Passive Smoking: A Risk Too Small to Worry About?
I used to be a firm believer in passive smoking as a serious danger to health. Well, we were told this by people in positions of trust, by health organisations, by scientists and by doctors, so why would one think otherwise.
However, I was a bit surprised when I heard the very doctor who had discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer, Richard Doll, laughing at the idea of passive smoking being a serious risk when interviewed on desert island discs a few years before his death.
That quote is still preserved today. In an Independent article entitled Passive Smoking: Is there convincing evidence it exists? Sir Richard Doll is quoted as saying:
“The effect of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn’t worry me.”
Why wasn’t he concerned?
Well the clue could be in this second quote from the Independent article:
“Reputable research shows that a non-smoker inhales between a 500th and 1,000th of the toxins inhaled by the smoker himself…”
More on passive smoking tomorrow!
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February 3rd, 2010 at 9:17 pm
My name is Dave Atherton from wwww.freedom2choose.info a smokers right's group in the UK. Active smoking is as bad as the scientists make out, 7 years early mortality and 86% of lung cancer cases are smokers. However you are right on the money as far as passive smoking goes. It is largely an invention/exaggeration of the anti smoking lobby.
It is best summed up here.
"Yes, it's rotten science, but it's in a worthy cause. It will help us to get rid of cigarettes and become a smoke-free society" so said Alvan Feinstein, Yale University epidemiologist writing in Toxological Pathology in 1999 on passive smoking."
There have been over 80 studies done into passive smoking and 16% say it is a risk, 14% protective and 70% show no risk or protection.
Non smokers breathe in 0.009 of a cigarette per hour in a smoky bar to 0.001 sitting at a bus stop. The barman would breathe in if they worked 40 hours a week for 50 weeks the equivalent of 18.5 cigarettes a year. Sir Richard Doll also found that those who smoke up to 3 a day run no higher risk of lung cancer and early mortality.
As you know yourself this is an exercise in control as opposed to right and wrong.
If you wish to know more I can be contacted on daveatherton20@hotmail.com
http://iarnuocon.newsvine.com/_news/2007/10/17/1028570-secondhand-smoke-mirrors
http://www.legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hmf16b00/pdf?search="concentrations of nicotine tobacco smoke in public places
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Well, we certainly don't disagree with you about how bad it is for smokers. We do believe that when smokers realise how much they have been lied to about passive smoking they may stop believing how bad smoking is!
Will be checking out your links!
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Checked out your website link – then realised I have spent time on their before browsing. Excellent site!
February 13th, 2010 at 8:52 am
[...] Siegel comprehensively destroys the argument, pointing out that the risk of someone dying from passive smoking is ‘exceedingly’ [...]