Yeah, sure, right.
Smoking ban leads to major drop in heart attacks
The study suggests that secondhand smoke may be a terrible and under-recognized cause of heart attack deaths in this country, said one of its authors, Terry Pechacek of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Note the keyword: SUGGESTS. And to further cover their butts – “MAY be…”. Just more bunk. Next week the food police will claim credit for a supposed reduced rate of heart attacks.
And I don’t suppose advances in medications and other devices that are saving lives have anything to do with it, either?
Is anyone else getting tired of being treated like an idiot by the nanny state???
Filed under: Big, Bad Government, Get rid of them!!, Media & News, anti insanity, health issues
Actually, I found the CDC’s summary of the study at their site, and in the summary itself, it states that they looked at nothing except the number of diagnosed heart attacks (i.e., they didn’t look at the area’s demographic or economic changes during the period, both of which could affect whether or not a more or less healthy population was or is present at any point during the period studied). They admit – almost explicitly – that their study is actually meaningless . . . but hey, it made great headlines!
This was in one article I read but of course the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did not add this part.
“But the study had limitations: It assumed declines in the amount of secondhand smoke in Pueblo buildings after the ban, but did not try to measure that. The researchers also did not sort out which heart attack patients were smokers and which were not, so it’s unclear how much of the decline can be attributed to reduced secondhand smoke.
One academic argued there’s not enough evidence to conclude the smoking ban was the cause of Pueblo’s heart attack decline.
The decline could have had more to do with a general decline in smoking in Pueblo County, from about 26 percent in 2002-2003 to less than 21 percent in 2004-2005. If there were stepped-up efforts to treat or prevent heart disease in the Pueblo area, that too could have played a role, said Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health.
“I don’t think it’s as clear as they’re making it out to be,” Siegel said. “
Good work, Dave! Do you recall where you saw that?
Here is what happened in California.
http://www.nycclash.com/ tripleri…sk.html#Montana
“As it turns out, California data are readily available on the web. I thought that if the result were true, economists would have already written papers on the subject and if not then I should probably do so. So I took a quick look and found that there was no noticeable change in California’s rate of heart attacks after the smoking ban started:
Year- Hospital Discharges for “Heart Failure and Shock” (DRG 127),as a percent of total discharges
1997 =2.33%
1998 =2.44%
1999 =2.36%
The ban in California took effect on January 1, 1998, so if the results from Montana are credible then there should surely be an effect in California in 1998, but there were actually a bit over 5,000 more hospital admissions for heart attacks in 1998 than 1997.
Is some of that population growth? Perhaps, but heart attacks as a percentage of hospital admissions also increased in 1998 (note: a death counts as a “discharge”, so discharges are essentially equivalent to admissions).
California heart attacks fell from 1998 to 1999, but not back to their 1997 (pre-ban) levels–measured either in the number of attacks or attacks as a percentage of discharges.”
………………..
Are the Pueblo results probable?
As posted elsewhere on this site:
Reference Guide on Epidemiology, Michael D. Green, D. Mical Freedman & Leon Gordis
http://www.fjc.gov/public/pdf.nsf/lookup/sciman06.pdf/$file/sciman06.pdf
Page 384
When the relative risk reaches 2.0, the agent is responsible for an equal number
of cases of disease as all other background causes.
Thus, a relative risk of 2.0 implies a 50% likelihood that an exposed individual’s disease was caused by the agent.
…………………………………………….
An RR of 1.5 implies that there is a 66.7% chance that a disease was caused by other background causes and only 33.3% chance that it was caused by the agent.(1 is 2/3rds of 1.5)
SG’s 2006 Report states that the RR for heart disease/lung cancer due to SHS exposure is 1.2 to 1.3(average RR= 1.25).
Thus, if a nonsmoker is exposed to SHS and gets heart disease/lung cancer there is only a 20% chance the heart disease/lung cancer can be attributed to SHS and an 80% chance the heart disease/lung cancer was caused by other risk factors!!!
( 1 is 80% of 1.25)
http://www.lungusa.org/site/ c.dv…_Fact_Sheet.htm
The risk of dying from a heart attack is 60 percent higher for smokers than nonsmokers 65 or older.
(NOTE: That is an RR=1.6,meaning a 63% chance a smoker’s death from heart disease was NOT caused by smoking.)
When there is an 80% chance a non-smoker’s heart disease was caused by something other than SHS and a 63% chance a smoker’s heart disease was caused by something other than smoking,it is an outrageous, stunning lie to claim that a smoking ban alone leads to a drop in heart disease hospital admissions!
Secondhand Smoke Fact Sheet
Secondhand smoke, also know as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers, lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.1
Secondhand smoke has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a known cause of cancer in humans (Group A carcinogen).2
Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Secondhand smoke contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide.3
Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700-69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.4
Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at work are at increased risk for adverse health effects. Levels of secondhand smoke in restaurants and bars were found to be 2 to 5 times higher than in residences with smokers and 2 to 6 times higher than in office workplaces.5
Since 1999, 70 percent of the U.S. workforce worked under a smoke-free policy, ranging from 83.9 percent in Utah to 48.7 percent in Nevada.6 Workplace productivity was increased and absenteeism was decreased among former smokers compared with current smokers.7
Nineteen states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington and Vermont – as well as the District of Columbia prohibit smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars. Montana and Utah prohibit smoking in most public places and workplaces, including restaurants; bars will go smokefree in 2009. New Hampshire prohibits smoking in some public places, including all restaurants and bars. Four states – Florida, Idaho, Louisiana and Nevada – prohibit smoking in most public places and workplaces, including restaurants, but exempt stand-alone bars. Fifteen states partially or totally prevent (preempt) local communities from passing smokefree air ordinances stronger than the statewide law. Nebraska and Oregon have passed legislation prohibiting smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars, but the laws have not taken effect yet.8
Secondhand smoke is especially harmful to young children. Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year, and causes 430 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths in the United States annually.9
Secondhand smoke exposure may cause buildup of fluid in the middle ear, resulting in 790,000 physician office visits per year.10 Secondhand smoke can also aggravate symptoms in 400,000 to 1,000,000 children with asthma.11
In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of, children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis.12 Approximately 50-75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine in the blood.13
Research indicates that private research conducted by cigarette company Philip Morris in the 1980s showed that secondhand smoke was highly toxic, yet the company suppressed the finding during the next two decades.14
The current Surgeon General’s Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Short exposures to secondhand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of heart attack.15
For more information on secondhand smoke, please review the Tobacco Morbidity and Mortality Trend Report as well as our Lung Disease Data publication in the Data and Statistics section of our website at http://www.lungusa.org, or call the American Lung Association at 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872).
Sources:
1. California Environmental Protection Agency. Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant. Executive Summary. June 2005.
2. Ibid.
3. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: 6 Major Conclusions of the Surgeon General Report. A Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006; Available here. Accessed on 7/7/06.
4. California Environmental Protection Agency. Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant. Executive Summary. June 2005.
5. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Report on Carcinogens, Tenth Edition 2002. National Toxicology Program.
6. Shopland, D. Smoke-Free Workplace Coverage. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2001; 43(8): 680-686.
7. Halpern, M.T.; Shikiar, R.; Rentz, A.M.; Khan, Z.M. Impact of Smoking Status on Workplace Absenteeism and Productivity. Tobacco Control 2001; 10: 233-238.
8. American Lung Association. State Legislated Actions on Tobacco Issues (SLATI). May 8, 2008. Available at http://slati.lungusa.org/StateLegislateAction.asp. Accessed on June 10, 2008.
9. California Environmental Protection Agency. Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant. Executive Summary. June 2005.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Schuster, MA, Franke T, Pham CB. Smoking Patterns of Household Members and Visitors in Homes with Children in United States. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine. Vol. 156, 2002: 1094-1100.
13. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. America’s Children and the Environment: Measures of Contaminants, Body Burdens, and Illnesses. Second Edition. February 2003.
14. Diethelm PA, Rielle JC, McKee M. The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth? The Research Philip Morris Did Not Want You to See. Lancet. Vol. 364 No. 9446, 2004.
15. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: 6 Major Conclusions of the Surgeon General Report. A Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006; Available here. Accessed on 7/7/06.
Gary K., on December 31st, 2008 at 4:21 pm Said:
Trisha Gellado, on December 31st, 2008 at 3:22 pm Said:
Who is posting this “suggestive but not sufficient to infer causal relationship” crap, Nick Naylor from “Thank You for Smoking”? I have plenty of reputable scientific evidence to the contrary,
……………………………
I guess that Trish feels that the Surgeon General’s 2006 Report is not “reputable scientific evidence”!!!!
Yet,she quotes that report or reports mentioned in that report in 8 of her 15 sources!!!
What a marvellous ability at mental and logical flipflopping. ROFLMAO
“What a marvellous ability at mental and logical flipflopping. ROFLMAO”
A-men and double ditto’s.
They just can’t give up the same ‘ol same ‘ol song and dance.
It never fails to amaze me that antis want to parade the same disproven SHS studies, time and time again. I also caught the Pueblo, CO study being mentioned in both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times days ago, and it just made me angry and depressed knowing that so many business owners have had their livelihoods destroyed by zealots time and time again, and not to mention how much anti groups and ban supporters distort the truth to get bans in place.
Thankfully, many bars and other private businesses that chose to be smoker-friendly on their own accord before smoking bans of various sort went into effect ignore them, but I’ll never regard them as right. Trish is just a great example to me how antis like to always play the same broken record, and unnecessarily force their way down the throat of others.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MED_SMOKING_BAN_HEART?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=home
Jeni, here and on USA Today.
Not all papers print the whole article.
The Milwaukee Journal ran this story from the AP but dropped the last few paragraphs.
Funny how it appeared in its entirety everywhere else I saw it.
Funny how they are just drooling over a smoking ban and then only print parts of these articles because they themselves want a ban.
This is not news it should have been an editorial if they are not going to print the whole article!
Trish, Trish, Trish
Don’t you mean Tobacco control propaganda sheet?
Ah yes the infamous faked 1992 EPA report that was not only thrown out in court but shot down by the Congressional Research Service.
Nothing in the Surgeon Generals report backs up that statement, it makes one wonder if he actually read the report.
Sticky platelets does not damage the lining of blood vessels, as a matter of fact you get the same results from eating a burger and fries.
What the anti-smoking groups have been doing is conflating the observed physiological change with a clinically significant effect.
To give you an idea of why this is inappropriate, consider the fact that simply eating a hamburger, fries, and milk shake at McDonalds decreases coronary flow velocity reserve. But it would obviously be misleading to put out messages to the public telling them that eating a meal at McDonalds can decrease their coronary blood flow, reducing blood flow to the heart!
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2006/12/at-least-38-health-and-anti-smoking.html
All you have shown is that you can cut and paste and are a good little parrot for Tobacco Control, The problem is you did not provide any real science or facts. Is that the best you’ve got?
Awesome job debunking, Marshall.
Trish…the cut and paste queen who just can’t see the forest thru the trees…
Speaking of what Dave said, I highly suspect he’s right that most papers paraphrased the Pueblo article, rather than print the whole article. Both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times did exactly that a few days ago, when a small quip from the overall article showed up.
And a well-done response as always, Marshall!
Please check out the biggest smoking ban heart attack study ever done!
http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/2009/01/biggest-ets-heart-attack-study-finds-no.html