Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I do indeed concede that Suzy. In the same way that I would concede that being locked in a closet with a few dozen feet of thick burning rope would probably kill you. That does not mean that I think that children should be forbidden from having birthday parties at McDonald's and blowing out all the little burning ropes in their birthday cake candles. Antismokers love to deal in absolutes (e.g., "There is no safe level.") in their arguments. I feel that such arguments are fundamentally dishonest in the way they are used.
I'll leave it up to readers to agree with you or with me on that.
You still have not provided any proof of your assertion that there is a safe level of exposure to ETS.
Quote:
I expected to find some sort of highly concentrated exposure in human beings in the citation at (57) and was planning to use it as an illustration. However, as far as I'm able to determine, the study, "Role of Leukotrienes in Leukocyte Adhesion Following Systemic Administration of Oxidatively Modified Human Low Density Lipoprotein in Hamsters" not only used hamsters but does not even MENTION smoke, much less "Exposure of 5 min to the smoke of one cigarette."
This sort of seemingly sloppy referencing/attribution in antismoking research is nothing new: I've seen it before. Are researchers simply incompetent when they make citations like this to support their arguments, or is it deliberate? Again, Suzy and I would differ. Given their pay scale I would question the incompetency claim.
It appears the wrong article was referenced.
It should have been this one. We shall blame it on the lazy grad student who did the list of references.
"Awake hamsters were exposed for 5 min to the mainstream smoke of one cigarette (2R1 research cigarette), inducing nicotine, cotinine, and carboxyhemoglobin plasma levels comparable to levels found in human smokers. In control animals (n = 7), CS exposure elicited the rolling and subsequent adhesion of fluorescently stained leukocytes to the endothelium of arterioles and postcapillary venules. Leukocyte/endothelium interaction was preceded by an early rise in xanthine oxidase activity and intravascular hemolysis."
Sure, it's an animal study. But the physiology is the same.
This law will never go away. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with money.
The hotel saves money on the life of the items in the room PLUS they get to charge absurd fees for those people who choose to smoke anyway regardless of the laws. Just about every hotel chain I stay has a no smoking policy regardless of state laws.
Anyone too lazy to smoke their cancer causing rat poison sticks outside doesn't deserve my healthy ass subsidizing their failing lungs and hearts later in life through insurance premiums.
I love how right-wing zealots will try to claim "liberty" whilst also hoping that the rest of the populace foots the bill for their idiotic, crazy, selfish ideals. I'm more afraid of right-wingers like the Tea Party than the communists.
Twinkles? Potato Chips? Alcohol? How about a national health plan that only treats people who live a healthy lifestyle. You realize that the poorer a person is the more likely he is to have an unhealthy diet? Anyone too lazy to prepare a healthy dinner doesn't deserve my healthy ass subsidizing their fat ass later in life through insurance premiums.
I say we put everyone with an unhealthy BMI or who drinks into a high-risk pool and let them pay the tab. I'm sick of the poor lefties expecting me to pick up the tab for their unhealthy choices. I'm more afraid of the fringe left-wing than I am of terrorists.
This guy lit a cigarette, somewhere in my city twenty years ago, now I have cancer. Give me a break. Drive out of the city and if the fresh air smells weird, then you have far more to be concerned about than shs.
I live in Los Angeles - simply breathing is the equivalent to smoking a pack a day (according to science), yet we have bans on the beach (do you know how windy the beach is?), parks, sidewalks... and now the control mongers want it to be illegal to smoke on your porch.
It's one thing to ban it in confined areas like restaurants and bars, but quite another in the open air. The uber-extremists main goal is to stop people from doing anything THEY, and THEIR ILK doesn't approve. Pseudoscience is the new method of providing such "proof" for any agenda one wishes to push.
Twinkles? Potato Chips? Alcohol? How about a national health plan that only treats people who live a healthy lifestyle. You realize that the poorer a person is the more likely he is to have an unhealthy diet? Anyone too lazy to prepare a healthy dinner doesn't deserve my healthy ass subsidizing their fat ass later in life through insurance premiums.
I say we put everyone with an unhealthy BMI or who drinks into a high-risk pool and let them pay the tab. I'm sick of the poor lefties expecting me to pick up the tab for their unhealthy choices. I'm more afraid of the fringe left-wing than I am of terrorists.
1: Deflection to twinkles (sic), potato chips and alcohol, which are not the topic of the thread.
2. Ingestion of the first two substances only affects the health of the person ingesting them, and even in the case of alcohol, the majority of the ill effects are on the person using it. All of the above can be used in moderation with no deleterious effects on ANYONE.
3. What makes you think "lefties" are more likely to eat twinkles (sic), chips and drink alcohol than "righties"?
Twinkies, Ho-Ho's, soda, or cigs. They are all bad for the health, and, as you note, non-partisan. It was stated that anyone who smoked didn't deserve insurance dollars. I pointed out that junk food and alcohol are larger drains on the health system than cigarettes. The effects of second-hand smoke are real, but a drop in the bucket compared to the affect and cost of junk food and alcohol. Smoking primarily affects the smoker also. I'd argue that more people die of second-hand alcohol (DWI) than of second-hand smoke. I'm sure the stats are out there somewhere. I think you are the doctor - you can probably attest to that.
You didn't really read the post I referenced or you wouldn't have asked why I made the Left/Right comment.
Oh, I apologixe in advanze four any speelling or grandma errors in the above post, but bee sure to point them out if it makes ewe feel better.
The first reference exposed mice "to the smoke of" Kentucky standard reference cigarettes, but, unless my eyes are failing me, made NO reference to how concentrated the smoke was. Did they burn the cigarettes in a large ventilated room where the mice were kept? Unlikely. Did they blow ALL the smoke from a burning cigarette with all of it being sidestream smoke as opposed to exhaled mainstream smoke directly into a little plastic gas mask to force the mice to inhale all of it? More likely -- although my guess is that the experimental setup was somewhere in between but tilted toward the latter.
The second reference isn't a "study" at all, but seems to be just an article in which the authors discuss a whole bunch (49) of other articles and studies and reach the earthshaking opinion that :
"Abundant evidence exists about reflexes, including those to the cardiovascular system, activated by inhalation of pollutants in experimental animals. Nearly all the studies have been acute or short term. Similar experiments suggest that humans have the same reflexes, but they have not been extensively analyzed, especially with regard to the cardiovascular system. The applicability of this large body of research to the pathophysiologic results of long-term exposure to atmospheric pollutants is at present very tenuous."
I was going to respond to this, but I had to take a break and make dinner. That is always a great time to think.
Given that any research to you involves "too much smoke", I have two questions.
First, since you concede that second hand smoke is hazardous to your health, why do you smoke? If you smoke, you are exposed to both mainstream and second hand smoke.
Second, since you are unable to show me any studies defining a safe level of exposure to second hand smoke, what gives you, and smokers in general, the right to expose non-smokers to any level of second hand smoke? Why do you get the privilege of defining what is acceptable risk, given that the people who study SHS have concluded that there is no safe level?
"Of the 10,839 people who died in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes in 2009, 7,281 (67%) were drivers with a BAC of .08 or higher. The remaining fatalities consisted of 2,891 (27%) motor vehicle occupants and 667 (6%) nonoccupants."
You still have not provided any proof of your assertion that there is a safe level of exposure to ETS.
Nor have you provided proof that there is a safe level of exposure to tiny little ropes burning on birthday cakes at McDonald's. Yet no one sane is seeking to ban them. Nor have you provided proof that there is a safe level of exposure to sunshine, and yet no one is banning patio dining "to protect the workers."
Do I believe there are absolutely "safe" levels of any of the above? Not necessarily. But I DO believe there are crazy people out there who worry about such things if there's enough grant money being offered to do so.
And you wrote:
Quote:
It appears the wrong article was referenced.
It should have been this one. We shall blame it on the lazy grad student who did the list of references.
I wonder who you blame the rest of the sloppy antismoking research on Suzy? The lazy medical journal editors who don't check the research as carefully as I do? Or perhaps the lazy peer reviewers who simply pat each other on the back so their own lazy research gets peer-passed and published by the lazy editors? Or perhaps the lazy people who defend and promote such research and its results without checking it out themselves?
Remember the lazy editors at the British Medical Journal who concluded that the research showing there was no effect of smoking bans on heart attack rates didn't add to what was already generally known? I don't remember if this is one of my references that you decided wasn't worth reading, but I'll reference it again just in case:
You then go on to quote from what you believe to be the "proper" reference that you suddenly had handy (You'll note that I'm not using the quote function here so you won't need to explain again that these are not your own words that I'm criticizing.):
"Awake hamsters were exposed for 5 min to the mainstream smoke of one cigarette (2R1 research cigarette), inducing nicotine, cotinine, and carboxyhemoglobin plasma levels comparable to levels found in human smokers. In control animals (n = 7), CS exposure elicited the rolling and subsequent adhesion of fluorescently stained leukocytes to the endothelium of arterioles and postcapillary venules. Leukocyte/endothelium interaction was preceded by an early rise in xanthine oxidase activity and intravascular hemolysis."
Suzy, note the phrase "comparable to levels found in human smokers."
In other words, "levels that were 100 to 1,000 to perhaps even 10,000 times greater than the levels Antismokers worry about when they're screaming for smoking bans everywhere" (And note, just in case you're confused, those ARE my own words despite the quotation marks.)
Quote:
Sure, it's an animal study. But the physiology is the same.
Hamster physiology is the same as human physiology eh? How about dogs? I'm sure my dog would just LOVE a few chocolate bars ... maybe 1,000 to 10,000 of them?
Well, at least the sun went down. Now all I have to worry about is getting skin cancer from that deadly level of starlight out there!
Given that any research to you involves "too much smoke", I have two questions.
First, since you concede that second hand smoke is hazardous to your health, why do you smoke? If you smoke, you are exposed to both mainstream and second hand smoke.
Silly question. I smoke because I enjoy it. People do all sorts of things that are hazardous to their health to varying degrees because they enjoy doing them.
Quote:
Second, since you are unable to show me any studies defining a safe level of exposure to second hand smoke, what gives you, and smokers in general, the right to expose non-smokers to any level of second hand smoke?
Suzy, Question:
What gives YOU and others like you in general, the right to expose non-drinkers to highly volatile carcinogenic ethyl alcohol? (Note: According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer that's "carcinogenic in HUMANS" -- not just in nude hairless golden-eyed hamsters with Twinkies on top.) Or what give you the right to demand that workers suffer under blistering carcinogenic solar radiation simply because you enjoy basting your Melanomas along with your Margaritas on a restaurant patio?
Answer (to all three):
Common sense, and the use of science -- instead of its abuse.
Quote:
Why do you get the privilege of defining what is acceptable risk, given that the people who study SHS have concluded that there is no safe level?
You mean the people who are too lazy to do the referencing for their own research or the people who war too lazy to peer-review it properly? Or maybe the editors who are too lazy to check it and just go ahead and publish it?
Try checking out what slipped by the editors at the BMJ in the Helena study:
Read my Rapid Responses titled "Independently Confirmed?,""Helena, 100 Days," and "Helena 1,000 Days," at:
Yes, I know. And hamsters are just SO much closer to human beings. Especially genetically mutated ones. I'm even considering dating a rather cute hamster I ran into at the pub the other night. She assures me she doesn't mind my smoking... she rather likes it in fact.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
