In 2003, UCLA epidemiologist James Enstrom and I published a study of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)—also called “secondhand smoke” or “passive smoking”—in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Using data from the American Cancer Society’s prospective study of 1 million adults, we concluded that ETS exposure was not associated with increased mortality.
Since that conclusion flew in the face of the conventional wisdom that had long driven state and local bans on smoking in public places, our study understandably sparked a controversy in the public health community. But the intensity of the attack on us in the pages of a medical journal—by critics who were certain that our study had to be wrong but typically failed to provide specific evidence of fatal errors—vividly illustrates what can happen when policy preferences that have taken on the status of doctrine override rational scientific debate.
A recent study by American Cancer Society (ACS) researchers underscores that point by showing that, contrary to what our critics asserted, the cancer risk posed by ETS is likely negligible. The authors present that striking result without remarking on it, which may reflect their reluctance to revisit a debate that anti-smoking activists and public health officials wrongly view as long settled.
Because there’s no grift in “likely negligible”/
Perhaps these second hand smoke studies are now coming out to be able to counter complaints of second hand marijuana smoke?
I never believed in the mortal dangers of second hand smoke but I’m glad I don’t have to smell it in restaurants and such. Now if smokers could just learn that the whole world is not their ashtray and that butts are litter. People that would never do the same with a paper cup see no problem in tossing their butts anywhere they please.
I don’t like the smell of patchouli oil, but I don’t make an issue of it like you seem to be doing with cigarette smoke, and unlike you, I wouldn’t be “glad” if they banned it, and started handing out fines to bar owners for permitting it. You are what is colloquially known as a “Karen.”
Also, if you don’t like cigarette butts all over the place, well, you and your ilk should never have gotten rid of the once ubiquitous ashtrays.
So, they all lied through their teeth, and now nobody can smoke in restaurants and pubs.
Its come out that they lied through their teeth, and we still can’t smoke in restaurants and pubs, or laundromats, or variety stores, or doctors’/dentist’s waiting rooms, in work vehicles, etc.
I travel to Ontario a lot and I remember when bars and restaurants were allowed to install sealed off, usually glass-walled, smoking rooms. Then TPTB decided to hell with that and required bars and restaurants to eliminate those smoking rooms entirely. Probably too many Karens caught a whiff of smoke when the entrance door was opened. So a double burden and double costs were imposed on the hospitality sector.
Smoking was still allowed on outdoor patios, but that was prohibited too at some point.
Jesus wept is all I have to add.
The authors of the first study took flack, but it shows the power of well-designed scientific studies. Over time these studies will chip away at what people want to believe, replacing it with what actually is.
As long as I smoked, if the wife and kids wanted no second hand smoke they could choose to go outside. I suspect they turned a lot of spouses and children into nags that destroyed a lot of families. All for nothing.
if anybody can come up with a remedy for the really nauseating stench of an ashtray l might loosen my attitude about it. and resolve the idiocy of ‘smoking section’ in a friggin passenger plane.
I remember that study well. It was over a ten year period, and was the most comprehensive one ever undertaken on the subject. I have also referenced it a few times over the years when arguing with the climate alarmists, to make the point that actual science and incontrovertible facts are invariably pushed aside when BIG MONEY is involved (Ukraine is another great example of the latter).
It seems that they have completely demonized tobacco smokers and second hand smoke, but for some reason pot smoke is considered completely acceptable and if you complain about it then you’re just a “far right “ idiot.
Thank you liberals
Where is Fred Singer? He died a few years ago at age 93. He was a physicist, who often strayed outside his field, but he was always right I guess. He came up with this conclusion decades ago, was against the idea of anthropogenic climate change, the supposed connection between UV-B and melanoma, and those old ‘bad’ aerosols depleting the ozone. There are other items, but I will stop here. Oh, except I’ll add one more. He wandered into theabiotic oil debate, where he was labeled a Russian shill.
Porgy and Bess?
“The things that you’er libel to read in the bible, they ain’t necessarily so”.
The “Second hand smoke scare” was BS from the beginning,a side effect to designating Smokers as the modern witches.
Medical science has so little science taking place that it makes primitive witchdoctors look brilliant.
This is the key phrase “Since that conclusion flew in the face of the conventional wisdom “.
Contrary to the self proclaimed authorities.
Arguing from their position of authority..On foundations of public trust, or sand in this case.
Dread Covid Theatre exposed all of these mediocre self congratulating “experts” for what they are.
“The Science” if you are a conformist fool.
Once we had “Evidence based policy making”
Now we see Policy based evidence manufacturing.
The former mostly worked.
The latter never has.
Partly because of the type of people who want to impose their policies on others.