Passive Thinking on “Second-Hand Smoke” Is Fatal

From Rich Perelman at Cigarcyclopedia:

Tim Luckhurst’s editorial on the debate in Britain’s House of Commons that appeared in the London Times last Tuesday is important and worth repeating, so here goes:

“As MPs choose today between partial or total bans on smoking in public places they must ask themselves whether lying to promote a cause is ever legitimate.

“The question is urgent because the claim that secondary smoking kills is alchemy, not science, and honest anti-smoking lobbyists know it. The theory that cigarette smoke kills non-smokers was dreamt up 30 years ago by anti-smoking activists; only after inventing it did they attempt to prove it.

“Dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies have followed. All point to a compelling consensus that there is no casual link between passive smoking and fatal illness. One of the most comprehensive studies was published in the British Medical Journal in 2003. It concluded: ‘The results do not support a causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality.’

“That was unsurprising. The International Agency for Research on Cancer notes that of the 23 scientific studies into the effects of workplace exposure to second-hand smoke only one found a statistically significant risk for lung cancer. One in 23 is what objective science calls an anomaly.

“Even the research director of Action on Smoking and Health admits: ‘A lot of studies have been done on passive smoking produce results that are not statistically significant according to conventional analysis.’ In plain English, that means there is no convincing evidence that secondary smoking kills.

“That is why anti-smokers have resorted to asserting that secondary smoke is responsible for problems such as asthma and bronchitis instead of fatal diseases. It is why they claim that ‘there is no safe level of environmental tobacco smoke’ instead of trying to enumerate a death toll from a syndrome that does not exist.

In 2003, the BMJ’s editor confessed that the debate about secondary smoking is ‘more remarkable for its passion that its precision.” Sir Richard Doll, the scientist who proved the link between smoking and lung cancer said: ‘The effect of other people smoking im my presence is so small it does not worry me.’ It should not worry MPs either.

Parliament should assert the primary of facts. Disliking cigarette smoke is reasonable, but pretending that secondary smoking kills means abandoning science for quarter-truths and irrational sanctimony.”

The bill introduced to Parliament called for an end to smoking in pubs and restaurants which serve food by mid-2007. It passed its first reading, and received an unopposed second reading, but Labour Party liberals continue to agitate for a more complete ban.

Despite opposition by 55 Labour MPs, this bill with its more moderate approach to limiting smoking in public places seems likely to pass.

Posted on Wednesday, December 7th, 2005 at 5:18 am.