Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/10/21
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Marc,
There are multiple large, long term studies on the effects of second hand
smoke on children that show a definitive increase in asthma, ear infections,
bronchitis, upper respiratory infections and serious allergies...all of
which affect school performance negatively...some of which is due to
documented increase in the number of absences of children who live in
smoking households. (The nicotine "effect" (addiction) does not seem to be
transferable. As for addiction, the new PET scans show that the same area
of the brain changes (permanently) with tobacco, alcohol and cocaine.
For those addicted to nicotine, please chew or patch or use a nasal
inhaler..not for yourself but for children.
I managed to hold my tongue to the previous posts, but as this is a fairly
science savvy group, I couldn't ignore this one. But these posts are OFF
TOPIC and should move to the Forum.
t
> From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
> Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 12:58:45 -0400
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: [Leica] Liars Figure: Smoking Pistols!
>
> At 10:37 PM 10/20/01 -0700, Roland Smith wrote:
>> The issue is not so much that smoke from a smoker in the room is offensive.
>> It is that it is downright dangerous. Friends of mine have died from lung
>> cancer due to the second hand smoke produced by their smoking spouse.
>
>
> Hmm. This has got to be quite speculative, Roland. I doubt if any doctor
> would assign this as a cause "to a medical certainty". The EPA tried, some
> six years back, to make a jump from the statistical fact that there is a
> VERY minor increase in smoking-related illnesses among non-smokers working
> within 8 feet of a smoker for an extended period (I believe it was 15
> years, but I have mislaid my copy of their "report") to ruling that smoking
> in the workplace WAS a health hazard, the Courts tossed it out. (That the
> increase in illnesses was within the statistical range of error for the
> study was one reason, the other was that no medical authority could be
> found who would agree that the conclusion was warranted "to a medical
> certainty".)
>
> In the US, opposition to smoking almost always breaks down either to
> "style" ('I just don't like the smell') or moral puritanism. A hard look
> at the available data shows that no one has ever done a really thorough,
> really complete, really long-term study of all of the effects of smoking.
> (Smoking DOES have benefits -- for instance, it has a noted sedative effect
> and, of course, there is, in most folks, a small jump in problem-solving
> and data-analyzing abilities while the effect of nicotine is present -- the
> news media reported this as, "a five-to-ten percent increase in IQ" but
> that seems more than a stretch.) This silliness gets pushed to huge
> limits: when a 95-year-old smoker dies of a heart attack, it gets booked
> as a "smoking-related death". Dave Jentz, the noted Retina scholar (and a
> convinced non-smoker) serves as a coroner in his private (non-camera!)
> life. When an attending physician sends him such a death certificate for
> approval, he amends the cause of death to "body wore out".
>
> What we DO know is that long-term smokers have about a 5% chance of dying
> from a smoking-related cause. One shot in twenty, folks. You're going to
> die someday of something, whether he lead a magnificently abstemious life
> or are a paragon of sinful excess as I am. Some folks seem genetically
> disposed to pick up cancer; others seem genetically resistant. In the
> long run, this is far more likely to kill you, what with our very unclean
> environment and penchant for unhealthy life-style choices, than smoke,
> first- or second-hand.
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315
> Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!
>
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