The worst “enviro-nut propaganda piece” disguised as the worst M. Night Shyamalan film? This reviewer says yes!

An article in the Summer 2008 issue of Cigar Magazine entitled, Secondhand Smoke and Global Warming More Connected Than You Think?, by James M. Taylor speaks to the similarities in scare tactics, biased reporting, and bad science found in the battles against secondhand smoke, and our carbon footprint. Taylor points out that as a whole, Antarctica is actually getting colder not warmer. The ice melt on Kilimanjaro is not related to global warming, and that the glacier atop the mountain has been retreating since the 1800s. A Gulf Stream shutdown is not going to happen. Droughts are actually occurring less frequently. And there is no scientific consensus concerning global warming despite what the media is telling us.

Among the most interesting tidbits included in the article are the fact that Al Gore’s, Inconvenient Truth, “contained so many misrepresentations of scientific fact that the British government could no longer allow it to be part of the public school curriculum unless they government first provided teachers with a list of the movie’s numerous scientific errors”, and that there is a petition found at the Web site of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine that has been signed by no less than 19,000 scientists that do not believe the erroneous information the world is being fed about global warming.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate the entire article online. However, I have contacted the author and perhaps he will provide me with such a link. In addition, I remarked how nicely the issue of firearms ownership would have fit into his article if he had wanted to make it a hat trick. You can find much of the same information in similar articles written by Taylor at the Web site for the Heartland Institute.

The World Health Organization’s Second Hand Smoke Study

The World Health Organization’s first study on second hand smoke is a textbook example of the right way to conduct an epidemiological study. Unfortunately for them, it yielded unexpected results. They responded by doing a second one, a meta-analysis, that allowed them to extract the results they wanted. This is an analysis of their first study.

• The World Health Organization conducted a study of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) and lung cancer in Europe.
• ETS is commonly referred to as Second Hand Smoke (SHS). The two terms are interchangeable.
• This was a case control study using a large sample size.
• The purpose of the study was to provide a more precise estimate of risk, to discover any differences between different sources of ETS, and the effect of ETS exposure on different types of lung cancer.
• The study was conducted from twelve centers in seven European countries over a period of seven years.
• The participants consisted of 650 patients with lung cancer and 1542 control subjects. Patients with smoking related diseases were excluded from the control group. None of the subjects in either group had smoked more than 400 cigarettes in their lifetime.
• Three of the study centers interviewed family members of the participants to confirm the subjects were not smokers.
• The study found no statistically significant risk existed for non-smokers who either lived or worked with smokers.
• The only statistically significant number was a decrease in the risk of lung cancer among the children of smokers.
• The study found a Relative Risk (RR) for spousal exposure of 1.16, with a Confidence Interval (CI) of .93 - 1.44. In layman’s terms, that means
  • Exposure to the ETS from a spouse increases the risk of getting lung cancer by 16%.
  • Where you’d normally find 100 cases of lung cancer, you’d find 116….BUT
  • Because the Confidence Interval includes 1.0, The Relative Risk of 1.16 number is not statistically significant.
• The real RR can be any number within the CI. The CI includes 1.0, meaning that the real number could be no increase at all. It also includes numbers below 1.0, which would indicate a protective effect. This means that the RR of 1.16 is not statistically significant.
• A RR of less than 2.0 is usually not considered important and, most likely to be due to error or bias. An RR of 3.0 or higher is considered desirable. (This rule of thumb is routinely ignored by the anti-smoker activists.)
• The study found no Dose/Response relationship for spousal ETS exposure.
• The RR for workplace ETS was 1.17 with a CI of .94 - 1.45, well below the preferred 2.0 - 3.0, and with another CI that straddled 1.0.
• The RR for exposure from both a smoking spouse and a smoky workplace was 1.14, with a CI of .88 - 1.47.
• The RR for exposure during childhood was 0.78, with a CI of .64 - .96. This indicates a protective effect! Children exposed to ETS in the home during childhood are 22% less likely to get lung cancer, according to this study. Note that this was the only result in the study that did not include 1.0 in the CI.

The WHO quickly buried the report. The British press got wind of it and hounded them for weeks.

On March 8, 1998, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported “The world’s leading health organization has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect.”

Finally, the WHO issued a press release. Although their study showed no statistically significant risk from ETS, their press release had the misleading headline “Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer - Do Not Let Them Fool You.” (I say “misleading” because it would be impolite to call it an outright lie.)

In paragraph four they admitted the facts: “The study found that there was an estimated 16% increased risk of lung cancer among nonsmoking spouses of smokers. For workplace exposure the estimated increase in risk was 17%. However, due to small sample size, neither increased risk was statistically significant.” (Emphasis added.)

The press release doesn’t mention the one statistically significant result from the study, that children raised by smokers were 22% less likely to get lung cancer.

The WHO tried to blame the results on a small sample size. However, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, where the results were published, the researchers clearly state: “An important aspect of our study in relation to previous studies is its size, which allowed us to obtain risk estimates with good statistical precision…”

It should also be noted that the most likely effect of a larger sample size wouldn’t be a large change to the RR, but a narrowed CI.

Download an abstract of the study.
Download the full study.
Download the WHO’s press release.
Synopsis of the WHO Study provided courtesy of The Hitt Chronicle. via Cigarmony.com 

Add CCTV for enforcing this law and it would be perfect!

California’s Govenor Schwarzenegger signed a bill, effective as of January 1, that banned smoking in personal automobiles if anyone under the age of 18 is in the vehicle. However, the only way to get a ticket for this offense is to be pulled over for a moving violation, such as speeding or making an illegal turn.

I don’t know, my neighbor’s house is still pretty close, and he smokes when he works in the yard!

On October 9, Belmont, California, city officials passed a law banning smoking in apartment buildings, though smoking is still allowed in single-family dwellings and their yards, as well as units and yards in apartment buildings, condominiums, and townhouses that don’t share common floors or ceilings with other units…

Thank goodness they quit smoking!

The Food and Drug Administration has announced that Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix is under investigation due to reports of dangerous side effects…The complaints included 55 reports of suicide, 199 reports of suicidal thoughts, 417 cases of depression, and hundreds of reports of anger, aggression, hallucination, and homicidal thoughts.

Just in case you thought it was just us.

United Kingdom: The revised Highway Code for the Department of Transport (National) that was released on Spetember 28 now lists smoking while driving as a distraction, which means that police and lawyers can cite it in court when looking to convict for a traffic offense. Other driving distractions on the list include eating or drinking, turning on a radio, inserting CDs or tapes, arguing with passengers, trying to read a map, and playing loud music.

Just in case you thought Americans were the only stupid people on the planet.

England: Six police officers in full riot gear stormed the Copper Pot pub on September 8 after an enraged cricket fan lit a cigarette in protest when the bar’s TV’s channel was changed from the England v. India cricket game to a football game. Pub staff, after asking John Vaughan to extinguish his smoke, hit the bar’s panic button, which summoned the local authorities. Despite police involvement, no arrests were made and Vaughan peacefully left the premises.

Is Everybody Stupid?

Taken From The News Section Of The Spring 2008 Issue Of Cigar Magazine