The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

http://members.iinet.com.au/~ray/TSSOASb.html

by byrneseyeview • 17 years ago

57 62 17 years ago

members.iinet.com.au

maxklein• 17 years ago

That page is on a website offered for free from an ISP. That's the universal home for all conspiracy theories nuts.

byrneseyeview• 17 years ago

Yeah, but they picked such an honest, respectable-looking font.

damienkatz• 17 years ago

Yes, but are the claims true? Have studies failed to show stopping smoking doesn't help you live longer?

And the Japanese _are_ fairly heavy smokers yet have very long lives.

That's not to say I don't thinking smoking is really bad for you. It's an addictive drug, reduces lung capacity and I've known people being treated for emphysema in their 30's etc. But the article makes some interesting claims about how politically charged the issue around smoking is, real science is getting squelched, people ask earnest questions and have their sanity questioned.

Don't know if any of it's true, but with the Global Warming "science" we've been seeing lately, it wouldn't surprise me if the risk of cigarettes has been way oversold.

jawngee3• 17 years ago

Probably because their diets are vastly superior to everyone else's. So people predisposed to live longer are going to live longer, even if smoking takes a few years off their lives.

patrickas2• 17 years ago

I think the claims are true, but the headline and content is a bit over dramatized.

Here are the studies, you can draw your own conclusions:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1573365

"The subjects were 1445 male smokers, initially aged 40-59 years" ... 20 years later "total mortality was 7% lower" for people who stopped smoking (7% is barely significant given the sample size)

And also http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00000487

Showing similar results.

hga• 17 years ago

Based on a variety of things including an statement by my favorite professor, I think it's not so much that smoking is deadly by itself, but smoking and most anything else is, e.g.:

He said smoking in the context of a city's pollution was very bad, that e.g. Kansas wheat farmers had problems related to the wheat farming but were otherwise OK (he was an M.D. and smoked, BTW, took lots of Vitamin A and so on and he'll turn 90 next year...).

It's well established (to my satisfaction, at least) that radon is mostly dangerous in the context of heavy smoking (which after all is where the initial study came from, of uranium miners).

The risks of smoking and lots of things like birth control pills are well established.

I'd also note that there's going to be genetic variability here that will make smoking much worse for some fraction of the population.

(On the other hand, as someone with severe allergies, I'm not entirely unhappy with the results of the US crusade against smoking....)

brazzy• 17 years ago

> And the Japanese _are_ fairly heavy smokers yet have very long lives.

That's funny because I was going to write "I don't know how much truth is in what he writes about all those studies, but that statememt is complete bullshit". I've lived in Japan for a year, and my personal experience is that the Japanese smoke very little.

wheels• 17 years ago

It's apparently by a fairly widely published biologist, an expert on fish eyes, it would seem:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22J.+R.+JOHNSTONE%22+monash

herdrick3• 17 years ago

Isn't that a funny correlation? It's not like that's the easiest way to publish something on the web. I wonder what's going on here.

patrickas2• 17 years ago

A couple interesting related posts from Overcoming Bias

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/smoking-followup.html

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/animal-smoking-studies...

Robin's conclusion:

"Bottom line: a randomized trial suggests a large smoking harm on bad lungs, which can explain the entire apparently average smoking harm seen elsewhere. My best guess: smokers die ~10-30% more on average, living about 2-6 months less, but there’s much less net harm to strong lung folks."

lkrubner• 17 years ago

At this point I think it is well known that quitting smoking doesn't have much health benefit. I think it is exaggeration to call this a "scandal". I recall this was talked about on television a lot back when Peter Jennings died - he had quit smoking many decades earlier, but he still died of lung cancer.

However, here is the important fact: smokers die of lung cancer at a higher rate than non-smokers. The above essay makes a big deal about the fact that quitting seems to have no benefit. That does seem to be true. But never, ever smoking does clearly have a health benefit. This should not be forgotten.

jawngee3• 17 years ago

Well to be a contrarian, nicotine is a mood stabilizer in people with depression and bipolar disorder. Consider it a cheap SSRI.

It also makes you look cool which can score you dates which can lead to sex, and that's a healthy cardiovascular exercise. sarcasm

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

nicotine is a mood stabilizer in people with depression and bipolar disorder

Citations, please? I have the best regarded textbook on bipolar disorder

http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Depressive-Illness-Disorders-Rec...

at hand as I type this, and there is no recommendation of nicotine for any patient there. I'm quite sure that "mood stabilizer" is an incorrect characterization of the drug effect of nicotine. Nicotine has very harmful effects on the personalities of long-term users. I've seen too many examples in the previous generation to recommend it to anyone in my generation.

One study on harm of smoking:

Socioeconomic Status, Smoking, and Health: A Test of Competing Theories of Cumulative Advantage # Fred C. Pampel and Richard G. Rogers # Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 306-321

One study on personality factors interacting with nicotine use:

Nicotine dependence, psychological distress and personality traits as possible predictors of smoking cessation. Results of a double-blind study with nicotine patch

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...

chrischen2• 17 years ago

Nicotine reduces stress, and a low stress life can probably increase your general health.

herdrick3• 17 years ago

Stimulants tend to act as appetite suppressors. Reducing likelihood of being overweight would seem to increase lifespan, all else being equal.

nkurz• 17 years ago

At this point I think it is well known that quitting smoking doesn't have much health benefit.

I don't think this is true. In fact, this strikes me as a lie (not an error) on two fronts: there are health benefits, and there are widely believed to be health benefits.

Here's what looks like the official US line: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cessati...

"The immediate health benefits of quitting smoking are substantial"

"Quitting smoking reduces the risk of cancer and other diseases..."

"Quitting smoking substantially reduces the risk of developing and dying from cancer, and this benefit increases the longer a person remains smoke free."

The Australian government (this is an Australian paper being referenced) seems to take a similarly strong line, and has a version of tobacco packaging warnings with the simple tagline "Quitting Will Improve Your Health": http://www.health.gov.au/internet/quitnow/publishing.nsf/Con...

"Quitting smoking at any age has short and long term health benefits. Quitting will reduce the risks for diseases caused by smoking and will help to improve your health in general."

If the government is lying about these facts, then this would be a scandal. But this really isn't the 'scandal' referred to in the title of the paper. From the closing paragraph: "But smoking is really a secondary issue. The primary issue is the integrity of science. This has no use-by date. When the processes of science are misused, even if for what seems a good reason, science and its practitioners are alike degraded."

The point of the paper is the using misleading statistics and cherry-picked data to prove a point, even if this point is certain to be true, even if it can be established by other means, is a scandal. Apologizing for this practice by rationalizing that "everyone knows" only compounds the problem, and makes their point even sharper.

pg• 17 years ago

Jennings restarted smoking after 9/11.

Tichy2• 17 years ago

I expect the anti-global-warming crowd to start smoking in droves now.

astine• 17 years ago

Do you mean the folks who are against global warming, or the folks who don't believe in global warming?

Tichy2• 17 years ago

the ones who don't believe

rms• 17 years ago

At this point even Sarah Palin believes in global warming, she just doesn't think it is caused by humans.

I will accurately quote her.

"SarahPalinUSA

Earth saw clmate chnge4 ions;will cont 2 c chnges.R duty2responsbly devlop resorces4humankind/not pollute&destroy;but cant alter naturl chng 2:57 AM Dec 19th from TwitterBerry"

prat• 17 years ago

There is no doubt that there is propaganda on both sides. First, the govt taxes a pack of cigarettes at the rate of 85% over the actual cost of production, distribution and advertising with profit margin included. Since it is harmful for you, we will make you pay more for it - but we won't ban it because we want to give you the freedom of choice. On the other hand, the article goes on great length describing studies trying to find correlation between life expectancy and smoking, debunking the govt's claim along the way; However, it steers clear from talking about the high association found between lung cancer and smoking. Even if lung cancer deducts only a few months from your life, it still is a cancer and has effects OTHER than causing early death.

JulianMorrison4• 17 years ago

Personally I don't smoke, never have, and consider it an expensive way to gamble with your life. (They might cure cancer, they might invent cloned lungs, are you feeling lucky, punk?)

But truthfully, the reason I wish people would stop smoking is not from altruistic concern for them, and not for any personal fear - I just think it stinks. It's as foul as farting and has much less excuse.

Just stop, please.

Imprecate3• 17 years ago

Is smoking (outdoors) really that offensive? I agree that stale smoky clothes smell gross, but I'm never bothered by a crowd smoking outside a bar or club, or people doing it while they walk through the city. It's just a neutral city smell to me.

axod5• 17 years ago

Yes. Especially when you have kids. It's horrible.

whatusername• 17 years ago

Try a city that has tougher anti-smoking laws. All of our bars/clubs (except the casino high-roller room) are non-smoking. It is much nicer for those of us who don't smoke. (Most have some form of al-fresco area / patio / etc where smoking is allowed. While it once felt part of the experience - I've grown to love it's absence. //Melbourne Australia

JulianMorrison4• 17 years ago

Yes. With the UK's "no smoking indoors in public" laws, you get a ton of smokers emitting a choking cloud under the awning outside train stations, etc. I hold my breath to walk through it.

Plus just plain walking closely downwind of a smoker on the street is nasty. I have to pay visual attention to avoid getting a lungful of breathed-out smoke. Not fun.

tdavis2• 17 years ago

I think you missed the entire point of the article: living is as much of a gamble as smoking, statistically speaking. You inhale carcinogens daily. Your mind is slowly decaying, along with all your other organs. You could die tomorrow crossing the street or next year from a random cancer, a blood clot in your brain, or the common flu. A friend's mother died while in the hospital recovering from a routine procedure, due to a drug allergy nobody knew about and no Doctor could diagnose quickly enough.

If all it takes for you to "feel lucky" is not smoking, you live a naive life indeed.

axod5• 17 years ago

Smoking is anti social though. It's disgusting. It's like force feeding everyone around you asparagus, just because you love asparagus.

Please stop smoking everyone.

JulianMorrison4• 17 years ago

Suppose you are forced by circumstance to play Russian roulette.

Do you or do you not load extra bullets?

rdouble• 17 years ago

The point of the article is not about smoking at all, it's about bad science. The last paragraph:

"It may be argued that this is news about an old and settled subject. And who cares about smoking anyway. But smoking is really a secondary issue. The primary issue is the integrity of science. This has no use-by date. When the processes of science are misused, even if for what seems a good reason, science and its practitioners are alike degraded."

donniefitz2• 17 years ago

I was smoking a Partagas 1845 while reading the article. I think it made the article more enjoyable.

teeja• 17 years ago

People who have trouble considering this idea because of all the conditioning can take a couple of hours online to investigate the scientific evidence for the dangers of second-hand smoke. When I did, they fell into the noise ... within statistical error.

What is the measured, documented percentage of smokers who contract lung-cancer? I never found that number. Furthermore, what other environmental factors were controlled for?

These numbers may even exist somewhere. My point is that they never come up as part of the arguments. Because "everyone knows" ...

berntb3• 17 years ago

>>take a couple of hours online to investigate the scientific evidence for the dangers of second-hand smoke [fell into statistical noise when I investigated]

I spent twenty seconds to help you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban#Effects_on_health

"Several studies have documented health and economic benefits related to smoking bans. In the first 18 months after Pueblo, Colorado enacted a 2003 smoking ban, hospital admissions for heart attacks dropped by 27% while admissions in neighboring towns without smoking bans showed no change."

(I saw larger claims in a BBC article sometime for the smoking bans in British pubs, but was too lazy to go find it.)

Edit: 20 more seconds.

>>What is the measured, documented percentage of smokers who contract lung-cancer?

Here are some values for second hand smokers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban#Medical_and_scienti...

"Specifically, meta-analyses show that lifelong non-smokers with partners who smoke in the home have a 20–30% greater risk of lung cancer than non-smokers who live with non-smokers. Non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace have an increased lung cancer risk of 16–19%."

Edit 2: I went and found the BBC article (or another with the same content :-).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8267523.stm

"Smoking bans cut the number of heart attacks in Europe and North America by up to a third, two studies report.

This "heart gain" is far greater than both originally anticipated and the 10% figure recently quoted by England's Department of Health.

[...]

The studies appear in two leading journals - Circulation and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

[...]

But the latest work, based on the results of numerous different studies collectively involving millions of people, indicated that smoking bans have reduced heart attack rates by as much as 26% per year."

Edit 3: Who votes up the parent comment?! :-) Less than a minute with Google shows his claims to be totally wrong.

billswift2• 17 years ago

Wikipedia and BBC are NOT scientific studies. I followed up some of the (VERY FEW) links from the Wikipedia article to medical papers, and they were just what the original article said - studies that claimed improvements on this or that scale with no evidence of actual life extension.

blahedo• 17 years ago

I'm curious about the points about inhaling---not being a smoker, I just always assumed that (nearly) all smokers inhaled the smoke. That's why Bill Clinton's pot claim ("but I never inhaled") was such a joke, right? Or is there something more going on there?

Imprecate3• 17 years ago

When smoking a cigar or pipe most smokers don't inhale deeply like one does with a cigarette. There are still health risks for heavy cigar smokers like mouth cancer, IIRC.

tokenadult2• 17 years ago

See Peter Norvig's article "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

for Warning Sign I9: Being Too Clever, which relates directly to the point of this thread.

Eliezer• 17 years ago

If this paper weren't biased, it would mention the chief source of evidence in favor of the idea that smoking damages your lungs: Men who smoke die of lung cancer at 23 times the rate of nonsmokers.

Now, that may not be from a randomized trial. But nonetheless, I think that's an important explanandum. See Judea Pearl's Causality if you don't think it's possible to get important data off of mere observational studies.

It just seems really unlikely that, you know, future lung cancer would cause people to start smoking now, or that some common cause makes people decide to start inhaling carcinogens and tar and then causes them to get lung cancer later at 23 times the base rate.

But if anyone actually believes that, we can get a group of 1000 of them together and have 500 of them start smoking with proper random assignment, and see what happens.

herdrick3• 17 years ago

He didn't quite say that smoking doesn't damage your lungs, he said that quitting doesn't improve your lifespan. For example he wrote that other forms of cancer apparently are more common among quitters. Of course there are lots of plausible explanations for that, among them that ceasing use of a stimulant causes increased obesity which from what I understand increases risk of many cancers.

Actually I read that really quickly. I hope I'm not completely wrong about what he said.

abecedarius• 17 years ago

Compulsory smoking in schools? Apparently yes, in the 1666 plague some schools like Eton made students smoke as a preventative. Huh. But the original post seemed to imply a broader requirement everywhere; this is all I found in a hasty googling.

The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

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