Thank you for smoking
For many years, while I was cigarets smokers, I used to argue with my wife about secondhand smoking. My argument was that since you cannot isolate the effect of secondhand smoking from other potential sources it is impossible to prove that secondhand smoking has any effect, or to measure it, on one’s health. As life usually go I gave up and eventually quit smoking altogether.
But old family debates never dies, and and opportunity to say to my wife: " I told you so" is so rare that I can’t simply ignore this article:
In reality, it is impossible to summarize accurately from momentary and vague recalls, and with an absurd expectation of precision, the total exposure to secondhand smoke over more than a half-century of a person’s lifetime. No measure of cumulative lifetime secondhand smoke exposure was ever possible, so the epidemiologic studies estimated risk based not only on an improper marker of exposure, but also on exposure data that are illusory.
Adding confusion, people with lung cancer or cardiovascular disease are prone to amplify their recall of secondhand smoke exposure. Others will fib about being nonsmokers and will contaminate the results. More than two dozen causes of lung cancer are reported in the professional literature, and over 200 for cardiovascular diseases; their likely intrusions have never been credibly measured and controlled in secondhand smoke studies. Thus, the claimed risks are doubly deceptive because of interferences that could not be calculated and corrected.
Joking aside, The article underline philosophy is very problematic. It is trying to prevent Government regulation on voluntary activity (like going to a restaurant) proving that the claim of risk is incorrect, instead of arguing that the risk factor is irrelevant and shouldn’t trigger government enforcement even if it exist.
Technorati Tags: Smoking - Government Regulation - Libertarianism - Seconhand Smoking
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Rogel @ February 1, 2007
So what has Dr. Gori been doing with himself in the years since 1976, the last job the Washington Post article cites?
Why, working for Philip Morris, of course, snowing legislators and the media in PM’s fight against the scientific consensus on secondhand smoke and the resultant smoking bans.
THANKS FOR DELIBERATELY WITHHOLDING THAT INFORMATION, WP. I expected more from you. Much more.
Don’t you think your readers deserve more than this? Much more?
Hold you horses Gene
If you have read what I wrote you probably noticed that I don’t care about the risk involve with secondhand smoking as a factor for legislation. I used the article just as a reference to an old, and not important, debate with my wife.
But I have a question to you - is the fact that Dr. Gori worked for PM automatically makes his arguments incorrect? or can you argue base on the merit of the arguments? Because if the fact that he worked for PM disqualify him, we should disqualify anyone that worked for the advocates that fought PM as well…
You can’t be serious.
1. It’s the deliberate subterfuge by at least WP, and probably Gori that’s at issue here, the same kind of underhanded, secretive tactics used to fight the science on primary smoking. (Your rather dopey argument that because something is multi-factorial you can’t determine anything specific is straight out of the tobacco industry’s playbook, where you probably first heard it. In fact, Tobacco first used it to combat the science on _primary_ smoking, from the 50s to the 90s. It’s just been updated for SHS. Same essential effect, it suckers in folks like you. You taking this article as anything approaching truth and telling your wife it’s scientifically accurate is like your finding a needle in a haystack and telling her, “Look! I found a stack of needles!” Yes, his opinion is that rare, and spouted almost exclusively by those paid by the industry.
2. As for the Wash. Post: A reader would come upon this article and say, “Wow, this seems to go against the entire medical and scientific community. How could this be? Where did this pop up from?” WP needed to tell its readers where it came from–Philip Morris. “OH,” the reader would then say. “Now I see why it goes against all normal science.”
3. And yes, if someone’s been out mugging people for 50 years, just because he’s wearing a mask doesn’t mean he’s not still mugging. ( But you wouldn’t really argue science against this uncharacteristically flabby article, based on straw man and a number of utterly unsubstantiated assertions.) People struggling to ensure the sale of their product are, yes, more suspect than people trying to find the truth, even if they themselves are put out of business by the truth. (No more smokers=no more tobacco control.)
4. The scientific community has long since finished the SHS argument, as it has with the flat earth argument. We have the documents from 1988 on where Philip Morris sought to find, fund and develop scientists who could “keep the controversy alive.” And of course they hired Gori and used him often.
In all, your reply seems either woefully naive– or deliberately obtuse. You need to look up Gori’s and Philip Morris’ history before you talk with your wife or she may just mop up the floor with you.
You missed my point again Gene.
As I wrote before the risk factor in cigarettes, either as firsthand smoking or as secondhand, is not interesting. I argued that trying to prevent legislation base on how risky cigarettes is the wrong approach. The decision to smoke, or to go to a bar that allow smoking, is a personal decision that should not be regulated, and enforce, by the government.
I do however have a flinching reaction when I encounter crusaders. It is easy to refute the argument about isolating the effect of second hand smoking. It is so easy that even I, a History and Political Science major, can suggest a lab test with groups of mice that the only smoke they exposed to is simulation of secondhand smoking. It is disturbing however that you didn’t choose to do so. It is kind of disturbing because it is the same type of reaction that held back research about the effect of nicotine on people with Parkinson.
So now when we agree that cigarette’s smoke is dangerous any way that you consume it, can you argue with me about regulations?
Ahhh… and one last comment if I may: my wife can mop the floor with me any given time, it is called marriage
[...] A comment on previous post made it clear that I might need to do some clarifications. [...]
Please, it’s embarrassing when amateurs design scientific studies. You don’t think there’s anything to learn in 4 years of post-grad work?? For starters, what are you looking for? Will it show up in the few months a mouse lives? Delineate the controlled-for factors. and so much more.
And regulations correctly control “free market” issues and individual choice–such as traffic lights, mine conditions, workplace safety and, closer to the subject, restaurant health issues.
Gene,
while 4 years in graduate school might help in designing scientific research they didn’t seems to help with reading comprehension. I wasn’t claiming that I can design a test, rather than that I know that such test can be designed.
Anyway I’m failing to understand in your argument why is it that “regulation correctly control”, or should I just trust you because you “know”? The fact that such regulations exist doesn’t make them right, or necessary.
I remembered seeing this somewhere. I guess this is also devil’s research, Gene? or that the British Medical Journal is also paid by PM? or maybe the debate about secondhand smoking doesn’t support your agenda and therefore shouldn’t consider as science?
But what you know? the conclusion of the research is pretty much the opposite of what you claim to be the only truth:
Hoo, boy, you bring up the Enstrom/Kabat study to prove regular scientists dispute the harms of secondhand smoke?? You somehow missed that this was a tobacco-funded study?? What, you just read the conclusion and had a Eureka moment? How scientifically conveeeenient of you.
Admittedly, you couldn’t tell from Enstrom/Kabat’s disclaimer HOW tobacco-beholden the authors are, nor that Enstrom has toadied for tobacco monies since 1975, nor that in more recent years he has collected plenty. The authors told Philip Morris it would like the result of this study beforehand. And PM sure did.
Don’t you see how typical, how consistent all this is–Gori posts, pretending to be an independent scientist, and Enstrom/Kabat post, pretending minimal tobacco involvement. As Federal Judge Gladys Kessler asked of yet another tobacco agent secretly paid to write a letter (also disputing SHS science), “Don’t you consider that outright fraud?”
You still don’t seem to realize that were it not for tobacco paying for it, there would be NO “debate” on the seriousness of secondhand smoke’s harms, and people like you wouldn’t be so gullibly misled that you start acting like would-be crusaders yourselves, off marching to war based on having only read a study’s conclusions, or a shill’s op-ed, but now you’re out there promoting tobacco’s paid-for position, proudly carrying its banner–and all for free! Well, that’s certainly money well spent. Now THAT’s how to “keep the controversy alive.”
Please note also that the Enstrom/Kabat study has also been thoroughly discredited scientifically. Just for starters, how do you determine intensity of secondhand smoke exposure in 1959, when 60% smoked, when people were smoking everywhere, in offices, on buses, on tv, in restaurants, even in elevators, and when no one had even heard the term “secondhand smoke?” And how do you make extrapolations 35 years later based on only 8% of the original data set, and when you haven’t controlled for people starting smoking, quitting smoking, spouses dying, divorcing, etc.? This is just a layman’s precis; others more qualified than I have thoroughly dismantled this nonsense. This “study”–promoted by a short-lived BMJ editor famous for his love of provocation and penchant for ill-considered attention-gathering stunts– is famous as one of the most shameful episodes in tobacco-funded science.
And my reading comprehension is fine. We all can read, “It is so easy that even I, a History and Political Science major, can suggest a lab test with groups of mice . . . “
Gene,
Forgive me if I’m still casting some doubt about your claim that scientific debate regarding SHS is all over. In fact it seems like your approach, which will be interesting to find who is the funding source for, is closer to political advocacy rather than science.
As I wrote more than once Gori’s book is anecdotal, it is not important for the debate of smoke banning because the risk level incurred from SHS, or from first hand smoking, is irrelevant for me. I’m willing to agree that SHS is as dangerous as first hand smoking, and yet - I do not agree that the government has any right to ban it in places where people coming voluntarily (restaurants and bars for example).
I have very strong suspicious, however, toward people that use some science as an axe to grind their own ideology.
and one last question, just to satisfy my curiosity, does the PR firm you working for paying well?
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