Who Believes this stuff?

placebo effect

noun any effect that seems to be a consequence of administering a placebo; the change is usually beneficial and is assumed result from the person’s faith in the treatment or preconceptions about what the experimental drug was supposed to do; pharmacologists were the first to talk about placebo effects but now the idea has been generalized to many situations having nothing to do with drugs -From Dictionary.com

I was snooping around the BreatheFree Kenosha site and found it amusing that they cite this study as evidence that bartenders are healthier after smoke-free ordinances are put into place.

Yet, despite the fact that the study was done by doctors and uses some fancy terminology that gives it the illusion of “definitive” evidence, I cannot find any real science or legitimate medicine here.

Just how did they come to the conclusion that smoke-free ordinances make for healthier workers? Did they use medical records? Pulmonary or cardiac science? Oh no. They asked the bartenders to report their symptoms, which are subjective at best and are almost certainly comprised primarily of psychosomatic symptoms pre-ban and placebo effect results post ban. After all, here is what they asked bartenders to report:

• Wheezing or whistling in chest
• Shortness of breath
• Cough first thing in the morning
• Cough during the rest of day/night
• Cough up any phlegm
• Red or irritated eyes
• Runny nose/Irritation, sneezing
• Sore or scratchy throat

I could be wrong, but this doesn’t sound like very compelling evidence. Where are the controls? Where is the analysis of the confounding factors? After all, I have had every one of these symptoms over the past week since ragweed season just peaked; however a couple days of rain and a little humidity and all of these symptoms disappear as the pollon count drops. There is no analysis of outside variables or environmental changes.

This wouldn’t pass for a high school report, yet it was performed by doctors working for the University of Wisconsin… And yet this is called “evidence” supporting a smoking ban.