-Caveat Lector-
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,26109,00.html
Second-Hand Smokescreens
World No-Tobacco Day 2001 was yesterday. Sponsored by the World Health
Organization, the theme was secondhand smoke. The event's poster
featured "Secondhand Smoke Kills" emblazoned over a photo of the
Marlboro Man riding into the sunset.
WHO proclaimed, "Second-hand smoke is a real and significant threat to
public health. Supported by two decades of evidence, the scientific
community now agrees that there is no safe level of exposure to
second-hand smoke. The evidence is in, let is act on it."
That's quite an ironic statement, though. It appears the WHO doesn't
even put much faith in its own research on secondhand smoke.
The WHO's World No-Tobacco day web site lists, "Comprehensive Reports on
Passive Smoking by Authoritative Scientific Bodies." The listed reports
include the 1986 reports from the Surgeon General and National Research
Council, the 1993 report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
and two late-1990s reports from the California EPA.
For those unfamiliar with the reports, the list appears formidable.
Otherwise, it's just disingenuous.
The 1986 reports by the NRC and Surgeon General concluded secondhand
smoke was a risk factor for lung cancer. But of the 13 studies
reviewed, 7 reported no link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.
Given the statistical nature of these studies, this split in results is
precisely what one would expect if no true link existed.
Neither report produced much progress for anti-smoking activists. So
they convinced the EPA to pick up the gauntlet.
Thirty-three studies on secondhand smoke had been completed by 1993.
More than 80 percent of the studies reported no association between
secondhand smoke and lung cancer, including the largest of the studies.
The EPA reviewed 31 studies - inexplicably omitting two studies
reporting no association between secondhand smoke and lung cancer - and
estimated secondhand smoke caused 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually.
Under the stewardship of the anti-tobacco Clinton administration,
secondhand smoke hysteria caught fire.
Observing the "success" of the EPA report, the California EPA adopted by
reference the EPA's conclusions into the state agency's own report.
Little original or independent analysis went into the Cal-EPA report.
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.
Now let's go back to the WHO's list of reports on its web page.
The 1986 reports don't carry any weight. That's why the EPA did a new
report. But the EPA report was in all important respects trashed by a
federal judge - by implication, a fate also deserved of the California
report that relied on the EPA report.
And the WHO omitted its own report from the list of "comprehensive
reports" by "authoritative scientific bodies" no doubt because the
"wrong" answer was reported.
If secondhand smoke really increases lung cancer risk, why all the
smoke-and-mirrors?
Of course, lung cancer is not the only health alarm sounded about
secondhand smoke. The science on these issues is also not as it's
hyped.
The WHO claims secondhand smoke causes between 35,000 to 62,000 deaths
from heart disease annually in the U.S. But the WHO omits mention of an
important New England Journal of Medicine editorial on the controversy.
University of Chicago Hospital health studies chairman John Bailar -
hardly sympathetic to the tobacco industry - dismissed the link between
secondhand smoke and heart disease, citing the poor quality of study
data and evident researcher bias.
WHO claims, "Second-hand smoke also causes and aggravates asthma and
other breathing problems, particularly in children. It is also an
important cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)."
But researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
examining data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination
Surveyreported in January's Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine there was no association between secondhand smoke and asthma
among 5,400 children aged 4 to 16 years of age.
No one knows what causes SIDS. Just this week, Wake Forest University
researchers reported SIDS may be related to a genetic deficiency.
Reportedly, the absence of a particular muscle enzyme allows fatty acid
products to accumulate, producing a toxic effect causing heart
arrhythmias and respiratory arrest.
Anti-smoking activists have yet to explain where were all the childhood
asthma and SIDS cases in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when smoking indoors
was commonplace and adult smoking rates were much higher than they are
now.
Secondhand smoke is annoying to many nonsmokers. That is the essence of
the controversy and where the debate should lie - the rights of smokers
to smoke in public places versus the rights of nonsmokers to be free of
tobacco smoke.
In debates over individual liberties, fabricated and propagandized
science should play no role.
Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at
the Cato Institute and the author of the upcoming book Junk Science
Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute,
2001). Mr. Milloy may be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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