Smokers aren't the only ones that get cancer

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


Did you ever actually read the Enstrom Study Here it is"

www.bmj.com...

Did your own quote not say that the ACS followed the the group for several decades?

Richar Smith, the editor and publisher of the BMJ that decided to publish the Enstrom study (and defended his decision to do so) RESIGNED his university post to protest the university accepting tobacco money

www.ash.org.uk...

This link has many newpaper articles announcing his decision.

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


Sorry - I posted the wrong link to the Enstrom study

Here it is:

www.bmj.com...

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


Your point about non-smokers being MORE affected by smoke is wrong because tobacco is not the only source of smoke or nicotene.

Can you really think of anytime in a millenia of history when man has used fire to burn organic material to cook food and heat their homes? Is there even one human being on this planet who has never been exposed to smoke from a campfire, a candle, car exhaust, a fireplace, a wood burning stove and grilled food?

Baby boomers today were exposed a children when the incidence of smoking in the population was the highest.

Another way to interpret your point is that smokers are habituated to the contaminants in smoke and are therefore protected from the contaminants of other sources of smoke. Never-smokers have no such protection.

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

Did you ever actually read the Enstrom Study Here it is"

www.bmj.com...

Did your own quote not say that the ACS followed the the group for several decades?

Richar Smith, the editor and publisher of the BMJ that decided to publish the Enstrom study (and defended his decision to do so) RESIGNED his university post to protest the university accepting tobacco money

www.ash.org.uk...

This link has many newpaper articles announcing his decision.

Tired of Control Freaks

My mistake of the resignation, I thought you meant Enstrom, who was pissed off his University was considering not taking the funds. Yes I have read the Entrom study.

As I stated, the Enstrom study was about passive smoking, and used data that was ONLY collected in regards to active smoking. There were absolutely no controls put in place for passive smoking. If someone went to a bar 7 nights a week for 5 hours and was inhaling passive smoke every day for 29 years, they could be listed in the study as NOT passively smoking because their spouse did not smoke. Do you see now how the data used in the original study can NEVER be used for a passive smoking study?

Not only that, but the end result DID find that passive smoking was harmful on several of the key outcomes, yet the conclusion states there was no difference for passive smokers. How is a 31% increase in COPD not a difference?

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

Your point about non-smokers being MORE affected by smoke is wrong because tobacco is not the only source of smoke or nicotene.

Can you really think of anytime in a millenia of history when man has used fire to burn organic material to cook food and heat their homes? Is there even one human being on this planet who has never been exposed to smoke from a campfire, a candle, car exhaust, a fireplace, a wood burning stove and grilled food?

Baby boomers today were exposed a children when the incidence of smoking in the population was the highest.

Another way to interpret your point is that smokers are habituated to the contaminants in smoke and are therefore protected from the contaminants of other sources of smoke. Never-smokers have no such protection.

What does a campfire have to do with cigarettes? Please stop reaching for invalid points to defend smoking. Your point about baby boomers being exposed to passive smoking is very valid, and is part of the reason why the Enstrom study on passive smoking is completely invalid. MANY passive smokers are listed as not being passive smokers in the study because there was NO CONTROLS for passive smoking.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


Now this is what comes from listening to only one side of the story and not thinking about what is being said or doing any research to try and confirm anything.

Anti-tobacco people would have you believe that tobacco smoke is unique from the smoke of any other kind of burning. This is one hundred percent utter complete bunkum

des.nh.gov...

Wood Smoke vs. Cigarette Smoke Although many people associate tobacco smoke with certain health risks, research indicates that second hand wood smoke has potentially even greater ability to damage health. A comparison between tobacco smoke and wood smoke using electron spin resonance revealed quite startling results (Rozenberg 2001, Wood Smoke is More Damaging than Tobacco Smoke). Tobacco smoke causes damage in the body for approximately 30 seconds after it is inhaled. Wood smoke, however, continues to be chemically active and cause damage to cells in the body for up to 20 minutes, or 40 times longer.

Further - just to get you thinking -

The Enstrom study wins the gold study for design of epidimiology studies. It is a study that follows people and sees what happens to them. Enstrom followed non-smokers married to smokers as well non-smokers married to non-smokers. That is your control group!

If you are going to criticize the Enstrom study for not having a control group (ie non-smoker's never exposed to smoke at work, home or play), then you have to apply the same criticism to every study produced by anti-smokers as they never had a control group either!

Its called critical thinking - try it!

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


oh and BTW - the anti-smokers rely on another type of study for evidence that second hand smoke from tobacco is causing harm to the population. They do a retrospective study where they ask a person who has a disease if they were ever exposed to second hand smoke and rely on the person to be honest and to remember their lives accurately.

A little more open to bias and suggestion there, I would think.

Tired of Control freaks

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


In response to your question about how 31 % increase in risk could not be significant.

Are you imagining something like - if there are 100 people and nobody smokes than only 1 person gets cancer but if they all smoke 31 people get cancer?

That is generally how people interpret an increase in relative risk. However that is NOT what it means.

Let me explain:

There is a very big difference in the meaning of the word "significant" among mathematicians and the ordinary use of the word (meaning a large change). Mathematics defines the word "significant" using math to calculate it. But just because something is mathematically significant does not mean that it is clinically significant.

Clinically significant means that the change in magnitude would definitively chance the occurence in the incidence of the disease in the population.

In epidimiology, any increase of risk that is less than 300 % and preferably 400 % is not considered to be clinically signicant.

en.wikipedia.org...

In the Enstrom study - a difference in relative risk of 31 % is mathematically significant but clinically insignificant (ie there would be no discernible increase in the rate of the disease among the general population)

Generally study start off with a hypothesis I.e. Does being exposed to second hand smoke because you are married to a smoke and you are a never smoker cause you to get lung cancer?

If the relative risk is over 300 % increased - the answer is maybe. (you still have to check for other causes of lung cancer like if the study area has a lot of radon or a lot of exposure to diesel fumes or if people cook on BBQ's alot)

If the relative risk is less than that - the answer is a no.

Of course you have to also get other scientists to do the same study to see if they come out with the same results.

Tired of Control Freaks

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks

 

oh and BTW - the anti-smokers rely on another type of study for evidence that second hand smoke from tobacco is causing harm to the population. They do a retrospective study where they ask a person who has a disease if they were ever exposed to second hand smoke and rely on the person to be honest and to remember their lives accurately.

A little more open to bias and suggestion there, I would think.

Tired of Control freaks

Just because there are bad studies does not mean there are not good ones. The problem with your side, is there are bad studies, and that is all. There is not one single good study that does not show both active and passive smoking as a signifcant risk.

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

In response to your question about how 31 % increase in risk could not be significant.

Are you imagining something like - if there are 100 people and nobody smokes than only 1 person gets cancer but if they all smoke 31 people get cancer?

That is generally how people interpret an increase in relative risk. However that is NOT what it means.

Let me explain:

There is a very big difference in the meaning of the word "significant" among mathematicians and the ordinary use of the word (meaning a large change). Mathematics defines the word "significant" using math to calculate it. But just because something is mathematically significant does not mean that it is clinically significant.

Clinically significant means that the change in magnitude would definitively chance the occurence in the incidence of the disease in the population.

In epidimiology, any increase of risk that is less than 300 % and preferably 400 % is not considered to be clinically signicant.

en.wikipedia.org...

In the Enstrom study - a difference in relative risk of 31 % is mathematically significant but clinically insignificant (ie there would be no discernible increase in the rate of the disease among the general population)

Generally study start off with a hypothesis I.e. Does being exposed to second hand smoke because you are married to a smoke and you are a never smoker cause you to get lung cancer?

If the relative risk is over 300 % increased - the answer is maybe. (you still have to check for other causes of lung cancer like if the study area has a lot of radon or a lot of exposure to diesel fumes or if people cook on BBQ's alot)

If the relative risk is less than that - the answer is a no.

Of course you have to also get other scientists to do the same study to see if they come out with the same results.

Tired of Control Freaks

You speak as if you know and I do not. I have degrees in psychology and social work, have taken multiple research courses. 300% is not a maybe. Anything over 10% is typically considered significant. 31% is aboslutely statistically significant. I really really wish you wouldnt talk as much and would listen more so you could be helped. Everything you say is just completely wrong. Everything. You have given your ear to the wrong circles.

OccamsRazor

Please allow me to show you exactly how anti-smokers lie by telling the truth in such a way that reasonable people belief something that is actually a lie.

I am going to give you an example that came to public knowledge in February 2013. Very recently

The public has been told that a study was done to proved that smoking bans resulted in a decrease in premature births in Flanders, Belgium. Now any reasonable person would believe that if the incidence of premature births drops after a smoking ban, then it must have been second hand smoke that was causing the premature births to occur in the first place. This would be a very logical conclusion by reasonable people.

here is an announcement of the study results

www.wtop.com...

Note the confident tone of the press release (understand that newspaper articles are all based on press releases)

www.nhs.uk...

Here is another one but this one is less confident and more fairly talks about the actual study results

Now here is a third one

www.bbc.co.uk...

Note that this newspaper is not very sure in tone whatsoever and actually admits that there was a drop in premature births BEFORE the smoking bans. It also talks about how the researchers actually looked for thing which could cause the drop in premature births OTHER than the smoking ban.

You will note that this study "adds to the body of evidence". Please google the subject yourself and you will see that this press release was world wide.

Now let us look at the actual study:

www.bmj.com...

If you go to the graph that charts the decrease in premature births over time. You will note that premature births started dropping before the smoking ban in about 2005 but somehow this is overlooked in most of the newspaper articles. what is also overlooked is that there seems to be a slight increase in the incidence of premature birth at the end of the line.

Now if you were to google pre-natal care Belgium 2005, you will find this study

The relationship between antenatal care and preterm birth: the importance of content of care

eurpub.oxfordjournals.org...

I will also refer you to this report on the importance of antenatal care for preventing premature births

cdclv.unlv.edu... Simply to prove that antenatal care


And finally with a little digging, we discover that in fact, Belgium implemented a program of improved prenatal care before 2006.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Belgium has established an ad hoc-committee to develop a comprehensive social marketing and professional training strategy for pilot testing preconception care models in the French speaking part of Belgium, an area that represents 5 million people and 50,000 births per year using prenatal care and pediatric clinics, gynecological departments, and the genetic centers.

Now really OccamsRazor4 - did the smoking bans really decrease the rate of premature births in Belgium or was it the program of improved prenatal care?

Now this is research and critical thinking!
Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


0h come on now - I am not going to do all your research for you!

10 % increase in relative risk is clinically significant - please provide your evidence for such a ridiculous statement?

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


I will make it easy for you. I won't bother looking into the study and go along with everything you say. It's 100% true. I already said there are bad studies from the anti-smoking crowd. A bad study on premature births in no way contradicts a GOOD study on COPD, or other heart diseases related to passive smoking.

It's a red herring. Fact. There are bad studies. Fact. They in no way detract from the GOOD studies which 100% prove the dangers of passive smoking. Why in the world would you think 1 bad study invalidates numerous good studies which are proven true?

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

0h come on now - I am not going to do all your research for you!

10 % increase in relative risk is clinically significant - please provide your evidence for such a ridiculous statement?

Tired of Control Freaks

Maybe this will finally make you realize you have zero knowledge of the subject.

The standard level of significance used to justify a claim of a statistically significant effect is 0.05. For better or worse, the term statistically significant has become synonymous with P0.05.

www.jerrydallal.com...

For example, we may find that there is a statistically significant relationship between a citizen's age and satisfaction with city recreation services. It may be that older citizens are 5% less satisfied than younger citizens with city recreation services. But is 5% a large enough difference to be concerned about?

www.csulb.edu... ARE TESTS FOR

P

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


Exactly which epidimiology study on smoking or second- hand smoke has been PROVEN to be true and provide the evidence.

After 12 years of research - I have found absolutely no PROOF the smoking causes anything but statistics and more statistics. Epidimiology cannot be used as proof - it can show CORRELATION but NOT CAUSATION.

As for the example of a bad study that I gave you - the feathers have been spread in the wind, haven't they! Everyone will now believe that the hypothesis that second-hand smoke CAUSES premature birth no matter what else is said.

Its not just an example of a bad study - its an example of how the myth that second-hand smoke can hurt you was fostered and spread.

Speaking of which - Sir George Godbar was the father of the modern day passive smoking myth back in 1975 when he decided that the only way to get smokers to quit smoking was to foster and nurture the belief that smoking was not just hurting the smoker but other around him. He was the one who decided to spread this myth to "denormalize" smoking

daveatherton.wordpress.com...

If you follow the links in this article - you will find that Godbar proposed this plan at a health conference in 1975 BEFORE all the research on second hand smoke. I would suggest that BIG Tobacco is not the only deep pockets around to buy desired research results.

After 12 years of intensive research - the only clinically significant result of all the epimiology is that the incidence of lung cancer increases with HEAVY smoking but even that is questionable. HEAVY smokers also tend to drink, be of low economic classe, live in poorer neighbourhoods with lots of truck traffic, work in blue-collar jobs with lots of exposure to occupational carcinogens. etc etc.

This has NOTHING to do with passive smokers or even light - moderate smokers.

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


OH MY GOD - now you are being deliberately stupid hoping to win your point

There is a huge difference between actually counting 5 % of population and a 5% increase in relative risk in an epidimiology study.

Example: 5 % of the population of the United States is 15 million people!

If the actual lifetime risk for lung cancer in non-smokers is 2 %, than an increase of 5 % would make it 2.05 %

This is where anti-smokers have a field day. If 50,000 non-smokers get lung cancer, Anti-smokers would say that the extra 0.05 % (2,500) are "extra" cancers that would not have happened if there was no smoking WITHOUT ever telling you that the "extra" cancers may or may not be real because the 5 % number was not a significant difference!

P-value is usefull only in determining if the results are due to chance or not. A 0.005 p-value indicates that there is a 1 in 20 chance that the results of the study are not real and it is used as a standard for controlling results that are due to chance alone.

Tired of Control risks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks

The pooled relative risk of heart disease in never-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke was 1.31, similar to estimates of earlier meta-analyses.

Circulation May 23, 2005
www.theheart.org...
www.medicineonline.com...

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


OccamsRazor4

Please look at the results reported in the Enstrom study

Results For participants followed from 1960 until 1998 the age adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval) for never smokers married to ever smokers compared with never smokers married to never smokers was 0.94 (0.85 to 1.05) for coronary heart disease, 0.75 (0.42 to 1.35) for lung cancer, and 1.27 (0.78 to 2.08) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among 9619 men, and 1.01 (0.94 to 1.08), 0.99 (0.72 to 1.37), and 1.13 (0.80 to 1.58), respectively, among 25 942 women. No significant associations were found for current or former exposure to environmental tobacco smoke before or after adjusting for seven confounders and before or after excluding participants with pre-existing disease. No significant associations were found during the shorter follow up periods of 1960-5, 1966-72, 1973-85, and 1973-98.

for coronary heart disease - the result was 0.94 or - 6 % but the confidence interval (numbers in the brackets) are 85 % to 105 %. This would mean that there was a decrease in heart disease by 6 % for never smokers exposed to second hand smoke!

Do you believe that? Are you still thinking that 5 % is clinically significant.

And for pulmonary disease for woman - the average is 13 % but the confidence interval is between 0.80 and 1.58. In short the true value is somewhere below one and therefore protective of pulmonary disease or 58 % above 1. Still think that average of 13 % is significant????

I am sorry - despite your claims to education - you are not knowledgable about statistics at all!

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


I have already demonstrated how anti-smokers lie lie lie - and you offer me some pamphlets by the very same people as proof?

get real and start thinking and do your own research

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


Look at this link

www.airnow.gov...

look at the picture of that thick black smoke!

If you are healthy, you're usually not at a major risk from short-term exposures to smoke.

But you are going to try to convince me that sitting in a smokey bar for an hour is lethal? Or sitting on a park bench beside a smoker CAUSES heart damage and disease?

Use some common sense will you?

Tired of control