(The) Second Hand Smoke (Screen)
Posted by Frankly Francis on September 29, 2009 under Social Issues/Politics | 
6 Comments to Read
“First, we’re gonna give ya a fair trial. Then we’re gonna hang ya”
or
“Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics”
I have a feeling that peoples’ minds are made up about second hand smoke (SHS) and they are not going to let the facts get in the way of their feelings. So it is with some trepidation that I write this, as well as the feeling that I am wasting my time. But write I will. This is the first piece on cigarette smoking and will be limited to the effects of SHS. Other aspects of smoking will follow.
Let’s get the disclosures out of the way, right away: I smoke. I enjoy smoking. I dislike not being able to legally smoke in public, social situations. I strongly dislike the tobacco industry for the obvious lies it has knowingly spread. I distrust the U.S. Government’s findings when it comes to classifying SHS as a Class A Carcinogen.
It is my intention to use information published by health and anti-smoking organizations, and the U.S. Government Agency, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with what I deem to be credible third party analysis. I will not knowingly use information derived from the tobacco industry. I will also do my best to use common sense, and ask you to do the same. Furthermore, I will provide relevant source material for your use.
Preface
We have seen a number of crusades during the last century, notably the passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting the consumption of alcohol that produced organized crime as we know it today. Then marijuana (an organic substance, native to the planet earth) was criminalized which has resulted in uber incarceration rates and corruption, but not a single death from use. I would add the McCarthy Communist Witch Hunt to this list, which resulted in the loss of an untold amount of creative art as well as social well being. As evidenced by the foregoing, we are very capable of doing stupid things in the name of other people’s morals and values.
It seems to me, that when the anti-smokers could not get people to stop smoking based on the “smoking kills” slogan that they had to try a different tactic. It is still OK (but probably not for long) to harm yourself, so the anti-smokers needed to show that my cigarette was harming you in order to get their way.
The 1993 EPA Report “Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders”
This landmark study proved that second hand smoke (SHS) was harming innocent non-smokers and was the basis for the near complete shut down of being able to smoke, indoors or outdoors, in public places. But did it really prove this? Let’s take a look at facts and use some common sense to make that determination.
I am not a scientist, but as an accountant/financial guy, I do have some understanding of statistics. I will outline the basis of the SHS study by the EPA as briefly as I can.
The EPA did not actually study SHS in a real environment. What it did was a meta study that analyzed 30 (technically 33, but a few were quickly dropped) previous questionnaire studies that involved a smoking spouse and a non-smoking spouse. The accuracy of the answers is certainly questionable and some of the studies allowed surrogates to answer the questions. The results did not indicate a correlation to SHS being a health hazard at a 95% confidence rating. Somewhere in here, the EPA publicly announced that SHS was a health hazard before the study was completed. What does common sense tell you about the bias of a study that announces the results before it is finished?
The EPA then “cherry picked” the number of studies down to 11. The results at a 95% confidence rating still did not support that SHS was a health risk. So, the EPA turned to what most who know anything about statistics call “junk science” by lowering the confidence rating to 90%. At this point there was a statistical correlation to SHS as a health hazard. And it was on this basis that the EPA declared SHS as a Class A Carcinogen. I am not aware of respectable scientists using a 90% confidence rating to base a conclusion upon.
One other thing to note about the study is that it found a statistical relative risk factor of 1.19. To put this into perspective, here’s the National Cancer Institute’s own guideline on relative risk: “Relative risk of less than 2 [that is, a 100 percent increase] are considered small…Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias, or effects of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident.” Let me make it further clear, according to the World Health Study on SHS, the relative risk of developing lung cancer for persons who drank whole milk is 2.4. (Sarcastic common sense conclusion – if you want to avoid lung cancer be around smokers, but don’t drink milk.)
The EPA was sued over the findings of its study in Federal Court. The judge was William L. Osteen from South Carolina. Judge Osteen has a history of siding with the government in tobacco cases and in 1997 ruled that the FDA had the authority to regulate tobacco. Judge Osteen ruled against the EPA in July of 1998. I quote from the judge’s findings: “EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before the research had begun; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate its conclusion, and aggressively utilized its authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme to influence public opinion.”
Did it work? Has your opinion been influenced by the EPA saying that SHS is a health hazard?
It should be noted that Judge Osteen’s decision was overturned by the Fourth Circuit Court in 2002 because the EPA Report was not an official policy document and therefore Osteen’s court did not have jurisdiction. Judge Osteen’s findings were never questioned, however.
Does common sense beg you to question that the EPA Report, for which so much legal and social change has been based upon, should be at least an official policy document? Of course, if it were, it would be legally reviewable and therefore subject to be being overturned. Hmmmm….
Other SHS Studies
The World Health Organization (WHO) published its study of SHS in the October 1998 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. WHO concluded that the “results indicate no association between childhood exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer risk.”
In a study published in 2003 entitled “Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98,” Enstrom and Kabat (UCLA and SUNY Stony Brook, respectively) concluded that “The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.”
Some Common Sense
Do you know anyone that has died from or been afflicted by SHS? Have you ever read or heard of a death certificate that listed cause of death as “Second Hand Smoke?”
Cigarette smoking was prevalent everywhere into the 1980’s. How are so many people living so long after being exposed to SHS all those years if SHS is a Class A Carcinogen? If you were born in the 50’s through 80’s, why hasn’t SHS taken its toll on you or those around you, if it is indeed so harmful?
If what you breathe is so important:
My common sense guess is that the fumes from the automobiles that we drive and are exposed to on the street, and in parking garages are far more harmful to our health than SHS.
My common sense guess is that the heating/cooling/ventilation systems in our buildings and houses are far more harmful to our health than SHS.
My common sense guess is that the pollution from our industries is far more harmful to our health as citizens and even more harmful to their employees than SHS.
My common sense guess is that the air fresheners sprayed and/or plugged-in to the electrical sockets in homes, along with the ones hanging from car rear view mirrors are more harmful than SHS.
If the EPA and all the other organizations against smoking really thought that empirical science would support the hypothesis that SHS is harmful, why haven’t they produced impartial, conclusive studies to that effect?
Frankly,
Francis
P.S. I don’t like the idea of censoring comments, so I would really appreciate it if you would be so kind to comment only on this topic regarding the validity of SHS being harmful to non-smokers. I will be covering the rest of the smoking issues, so you will have the welcomed opportunity to express your feelings about other aspects of cigarette smoking soon.
Reference Material:
The 1993 EPA Report “Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders”
http://oaspub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=36793
Analysis of the ’93 EPA Report by Dave Hitt
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/epa.html
The World Health Organization’s Study on Second Hand Smoke (Abstract)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9776409?dopt=Abstract
Analysis of the World Health Organization Study by Dave Hitt
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/who.html
Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98 – James E Enstrom, Geoffrey C Kabat
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
Judge Osteen’s 1998 Ruling against the EPA
http://www.forces.org/evidence/epafraud/files/osteen.htm
Judge Smokes Out Tobacco Lie – Sidney Zion, in the New York Daily News
http://www.junkscience.com/news2/zion.html
Lies, Damned Lies, & 400,000 Smoking-Related Deaths – Robert A. Levy and Rosalind B. Marimont
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv21n4/lies.pdf
The Second-Hand Smoke Charade – Dominick Armentano, in Cato.org
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5811
