seek to deny them their fix.
4
Vonster
// Apr 4, 2007 at 12:49 pm
As an engineering problem – a person inhaling 2nd hand smoke is receiving a tiny fraction of what the smoker does. If not even all smokers get lung cancer, then how could the non-smoker get lung cancer based on the relative dosage? The math doesn’t work out.
5
Michelle
// Apr 4, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Yes, a person inhaling second-hand smoke is getting a “diluted” dose of smoke. But consider that a smoker spends maybe five minutes per cigarette smoking. A non-smoker spending hours in a bar (or wherever) is getting a continuous low dose. So it’s easy to see how a waitress who works an eight-hour shift in a smoky bar could inhale enough second-hand smoke to cause cancer. But it isn’t just conjecture here. We have studies to show it does happen.
6
Eggs Ackley
// Apr 4, 2007 at 3:17 pm
“But it isn’t just conjecture here. We have studies to show it does happen.”
Michelle, do you happen to have sources for your “studies?” I have asked many people, and no one can produce even one unbiased source. And I don’t want to hear “Surgeon’s General” report. That report did not contain one source about ETS in the workplace. It concerned only direct smoking and the effect on household members who lived with a heavy smoker.
I’ll give you my sources to the contrary as motivation.
“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
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/82/11/1525
“… 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
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/10/632
“… 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
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t472342u10257102/
“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
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3188004&dopt=Citation
7
Eggs Ackley
// Apr 4, 2007 at 5:43 pm
“So it’s easy to see how a waitress who works an eight-hour shift in a smoky bar could inhale enough second-hand smoke to cause cancer. But it isn’t just conjecture here. We have studies to show it does happen.”
What studies show that? Can you source them? (And not the SG report, please. There is nothing sourced in that report that pertains to ETS in the workplace.)
Now smokers are the ones whose freedoms are slip-sliding away. How soon before it’s your turn?
8
knightindragonland
// Apr 4, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) contains a large portion of “sidestream” smoke … smoke coming off the burning end of the cigarette. This smoke is unfiltered and contains a much higher concentration of toxins.
Lung cancer from ETS is not even the issue, really. Only 3000 deaths per annum are attributed to lung cancer caused by ETS. The relationship between lung cancer and smoking does show a fairly linear relationship … the more smoke you’re exposed to, the higher your risk.
MOST of the deaths attributed to ETS (which could be as high as 60,000 per annum) are due to cardiovascular disease – heart attacks and strokes. Here the dose-toxicity relationship is much different … it’s exponential. It only takes one or two cigarettes per day to massively increase your risks. The good news is that if you quit (or end your exposure to ETS), your CV disease risk improves rapidly.
Let’s see … studies, studies, studies … there are so many to choose from, and all of them are more recent than 1992, the most recent evidence Eggs can apparently come up with:
The EPIC study regarding the overall link (a prospective study that confirmed exposure by measuring nicotine metabolites, something the studies I’ve seen quoted by anti-ban Big Tobacco propaganda do NOT do) …
This one about catering workers in Hong Kong …
The benefits of the Irish public smoking ban …
A good review of the negative health consequences of ETS in restaurants by JAMA in 1993 that already showed a preponderance of evidence …
9
Eggs Ackley
// Apr 6, 2007 at 9:53 am
In the publication you quote, PubMed, you can find both positives and negatives. Just a quick skim of articles gave me these contradictions to your evidence:
“Because of the inherent implausibility that ETS exposure might cause breast cancer, given the similar risks of smokers and nonsmokers, one cannot confidently conclude ETS exposure increases risk in nonsmokers.” – Environmental tobacco smoke exposure and risk of breast cancer in nonsmoking women: a review with meta-analyses. – P. N. Lee Statistics and Computing Ltd., Sutton, Surrey, United Kingdom. PeterLee@pnlee.demon.co.uk – December 2006
“…there is no dose-response relationship and no elevated risk associated with the highest level of ETS exposure in males or females. An objective assessment of the available epidemiologic evidence indicates that the association of ETS with CHD death in U.S. never smokers is very weak. Previous assessments appear to have overestimated the strength of the association.” – Environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease mortality in the United States–a meta-analysis and critique. – Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. – March 2006
Because of these conflicting studies, pro and con, I maintain my original conclusion that it is unfair for the US government and anti-smoking groups to blindly quote the unbelievably inflated numbers that they do. The US has many more serious health issues they should be concentrating on.
10
knightindragonland
// Apr 6, 2007 at 2:50 pm
The Jonsson Cancer Center study is one frequently quoted by public smoking ban opponents. It is a meta-analysis of studies that attempted to quantify secondhand smoke exposure based on spousal smoking history. It did NOT include studies that measure nicotine metabolites to actually QUANTIFY exposure, a much better method. The studies I mentioned DID quantify nicotine metabolites.
In regards to breast cancer … the link to breast cancer and DIRECT smoking is tenuous and probably limited to certain genetically susceptible subpopulations, so I wouldn’t expect a link to secondhand smoke. This study does nothing to discount the link between ETS and cardiovascular disease, the primary killer.
Cigarette smoking (primary smoking) is the NUMBER ONE cause of preventable death and disability in this country, killing almost half a million people every year. It has been definitively linked to cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, bladder cancer, oropharyngeal cancer, pancreatic cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, SIDS, spontaneous abortion, fetal demise, low birth weight, chronic otitis media, chronic sinusitis and periodontal disease. Are you suggesting we should ignore our #1 killer?
11
stop-smoking.1quitsmoking
// Sep 7, 2007 at 8:23 am
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