I know everyone is heavily into this debate about what a little smoke can and cannot do. Is there a serious unbiased mind left, who would admit; in purely scientific terms second hand smoke does not actually exist?
That sounds like a pretty wild statement, considering what we have been told for a number of years. In the strictest sense second hand smoke, is a creation of the human mind and the fear being promoted is a reaction to a wedge issue which satisfies the majority of self interest. The costs of healthcare, is often cited as a societal detriment however the real numbers simply don't support such poorly informed claims. Oh we all know what cigarette smoke is and many don't like the smell or the atmosphere when smoke is present, but the "Risk" factor nonsense, is the worst kept secret since the emperor was informed he was unclothed.
Why do we continue to lie to ourselves? If smoking prohibition is the target, why has no politician the courage to stand and announce it? The cost of this process of oppression by increment is extreme and wasteful. The resources wasted should be expended treating patients hands on. Our economies are being made to suffer largely by the cost of cowardice. This backdoor prohibition charade only attacks our claims to a civil and equitable community. The way this is being played out is a promotion of bigotry and stereotyping, more than any claimed interest of public safety or compassion for our neighbors. Public Health CONTROL groups are a collection of cowards, prostitutes and well connected terrorists, who haven't the courage to don the appropriate Nazi uniforms, and stand up for the principles they believe in.
People need to know what they are dealing with and decide whose camp they actually support.
Does anyone seriously believe that by allowing governments to create laws which target law abiding citizens, we are moving in a positive direction? Or does anyone believe a government afforded that ability, will not use the example to legalize other similar campaigns. Or worse that they will easily surrender that ability, without major unrest in our communities, which will only occur after major damage, is already done. Dalton McGuinty expressed his beliefs on the eve of his smoking ban implementation when he stood in front of the cameras and stated clearly and proudly;” If smokers don’t quit, they will be punished” Distinguishing his ideal, that punishments for personal legal behavior is his to deal with, without any mention of the courts. Smoking bans are extortion and an affront to the security of the person and the rights of autonomy, in every context human rights abuse. In place of a traditional sign and equitable compromise, seeking respect in all of the community.
We as the broader community are being controlled by the “social marketing” campaigns [Health Canada] much more than anyone who chooses to smoke, drink or eat to excess; being programmed into the school of divisions. Taxes are purchasing a media campaign promoting intolerance, regressive taxation [or theft by moral edict] and divided communities at the behest of a UN Industrial partnered agency, which undermines by lobby, the spirit of democracy and the legitimacy of all elected officials who don’t bend to every lobby demand. People, who deserve respect, are being driven wide brush out of our communities, by this nickel and dime Nazi movement. People don’t like the harshness of that word, so seldom used of late, but can it be different than a scientist claiming anyone, who doesn’t agree with,the promotion of the day, purely ignorant. Science by edict with no discussion or debate doesn't sound like science, rather something else.
The fog
It is, after all, only a theoretic proposal and not a stable product, which could always be described or quantified precisely or consistently.
With all the renditions of calculations and broad assumptions we see every day. Logically, should a little smoke we have always ignored, suddenly provoke so much fear? Why did the millions invested in the medical charities for so many decades, miss a toxin so significant, if it really exists. Where did all the research money go? The alternative would be acceptance that; while we watched Heather Crowe die of lung cancer; as the poster girl for the anti-smoker lobby, the charities stood silent, while knowingly letting it happen?
It falls to the incredible, we are on our knees trembling, fearful of a product known only, and defined only, as "smoke" which is realistically; only a product of the imagination, much more than it could ever be claimed to be a product of traditional reproducible science.
The Facts
Can anyone define Second Hand Smoke according to its physical composition or reactions in consistent terms; relative to half life, barometer, humidity or temperature?
Can anyone even list, what the "smoke" might contain and in what levels or how the components compare to their own known safe levels, already accepted by traditional assessments by legitimate quantities and reproducible science?
If we can not be offered a stable comparative sample, taken from more than one location, the smoke seems to be a product which varies more than fingerprints, DNA or the patterns of snowflakes.
Can anyone define a surface description so we can differentiate it from other smoke products?
Do that investigation first and then come to us with your evaluations of "risk" that would be consistent with normal science and process. Otherwise you’re only a politician, resting on speculation and moralist propaganda.
Nothing we haven't seen done before, and nothing has happened since, other than improvements in advertising efficiencies, to increase the probability that the prophesies are any more believable today than they have ever proven to be in the past.
This theological element, is then taken to have a physical quantified value based entirely in biological variances, between one group and another;
measured constants of averaged mean values even when the groups are less than ten people in number? With other biological features which could explain a multitude of plausible variations of the separate etiologies. Individual elements of smoke vary as much as the compound products, in their consistencies as a whole separately within the product with changes occurring within nano-seconds of its production.
What remains suspect beyond the fact the “smoke” is considered to exist at all, in physical terms as a constant, is that a process exists to precisely measure its variable effects, over a lifetime of variations a body would experience and the reactions of variable defenses within, predicting [we are told consistently] what would evolve.
http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/extract/19/1/2
Sorry I simply don't buy it. In a recent article published in The European Journal of Public Health this month; Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee et al; make a unforgivable pronouncement, that the debate is over with a claim to victory, despite the science which indicates otherwise; either I am to accept a designation as a Holocaust denier or should agree the debate is over, designating the smoke in all forms and regardless of dilution levels, as the most deadly toxin ever discovered with “no safe level”?
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/14/suppl_2/ii3
I find a third more logical option is available; that it is the "science” which should be dismissed as a defective when it surpasses all reasonable bounds of credibility.
“The right to health relevant information derives from the principles of autonomy and self direction and has been recognized in international declarations. Providing accurate health information is part of the basis for obtaining "informed consent" and is a recognized component of business ethics, safety communications, and case and product liability law. Remarkably, anti-tobacco and pro-tobacco sources alike have come to emphasis the message that there is "no safe cigarette" or "no safe tobacco product". We propose that the "no safe" message is so limited in its value that it represents a violation of the right to health relevant information. There is a need to go beyond saying, "there is no safe tobacco product" to indicate information on degree of risks.”
To demonstrate the problem with“no safe” risk claims;
50,000 in a population of 320 million is an absolute risk of .016% in a population virtually all exposed to some degree. But who will be effected or killed by heart attack, due solely to their exposure, in that 320 million population? With no safe level, they should all die, whether they smoke or not. The same lobby group tells us if a smoker quits smoking, his level of exposure will be nullified over the years, to a level of risk not detectable beyond the norm? Who could be exposed to the “Smoke” more than a smoker? Are smokers in possession of some internal curative ability no one else has?
If death is a result of quantity and/or duration of exposures, we should be able to just collect all the bartenders and bingo operators and give virtually everyone else a clean bill of health.
That doesn't seem to work very well either because there are far too many bartenders alone, to prove the “prophesy” is consistent, while leaving over any risk to distribute among the public, so we have to assume the risk is non linear.
A lack of linear dose response relationships eliminates any possibility to predict any outcome with any hope of precision, by simply comparing one group to another, so the "science" or the evaluation process is the problem. Legitimately ETS never was a problem and the promises of potential “lives saved” are irresponsible and ill advised.
You can confirm that level of logic, with visual observations. Theoretical tobacco smoke has killed no one that we can identify in the physical world.
When Doctors mistakes kill more people than smoking, who is really left, we can believe?
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/death/what.htm
How credible is the opinion, in regards to risk and so called significant risk.
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/lists/deaths.htm
50,000 compared to total figures of heart attack death at 460,000 annually, represents 50/460 which suggests a 10.8% increased risk but only if we can agree the entire population knows what second hand smoke smells like, so they are all exposed. Are they all permanently damaged by that exposure and will they all die in the specified 10.8% of the total .27% of total mortalities [.88% of population] which will always occur every year, even if no one smokes?
What is causing the other 90% is the larger issue. Even smoking in its totality [assuming 450,000 is caused by smoking and not more realistically; 1/5 of total mortality seen in 1/5 of the population] only increases the annual population risk @ .88% by .16% representing 20% of the population.
Chronic exposure among non smokers as a more credible claim would eliminate many of the 50,000 predicted and reduce the 11% figure drastically in current risk perspectives. Of course, the control freaks don't ever want to talk about current risk applicable to the current population; It blows away all the fear...
In the current diatribe "there is no safe level of second hand smoke" if we believe it, the increased risk for second hand smoke 10.8% is far below the most moderate insignificant estimates at 19% in population increased risk.
Few can escape the 100% death rate within 100 years. By comparison in realistic terms the .88% we see annually is minuscule. .16% as the worst case, when it only affects half of those who smoke is the real figure to consider and how much does it really matter when every person beyond 35 years of age has a higher risk of dying, whether you smoke or not?
Who is really considering the risks exhibited these truly shocking numbers? Certainly not the "deniers" who believe only smoking is dangerous. Something for the anti smoker crusaders, to consider, while bemoaning the health risk of smoking and the comparative minuscule risks of second hand smoke; Anyone surviving beyond the ripe old age of 35 years has a 4% higher risk of dying [.199%] than the [.16%] risk of dying of smoking related diseases and it only gets dramatically worse as you grow older.
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/d/death/intro.htm
"Death comes to us all at a rate a little less than 1% per year in the USA (0.877% or 1-in-114). However, annual mortality rates vary with age and generally increase with age after the first year: infant (less than 1 year) 0.706% or 1-in-141 (highest in the first 28 days, down to 0.188% or 1-in-531 after that), age 1-4 years 0.034% (1 in 2,941), 5-9 years 0.017% (1 in 5,882), 10-14 years 0.021% (1 in 4,761), 15-19 years 0.069% (1 in 1,449), 20-24 years 0.093% (1 in 1,075), 25-34 years 0.108% (1 in 925), 35-44 years 0.199% (1 in 502), 45-54 years 0.427% (1 in 234), 55-64 years 1.021% (1 in 97), 65-74 years 2.484% (1 in 40), 75-84 years 5.751% (1 in 17), and 85+ years %15.475% (1 in 6) [CDC NVSR 2001]. "
Or these?
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/statistics/index.htm
"The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) commissioned a phone survey in 1997 to review patient opinions about medical mistakes. Of the people reporting a medical mistake (42%), 40% reported a "misdiagnosis or treatment error", but did not separate misdiagnosis from treatment errors. Respondents also reported that their doctor failed to make an adequate diagnosis in 9% of cases, and 8% of people cited misdiagnosis as a primary causal factor in the medical mistake. Loosely interpreting these facts gives a range of 8% to 42% rate for misdiagnoses.
Misdiagnosis rates in the ICU or Emergency Department have been studied, with rates ranging from 20% to 40%. These misdiagnosis rates are likely to be higher than the overall health care misdiagnosis rate because of the time-critical and serious nature of the diagnosis under these crisis conditions. "
For lung cancers we are told 90% are found among smokers, which leaves only 10% to be distributed among 80% of the public. The real numbers, in American terms and by the most popular lobby move to find Canadian numbers, divide by 10.
Total Lung cancers;
160,439 x .1 = 16,044 [10%] or 1604 Canadians among 32 million
16,044/ [320 – 64 million smokers] =
16044/256,000,000
a risk to a non smoker of .0006% [1 x .0000626]
If 1% of the American workforce are employed in the hospitality trade, the bartenders most exposed to the “smoke” would number in the hundreds of thousands. Which doesn’t leave any large measure of risk for the rest of us to fret about, does it? When you consider the term “half of smokers will die from smoking” why not bartenders by the same proportion killed by the “smoke”? One theory rests in the fact they only inhale the equivalent of a single cigarette every five to ten days, which should explain part of it. But how about the claims of risk which extend outdoors and in a brief smell, while walking down the “Blue air” filled streets and parks. How is that believed to be possible to describe as a significant risk or any risk, when the bartenders insist on hogging all the available mortalities?
Once again distribution by the above measures using 16,000 [if we assume all are caused by the “smoke”] in place of the 50,000 by the claimed heart risks and you quickly realize how extremely; [this “smoke”, who is really being smoked, and how far imagination,] is being, over hyped. It falls now to the imagination, to determine if the 10s of Billions spent creating pictures in your mind over the past five decades, were invested in research and real medical treatment; how many would die from either cancer or heart diseases today?
