This one is from the UK Parliament House of Lords’ Economic Affairs Report. The cited chapter is in regards to risk management and one of the topics they address is secondhand smoke and smoking bans. They draw a very interesting conclusion:
The evidence we took on passive smoking leads us to doubt whether government guidelines on risk management have been properly implemented. In particular, the purpose of legislation should have been defined more clearly and greater attention should have been given to available scientific evidence, the relative merits of alternative policy options and the impact of legislation on personal freedom and choice. Failure to consider these matters properly has resulted in the introduction of a policy that appears to demonstrate a disproportionate response to the problem. Lessons learned from the progress of this legislation should be used to ensure that future policy responses are transparent, evidence-based, and proportionate.
You can read the whole thing here:
Filed under: Ban the Ban Updates, Foreign Ban News, Good News, Site Announcements, junk science | Tagged: house of lords report, secondhand smoke evidence, smoking bans, UK smoking ban
St Paulite wrote:
So, if you think there’s no harm in smoking – if you have kids, do you blow it in their faces? Even when they were babies? Or did something tell you that wouldn’t be good for them, so you chose not to? Maybe you told them it was “their choice” whether or not to spend time with daddy when he’s smoking….
We are suppose to take your word that ETS is a health hazard. Here is part of a previous post.
You anti’s are quick to shoot down studies funded by big tobacco. And rightfully so. But you are quick to embrace studies funded by anti smoking groups and pharmaceutical company’s. The anti-smoking groups the bias is obvious. The pharmaceutical company’s the bias is less obvious. But if you look at the history of the studies done by them, they would fund studies on their drugs but only publish the ones favorable to their cause. This is what they call publication bias. The problem became so pervasive that editors of several prominent medical journals (including the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, and JAMA) announced that they would no longer publish results of drug research sponsored by pharmaceutical companies unless that research was registered in a public database from the start. And since they cherry picked studies for publication on their drugs what makes any study they fund any more credible. Remember that rule of Registering in the public database only applies th studies on drugs. How many studies did they do on ETS until they got the numbers they wanted and this bias may distort meta-analyses and systematic reviews rendering them worthless. Do you think that pharmaceutical companies are helping create the ban out of concern for peoples health. I think not!!! How much would you guess they stand to profit from smoking cessation products. As you anti-smokers are fond of saying follow the money. So until there is a way to get bias and agenda out of the equation the studies that may show health risks are iffy at best. Excerpts
from an article in Science.
However, exceptions do occur, and their frequency appears to be increasing.” As Trichopoulos explains, “Objectively the problems are not more than they used to be, but the pressure is greater on the profession, and the number who practice it is greater.” As a result, journals today are full of studies suggesting that a little risk is not nothing at all.
“As a general rule of thumb,” says Angell of the New England Journal, “we are looking for a relative risk of three or more [before accepting a paper for publication!, particularly if it is biologically implausible or if it’s a brand-new finding.” Robert Temple, director of drug evaluation at the Food and Drug Administration, puts it bluntly: “My basic rule is if the relative risk isn’t at least three or four, forget it.” But as John Bailar, an epidemiologist at McGill University and former statistical consultant for the NEJM, points out, there is no reliable way of identifying the dividing line.
“If you see a 10-fold relative risk and it’s replicated and it’s a good study with biological backup, like we have with cigarettes and lung cancer, you can draw a strong inference,” he says.
“If it’s a 1.5 relative risk, and it’s only one study and even a very good one, you scratch your chin and say maybe.” Some epidemiologists say that an association with an increased risk of tens of percent might be believed if it shows up consistently in many different studies.
See that:”Some epidemiologists say that an association with an increased risk of tens of percent might be believed if it shows up consistently in many different studies.” Would you say that they would say that if the studies were plagued by publication bias. Prompted by Political agenda or greed. and your friend glantz showed is bias over 30 years ago before there were studies on ETS.
http://tomneuville.com/archives/category/smoking-ban
Last post from the forum by a guy named drew from MO.
God Bless the great State of Wisconsin!!!
I say the same you guys keep up the good work.