🚀 go-pugleaf

Jon Krueger (jpk@firefly.incog.com) (Jon Krueger) wrote:
> > How did Glantz arrive at his figure of 50,000 NON-smokers killed by ETS
> > caused heart attacks, etc.?

> I'll be happy to provide the info, as is Stan, as have other
> scientists and medical professionals.  It's publicly available
> information.  (BTW, the "etc." is mostly lung cancer.)

Oh really? 50 THOUSAND NON-smokers killed mostly by lung cancer
from ETS? Please, let's see THAT data!

> Before I do, please confirm: you assert that this figure is
> not supported by any scientific studies.  Not one.  Correct?

That's right. There's NO data supporting 50,000 NON-smokers
dying from ETS. 

> >> In fact, there's no shortage of data measuring the impact of smoking
> >> on our hearts, lungs, and pocketbooks.  

> > On yours, a nonsmoker?

> Sure.  On all of ours.  Smoking takes its toll of disease, death, and
> $billions of medical costs on both active and passive smokers, on
> taxpayers and insurance premiums, on health care systems and
> individuals.  We all pay.  Some pay with their money, some with their
> health, and some with their lives.  Some get to pay with all three.
> Meanwhile the tobacco industry makes hundreds of billions of dollars.

Excuse me but your billions in medical costs just aren't so. Your
friends are counting the cost of dying for smokers, not the DIFFERENTIAL
cost smokers' and non-smokers' deaths. According to  Manning et al., 
"The Taxes of Sin", JAMA:261:11:1604 (1989), smokers do not cost "society"
anything and actually pay more in taxes than they use. Your toll of disease 
and death for passive smokers also isn't so. This is pure rhetoric supported
by the flimsiest of data and statistical games. Nothing more than a
political ploy.

> More information is available at http://www.njc.org/MFhtml/PSM_MF.html

Which says, "A separate report commissioned by the EPA has further
concluded that passive cigarette smoke causes 53,000 deaths from heart
disease a year in non-smokers." The reason it was SEPERATE from the
1993 EPA report is that it was NOT INCLUDED because the data was not
considered strong enough to support this conclusion. Nor will you find
data to support this conclusion. It is purely an off-the-cuff estimate
based on the flimsiest of statistics. A political ploy and nothing
more.

> and http://www.cancer.org/costs.html.  Or call your local American Lung
> Assocation, American Cancer Society, or American Heart Assocation.
> Health organizations have provided information on this for years.
> It's not a mystery.

The mystery is why you believe that costs incurred by one form of
death are NOT incurred by *any* other. Do you really think that people
just ascend into Heaven when their time is up if they're not exposed
to smoke?????

> > All you have to do is accuse anyone who disagrees of taking tobacco money.

> Would that it were so easy.  In reality, those who take tobacco
> money have a habit of concealing the fact, for some reason.
> Sometimes it's not clear for years where the money came from,
> where it went, and what it bought.

Those that are critical of the anti-smoking movement have developed
the habit of concealing the fact due to the grief they're given
for not towing the line (one study's conlusions read something
similar to, "We whole heartedly wish we could have found a positive 
correlation..." Apologizing for not finding a correlation!?!? Now
I wonder why....

> But the truth usually comes out eventually.  The Brown and Williamson
> archives, summarized in the July 19th JAMA, are available at... The 
> reading on tobacco industry money is perhaps the most interesting.  
> As Deep Throat used to remind us, "follow the money".

That's nice. I can't wait until JAMA summerises the Bible so everyone
gets the correct interpretation of THAT. Too much grief with everyone
making up their OWN minds instead of being told the one true way to 
think.