EPTAnti-Smoking Conspiracy? - Page 5
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MyCrow
Korea (South)248 Posts
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FrEaK[S.sIR]
2373 Posts
On October 08 2007 00:39 Gandalf wrote: And that claim is ludicrous because? Because you think so? Because you heard so somewhere? CMDT, 2007, quoted verbatim: "Of approximately 450,000 smoking-related deaths in the United States annually, as many as 53,000 are attributable to environmental tobacco smoke." 53,000 people dying because of second hand smoke every year just in the USA is pretty significant. I dont find anything ludicrous about it. The book just has a page on smoking, but its still pretty scary. Whats more, the time period where most people start smoking is high school and college. Do you really think a high school kid is wise enough to make a decision that can potentially massively influence his entire life? Whats more, the decision to start smoking is pretty much always uninformed. Sure, everyones heard smoking causes cancer and COPD, but nobody really researches a bit before picking it up. I also dont get why you think passive smoking will only be damaging if blown directly into ones face, and I dont know where you got this idea from. Is that how you "think" tobacco smoke works? Gas diffuses, and you dont need to pump someone lungs with 100kgs of tobacco smoke everyday for him or her to suffer the ill effects. And tobacco smoke doesnt need to "mix" with the rest of the polluted air to be harmful. It carries 40+ identified carcinogens, god knows how many unidentified ones. I don't see what the time period in which people start smoking has anything to do with anything I said? I never said it would only be damaging if only blown in one's face. I never said you had to pump 100kgs of tobacco smoke everyday for somebody to suffer ill effects. I never said that it needed to mix with the rest of the polluted air to be harmful. I never said it didn't contain carcinogens. I never said it wasn't bad for you. Anything else? The issue with a study that claims that "Of approximately 450,000 smoking-related deaths in the United States annually, as many as 53,000 are attributable to environmental tobacco smoke." is that you can not realistically quantify how much of the toxic/unhealthy/polluted air was from cigarette smoke. These things take decades to come into effect. You would need to quantify how much and of what somebody breathed over that time that slowly deteriorated their health. These things aren't poisons being injected directly into somebody's system, they are things that are slowly deteriorating the health of the person. You would have to have the person check in with you regularly and be checked in order to identify exactly what is doing the damage to them and to what degree. There are a lot of pollutants in the air. It would be very difficult to single out which one is responsible for the damage. It's likely a combination of most of them. All it really actually says is that environmental tobacco smoke was a contributing factor. I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that singling it out and saying that tobacco smoke is the pollutant completely responsible is virtually impossible to do without constantly testing the person over time, except in some rare cases(somebody exposed to an environment with a significantly higher amount of cigarette smoke than other pollutants. With the recent ban on smoking in public places these are few and far between and even before it were fairly exclusive to people working in environments with lots of smokers indoors). It's unhealthy for you, so is most of the stuff in our air that's been being pumped into it for centuries now. Funny thing about using the word "attributable", instead of a more direct word, is the word can be used as "contributing factor" as well as "directly caused by". Spinning language is a big thing in the science world. It allows one to be biased while not compromising your professionalism. Unless you are willing to look at the studies that are being published yourself rather than just taking the public statements of said studies(which are usually not made by the scientists themselves but by whoever is funding the studies or is using the results of the studies to push their agenda) then you really don't have a leg to stand on. You should also work on actually interpreting my post as a whole rather than just taking small portions of it and exaggerating and twisting them to mean something that they clearly did not. I explained my point well, now I've explained it further. Hopefully this will keep you from grossly misinterpreting things this time around. FYI, it's not "because I think so" or "because somebody told me so". I spent a lot of time researching this stuff helping a friend with a project a few years ago and spent a lot of time looking at scientific studies and papers and taking them for what they said. There are a number that go either way on the damage that second hand smoke does. No legitimate ones say that they are not harmful. Most are either it's a big killer, it's immeasurable or it's effects are insignificant and the damage is mainly being done by the overall poor state of our air. The 3rd one is actually the most common but the loudest voices are of the people in the 1st. It has the most public interest and gets you more funding. Imagine that. That's what happened when you are governmentally funded. | ||
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
"I think the effects of second hand smoke is exaggerated or worded in ways that it doesn't properly contextualize the effects." Sure, this will be true for some studies, but the effects of smoking have been studied for decades by professional researchers, and the effects of second hand smoke are neither "exaggerated" nor worded in ways that do not properly contextualize the effects. Surely you dont think all these really smart guys have been, for whatever reason, misleading us? "Most studies mention a percentage increase in the catching of already fairly rare diseases, numerating it makes it appear to be an almost negligible statistic." Oh really? CAD is rare? What about strokes? Atherosclerosis? Pulmonary thromboembolism? Lung cancer? Breast cancer? Cervical cancer? Endometrial cancer? Prostatic cancer? COPD? Asthma in kids? PUD? Otitis media? These are the most common disease conditions and cancers in the developed world. And this is only a really, really tiny fraction of the diseases smoking is implicated in. The one statement you'll find most prevalent in medical text is "Smoking is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the world". Doesnt seem like a negligible statistic to me. "A lot of money is wasted on research on second hand smoke. Conclusion: Breathing in low-quality air, or air with unhealthy and/or toxic substances in it is bad for you. Well duh." No shit. You know why else these researcher people are dumb? Cuz everyone knows eating fat laden foods is bad for someone with coronary artery disease, but they still keep studying it. What morons. All they have to do is give the guy some drugs to keep his lipids low. So why all the research? Because this isnt a casual discussion. You need to prove things before you can accurately implement counter measures. Why is the cut-off for an oral glucose test in diabetes 200? Why isnt it 190? Or 210? All three values are abnormally high, but research gives us a precise answer and equips us to deal with it more effectively. "Second hand smoke except in some places that have a very high volume of cigarette smoke in the air is very low volume and is no worse for you than the current state of the atmosphere." If we take the non-tobacco smoke pollutants in the air to be constant, adding second hand tobacco smoke to it, no matter how little, will worsen it. And if theres tobacco smoke in the air you breath, then its an added risk. Furthermore, saying its "low-volume" means nothing. Different substances need different concentrations to be damaging at, so that is a pointless statement to make. "There is too many different hazardous pollutants in the air we breathe all around us to determine that sort of thing, even a mildly accurate estimate would be impossible." Oh really? So that figure I gave you from CMDT, about 53000 deaths annually in the US cuz of second hand smoke, how'd they come up with that? A multitude of studies, all with statistically significant results. The major chunk of your argument seems to revolve around the fact that since we've already got a ton of pollutants in the air, its impossible to determine within reasonable limits how much of the risk is due to smoking. Even with that logic, though, an agreement seems in place that it IS damaging. "Any claim that a smoker is increasing the pollution in the air you are breathing by any significant margin is just spewing ignorance." Oh yeah, you're right, and 10,000,000 studies are wrong. Studies will always give you exact statistical figures, so there isnt a requirement to guess how significant the results are. "Unless they're blowing it directly into your face it diffuses into the rest of the polluted air you are breathing and becomes a toxic mix of all the other crap you're inhaling." So the smoke diffuses into the air, then comes back to you. And so people do inhale second hand smoke. Your point? We all know urban air has a lot of shit in it, but this discussion is about the impact of smoking. "The issue with a study that claims that "Of approximately 450,000 smoking-related deaths in the United States annually, as many as 53,000 are attributable to environmental tobacco smoke." is that you can not realistically quantify how much of the toxic/unhealthy/polluted air was from cigarette smoke. These things take decades to come into effect. You would need to quantify how much and of what somebody breathed over that time that slowly deteriorated their health. These things aren't poisons being injected directly into somebody's system, they are things that are slowly deteriorating the health of the person. You would have to have the person check in with you regularly and be checked in order to identify exactly what is doing the damage to them and to what degree. There are a lot of pollutants in the air. It would be very difficult to single out which one is responsible for the damage. It's likely a combination of most of them" Look, within statistically significant limits, the direct impact of cigarrette smoke has been quantified in god knows how many studies. The effects of smoking have also been tested under laboratory settings. For example, its known that certain chemicals in smoke are mutagenic for P53, which is the tumor suppressor gene implicated in more cancers than any other. They then test the amount of smoking required to do that, correlate it with population studies, rinse and repeat for decades, and come up with results that'll give you the confidence intervals and blah blah. Its easy for you to say "thats impossible to calculate", but its not. Theres an error of margin, of course, but the more you research it, the smaller it gets. The 53,000 number, by the way, wasnt one study. Its the average calculated from studies over the last several years. "All it really actually says is that environmental tobacco smoke was a contributing factor. I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that singling it out and saying that tobacco smoke is the pollutant completely responsible is virtually impossible to do without constantly testing the person over time, except in some rare cases(somebody exposed to an environment with a significantly higher amount of cigarette smoke than other pollutants." This is a really pointless statement, because no one has ever argued smoking is "completely responsible". ????? You've been imagining things throughout your post. Just because you've got more than one risk factor "mixed" together doesnt mean you cant dilineate their specific contribution. Myocardial infarction, for example. Tons of risk factors (smoking is one by the way). So we could try your approach, discredit all scientific work, and reject the notion that the contribution of each risk factor can be calculated within significant limits. "Funny thing about using the word "attributable", instead of a more direct word, is the word can be used as "contributing factor" as well as "directly caused by". Spinning language is a big thing in the science world. It allows one to be biased while not compromising your professionalism." No? Causal relationships and risk factors are different terms with different meanings. These words might be mixed up in the newspaper, not in medical journals. Try reading one. "Unless you are willing to look at the studies that are being published yourself rather than just taking the public statements of said studies(which are usually not made by the scientists themselves but by whoever is funding the studies or is using the results of the studies to push their agenda) then you really don't have a leg to stand on." I'm a med grad. I've been looking at texts and journals for 5+ years now. That paragraph describes your post though. And exactly what is the source of all the statments you've made? "I spent a lot of time researching this stuff helping a friend with a project a few years ago and spent a lot of time looking at scientific studies and papers and taking them for what they said."[/i] Let me know the journals you read and their date of publicatin, and I'll go have a look. Meanwhile, you should do some reading too, instead of throwing random, incorrect facts around. | ||
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iSTime
1579 Posts
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Stygg
Sweden1100 Posts
it should also be more expensive Oct 14th I'm quitting, wish me luck | ||
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baal
10541 Posts
If there are sooooo many people worried about it i bet a super duper smart bussiness guy will open a non-smoking restaurant/bar... and it will be crowded (according to your fucking pathetic claims). But anyway, lets just get facists for the fuck of it... lets legislate bullshit in private property... lets enforce smoking area and non-smoking...... not enough? Ok lets just go plain nuts nazis now.... lets enforce in the smokers area an air extraction device. Apparently that isnt enough either. Do you realize this bullshit its the same crap its being legislated in some states in america abow public indicency?... moms are not allowed to breast feed their kids in public.... not even in fucking privately own bussinesses. Same fucking argument, hell it sounds stupid to you, but it does disturb my sight, and i am in my RIGHT to not want to see that, or not want my kids to see your fucking tit hanging out, its undecent... if you want to breat feed please go to the bathroom, or your car. | ||
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baal
10541 Posts
On October 08 2007 22:53 Stygg wrote: I'm a smoker and I still think it's good smoking is getting banned from so many places it should also be more expensive Oct 14th I'm quitting, wish me luck care to elaborate in your stupidity? | ||
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QuanticHawk
United States32083 Posts
On October 08 2007 22:53 Stygg wrote: I'm a smoker and I still think it's good smoking is getting banned from so many places it should also be more expensive Oct 14th I'm quitting, wish me luck Good luck dude. Shit's a nasty habit. | ||
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Sawajiri
Austria417 Posts
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Stygg
Sweden1100 Posts
it's a small step towards ridding mankind of what is one of the most foul, nasty and completely unnecessary things to have ever been invented. It may be bad for smokers and they (we) will cry omg nazi nazi, but in the long run this has to be good for mankind. People cry at first but then adapt to it as with everything else. If you call that stupidity, I feel sorry for you. Every step counts, make it as "uncool" as possible so kids don't pick it up in next generations | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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BluzMan
Russian Federation4235 Posts
On October 08 2007 23:47 Stygg wrote: it's a small step towards ridding mankind of what is one of the most foul, nasty and completely unnecessary things to have ever been invented. It may be bad for smokers and they (we) will cry omg nazi nazi, but in the long run this has to be good for mankind. People cry at first but then adapt to it as with everything else. If you call that stupidity, I feel sorry for you. Every step counts, make it as "uncool" as possible so kids don't pick it up in next generations Internet? | ||
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Wizard
Poland5055 Posts
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ToKoreaWithLove
Norway10161 Posts
On October 08 2007 22:53 Stygg wrote: I'm a smoker and I still think it's good smoking is getting banned from so many places it should also be more expensive Oct 14th I'm quitting, wish me luck Good luck! I quit almost two years ago now, and it was surprisingly easy. Then I picked up snus like a year ago, and quit 2 months ago, that was a lot harder  I quit cold turkey on both occations, btw. Not that hard. | ||
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ToKoreaWithLove
Norway10161 Posts
On October 08 2007 23:01 baal wrote: Do you realize this bullshit its the same crap its being legislated in some states in america abow public indicency?... moms are not allowed to breast feed their kids in public.... not even in fucking privately own bussinesses. Same fucking argument, hell it sounds stupid to you, but it does disturb my sight, and i am in my RIGHT to not want to see that, or not want my kids to see your fucking tit hanging out, its undecent... if you want to breat feed please go to the bathroom, or your car. Eh breast feeding won't damage your health. | ||
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FrEaK[S.sIR]
2373 Posts
I guess you got me. Except you didn't really prove my main point wrong. My point has very little to do with the effects of smoking but with the amount of environmental tobacco smoke there is outdoors and if it is in concentration high enough to be considered significantly damaging, especially to the degree people are lead to believe it is. Since there is a huge lacking of data in air monitoring and the levels of OTS, I would say you can't really disprove anything I've said until more research is done. In fact, there are almost no published studies on systematic measurement of human exposure to outdoor tobacco smoke. But I mean, that can quantify it anyway, without that kind of data, right? My bad. You got me. I mean with the first published study on the topic being in May 2007, who am I to argue? I mean, knowing the levels of outdoor tobacco smoke is so unimportant to being able to determine the significance of second hand smoke with the recent bans of smoking in indoor public places, right? They don't need that kind of information to quantify how much damage is or is not being done, do they? Who really needs to know how much tobacco smoke is or is not being breathed in? What does how much of it you're breathing in have to do with anything anyway? Who was I to argue such a silly thing? That and the studies that have been published say that while levels around the source and downwind of the source are similar to those indoors during periods of active smoking, they go back to normal almost directly after smoking ceases except in certain very low wind conditions. They also say that those that are upwind from the smoker have a negligible amount of tobacco smoke in the air. In fact, unless you spend a very large amount of time in close proximity of a smoker, you will never breath in a significant amount of tobacco smoke. The wind circulates it all so it doesn't have enough time to settle and concentrate to the point of being dangerous. The fact that second hand smoke studies to date could not and have not take this kind of information into account does mean that a lot of money was wasted on it, especially since banning smoking indoors. That is why they are either exaggerated or not properly contextualized. They haven't been misleading us. They get research that tells us that certain effects occur in certain conditions. Those conditions aren't present outdoors, nor are they present indoors unless there are people smoking regularly. Unless they can prove these conditions are present, which they did with levels of indoor tobacco smoke, it is wasted money as well as an exaggeration of the real world effects of second hand smoke. Things are only dangerous if the conditions that make the dangerous are present.[NOTE: The levels of OTS are still dangerous for high risk persons but other than a complete ban of smoking, this can't be helped. And unfortunately it would be impossible to prohibit smoking at this point.] You can spout off all the medical stuff you want about smoking. Some of the stuff I've said about the effects of smoking may be inaccurate or wrong, but that isn't the primary point I'm disputing. Your claims of there being many studies in the area that I am talking about are wildly incorrect. But congratulations on completely missing my point. | ||
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FrEaK[S.sIR]
2373 Posts
Can't say I'm surprised that the med student was oblivious to it though. There may be other factors to the level of danger(or lack of) than simply what effect they have on the human body. Oh. Em. Gee. I guess I should start seriously considering the dangers of everything that's potentially harmful in my every day life. Who cares if the conditions for them being so aren't present. | ||
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
On October 09 2007 03:16 FrEaK[S.sIR] wrote: Gandalf: If you honestly believe that nobody is saying that smoking is completely responsible for destroying their health...I don't even know what to say. People do it constantly. The anti-smoking lobbyists do it constantly. I've seen people start yelling at a smoker for "destroying our air" and "killing other people". You see it in this thread, people think that a smoker is actively destroying their health rather than it being a combination of factors. I guess you got me. Except you didn't really prove my main point wrong. My point has very little to do with the effects of smoking but with the amount of environmental tobacco smoke there is outdoors and if it is in concentration high enough to be considered significantly damaging, especially to the degree people are lead to believe it is. Since there is a huge lacking of data in air monitoring and the levels of OTS, I would say you can't really disprove anything I've said until more research is done. In fact, there are almost no published studies on systematic measurement of human exposure to outdoor tobacco smoke. But I mean, that can quantify it anyway, without that kind of data, right? My bad. You got me. I mean with the first published study on the topic being in May 2007, who am I to argue? I mean, knowing the levels of outdoor tobacco smoke is so unimportant to being able to determine the significance of second hand smoke with the recent bans of smoking in indoor public places, right? They don't need that kind of information to quantify how much damage is or is not being done, do they? Who really needs to know how much tobacco smoke is or is not being breathed in? What does how much of it you're breathing in have to do with anything anyway? Who was I to argue such a silly thing? That and the studies that have been published say that while levels around the source and downwind of the source are similar to those indoors during periods of active smoking, they go back to normal almost directly after smoking ceases except in certain very low wind conditions. They also say that those that are upwind from the smoker have a negligible amount of tobacco smoke in the air. In fact, unless you spend a very large amount of time in close proximity of a smoker, you will never breath in a significant amount of tobacco smoke. The wind circulates it all so it doesn't have enough time to settle and concentrate to the point of being dangerous. The fact that second hand smoke studies to date could not and have not take this kind of information into account does mean that a lot of money was wasted on it, especially since banning smoking indoors. That is why they are either exaggerated or not properly contextualized. They haven't been misleading us. They get research that tells us that certain effects occur in certain conditions. Those conditions aren't present outdoors, nor are they present indoors unless there are people smoking regularly. Unless they can prove these conditions are present, which they did with levels of indoor tobacco smoke, it is wasted money as well as an exaggeration of the real world effects of second hand smoke. Things are only dangerous if the conditions that make the dangerous are present.[NOTE: The levels of OTS are still dangerous for high risk persons but other than a complete ban of smoking, this can't be helped. And unfortunately it would be impossible to prohibit smoking at this point.] You can spout off all the medical stuff you want about smoking. Some of the stuff I've said about the effects of smoking may be inaccurate or wrong, but that isn't the primary point I'm disputing. Your claims of there being many studies in the area that I am talking about are wildly incorrect. But congratulations on completely missing my point. I'm not American, I've only been there a few times, I have no idea what the politicians or the lobbyists etc say, nor do I know the financial or economic implications of banning smoking or taxing it more or something. My discussion is solely about the ill effects of smoking. I never contended smoking is completely responsible for the ailments its listed as a causal or risk factor for. Thats an incredibly stupid statement to make. If people do it constantly, they need to be educated. So do the people who say smoking isnt a risk factor for anything and that its just propaganda. If both sides are willing to engage in reasonable debate, they'll both be enlightened. I think you probably skimmed through my post, because I never said this. If you know people who do, or if people in this thread have, respond to them. Again, you've missed my point completely. Environmental tobacco smoke, or ETS, or passive smoke, does NOT mean outdoor smoke. If you're in a bar with 20 people smoking in there and you're inhaling it, its ETS. Didnt that occur to you when I quoted a figure from reputed medical text? The outdoors is actually the least damaging place to smoke, since the greater volume of air to diffuse into will obviously dilute the chemicals. But the fact is that people get exposed to smoke in restaraunts, bars, etc and other closed spaces. You know whats worse? Parents who smoke at home. They think they can let the kids into the lounge or room or w/e and the smoke will be gone by then. A lot dont even care to do that. I know, they're idiots. But the rules arent being made solely to appease the fraction of smokers who actually ARE careful about when and where they smoke. Again, CMDT puts the number of annual deaths due to second hand smoke at 53,000 in the US. This is a figure derived from several studies over several years. Again, dont confuse second hand smoke with outdoor smoke. I thought this distinction would be remarkably clear to anyone, guess it wasnt. And just to make it clear, ETS isnt outdoor smoke either. Thats second hand smoke too, no matter where you're exposed to it. Your last two posts have failed to answer a lot of issues I've raised. You come up with mostly unfounded and opinionated information, then completely ignore my counter argument to it. I dont have a problem with smokers personally, as long as they're courteous about not bothering others. What troubles me is that every single smoker I've ever known is HUGELY uninformed about its implications. I mean, when we buy a computer, we do a little research. When we buy a house, we hire a professional to help us out. Yet most smokers start around high school, without any information about it whatsoever. And no, this point isnt directed at you, so dont start fighting about it. If you do respond to this post, I hope you dont do it just to win the argument or something. I've mentioned a lot of stuff in my last two posts that you've completely ignored, then said a few things based on a misunderstanding on your part, and tried to undermine my points. Also bear in mind that I have no stance on where or when smoking should be banned. I'm simply debating the medical consequences, of both first hand as well as second hand smoke. Again, not outdoor smoke, just so we're clear. I hope your next reply doesnt completely ignore my entire post, come up with something new, and congratulate me on missing the entire point. You've constantly argued about there being a certain "level" of second hand smoke being dangerous. Right? What if I were to say: "There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure. Even brief exposure can be dangerous." Would you buy it? Of course not. You'd tell me there was no way to accurately measure smoke exposure, or that blah blah blah. You'll find an article with all its references here: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/Factsheets/SecondhandSmoke.htm The real beauty of this page is that it clarifies outdoor smoke is not tantamount to second hand smoke. I really wouldnt want this point to be raised again. | ||
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