Anti-smokers destroying small business.

[Army_of_One]

Perhaps you could provide these kind of stats on BOvine Flatulance....

Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet
August 2006

Secondhand smoke, also know as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.1

Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen).2
Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.3
Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700-69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.4
A study found that nonsmokers exposed to environmental smoke were 25 percent more likely to have coronary heart diseases compared to nonsmokers not exposed to smoke.5
Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of ETS in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.6
Since 1999, 70 percent of the U.S. workforce worked under a smoke-free policy, ranging from 83.9 percent in Utah to 48.7 percent in Nevada.7 Workplace productivity was increased and absenteeism was decreased among former smokers compared with current smokers.8
Currently, 14 states including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have already passed strong smoke-free air laws.9
As of 2005, nine smoke-free states prohibit smoking in almost all workplaces, including restaurants and bars (CA, CT, DE, ME, MA, NY, RI, VT and WA).10
Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 1,900 to 2,700 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.11
Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 700,000 to 1.6 million physician office visits per year.12 Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 400,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.13
In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of, children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis.14 Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine in the blood.15
New research indicates that private research conducted by cigarette company Philip Morris in the 1980s showed that secondhand smoke was highly toxic, yet the company suppressed the finding during the next two decades.16
The current Surgeon General's Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to second hand smoke. Short exposures to second hand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of heart attack.17
For more information on secondhand smoke, please review the Tobacco Morbidity and Mortality Trend Report as well as our Lung Disease Data publication in the Data and Statistics section of our website, or call the American Lung Association at 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872).

[Bubba]

I'm suprised that you would believe anything put out by them, they are more left-wing than any Democrat that you know.

[Highwayman]

Originally Posted by Army_of_One

Perhaps you could provide these kind of stats on BOvine Flatulance....

Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet
August 2006……

As I was trying to point out, don’t believe everything labeled a study when there’s an agenda and billions of dollars involved.

Just when it seemed anti-smoking activists finally succeeded in producing scientific reports establishing secondhand smoke as a health risk, a federal judge overturned the EPA report in 1998. He ruled the EPA cheated on the science.

Later in 1998, the WHO published the largest study ever done on secondhand smoke and lung cancer. The study reported no statistically significant association between secondhand smoke and lung cancer. Oops.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,26109,00.html

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

According to Surgeon General Richard Carmona, secondhand smoke is so dangerous that you'd be better off if you stopped going to smoky bars and started smoking instead. "Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke," claims the press release that accompanied his new report on the subject, "has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and increases risk for heart disease and lung cancer."

Among smokers, these diseases take many years to develop. So if you got your health tips from the surgeon general, you'd start smoking a pack a day as a protective measure.

But you may want to look elsewhere for medical advice. Carmona is so intent on promoting smoking bans -- a key element of the government's campaign to reduce cigarette consumption -- that he absurdly exaggerates the hazards of secondhand smoke, hoping to generate enough public alarm to banish smokers from every location outside the home.

As the report itself makes clear, there is no evidence that brief, transient exposure to secondhand smoke has any effect on your chance of developing heart disease or lung cancer. The studies that link secondhand smoke to these illnesses involve intense, long-term exposure, typically among people who have lived with smokers for decades......

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/J...condhand_smoke

Thursday, June 29, 2006

“Secondhand smoke debate ‘over.” That’s the message from the Surgeon General’s office, delivered by a sycophantic media. The claim is that the science has now overwhelmingly proved that smoke from others’ cigarettes can kill you. Actually, “debate over” simply means: “If you have your doubts, shut up!”

But you definitely should have doubts over the new Surgeon General’s report, a massive 727-page door stop. Like many massive reports on controversial issues, it’s probably designed that way so nobody (especially reporters on deadline) will want to or have time to read beyond the executive summary. That includes me; if I had that much time I’d reread War and Peace. Twice. But the report admits it contains no new science so we can evaluate it based on research already available.

First consider the 1993 EPA study that began the passive smoking crusade. It declared such smoke a carcinogen based on a combined analysis (meta-analysis) of 11 mostly tiny studies. The media quickly fell into line, with headlines blaring: “Passive Smoking Kills Thousands” and editorials demanding: “Ban Hazardous Smoking; Report Shows It’s a Killer.”

But the EPA’s report had more holes than a spaghetti strainer. Its greatest weakness was the agency’s refusal to use the gold standard in epidemiology, the 95 percent confidence interval. This simply means there are only five chances in 100 that the conclusion came about just by chance, even if the study itself was done correctly.

Curiously, the EPA decided to use a 90 percent level, effectively doubling the likelihood of getting its result by sheer luck of the draw.

Why would it do such a strange thing? You guessed it. Its results weren't significant at the 95 percent level. Essentially, it moved the goal posts back because the football had fallen short. In scientific terminology this is know as “dishonesty.”

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/M...smoking_debate

[lurker]

First consider the 1993 EPA study that began the passive smoking crusade. It declared such smoke a carcinogen based on a combined analysis (meta-analysis) of 11 mostly tiny studies. The media quickly fell into line, with headlines blaring: “Passive Smoking Kills Thousands” and editorials demanding: “Ban Hazardous Smoking; Report Shows It’s a Killer.”

1993 EPA study... umm.. Was that study from the "We are the President" era?

[Highwayman]

Originally Posted by lurker

... umm.. Was that study from the "We are the President" era?

Yeah, that's the one.

Under the stewardship of the anti-tobacco Clinton administration, secondhand smoke hysteria caught fire.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,26109,00.html

[wordsmythe]

Originally Posted by Bubba

I'm suprised that you would believe anything put out by them, they are more left-wing than any Democrat that you know.

In other words...

That doesn't support the position I want it to so it can't be true.

[Bubba]

No, it means that Army knocks everything that is left-wing, but now he is using it as a source....

[Detector]

I didn't make it past the first paragraph after reading this. Obviously not an unbiased report.

It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.1

It's not that it may or may not be true, it's that they're ONLY pointing out the worst possibilities and making them sound absolute.

[wordsmythe]

Originally Posted by Detector

I didn't make it past the first paragraph after reading this. Obviously not an unbiased report.



It's not that it may or may not be true, it's that they're ONLY pointing out the worst possibilities and making them sound absolute.

In other words...

That doesn't support the position I want it to so it can't be true and I refuse to consider it.

[Detector]

In other words...

That doesn't support the position I want it to so it can't be true and I refuse to consider it.

No, I'd say that seems to be more your MO. Only in this case it's Does support the position so it's got to be true.

In the unbiased reports you see a bit more "may" and "could" not the cheap attempt to target the ignorant. For example:

It can be involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, and could linger in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished

I especially like the "lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished" They just felt it wasn't necessary to add in an enclosed room. It would take a really stagnant room to keep "a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers." present for hours.