Safe Speed Forums

Is it?

Unless you know of any state-owned pubs and restaurants, of course it is.

Do we need to cover the difference between anecdotal and empirical evidence again?

I see your point, the public access is probably what threw me.

Your understanding of it is covered in The Joy of Work, a business manual (cunningly disguised as humour) by Scott Adams. It is in the section on illogical thinking.

"24: Ignoring all anecdotal evidence
Example: I always get hives immediately after eating strawberries. But without a scientifically controlled experiment, it's not reliable data. So I continue to eat strawberries every day, since I can't tell if they cause hives."

I see your point, the public access is probably what threw me.

Fallacious, that's not what I'm saying at all.

You, and (purportedly) fellow co-workers, had coughs when you worked in a smoking office. Have you ever had coughs at any other time in your life? Are you aware that co-workers will often share 'lurgies', regardless of their smoking status? Did you eliminate all other possible causes for the cough before blaming smoking?

We're not talking about one person being allergic to strawberries here. It is my assertion that your anecdotal account that a cough you once had in your everyday life might have been caused by second-hand smoke carries effectively no weight at all when held up against the controlled studies that have shown no correlation between passive smoking and untoward health implications.

Who undertook the studies you refer to?

This started as a discussion about smoking on four wheels, so let's examine the situation further.

Thatsnews, tell us if you think the following are fair:

A vicar can be fined £200 for failing to display a No Smoking sign, its size prescribed to a tolerance of 1mm, on every door of a 900-year-old church.

Allow me to answer that. The 38-year Enstrom and Kabat study, published in the British Medical Journal

"Conclusions: The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."

Or this, commissioned (and subsequently hidden) by the World Health Organisation. From the [url="http://www.data-yard.net/2/12/1440.pdf"]Journal of the National Cancer Institute[/url]

"Conclusions: Our results indicate no association between childhood exposure to ETS and lung cancer risk. We did find weak evidence of a dose–response relationship between risk of lung cancer and exposure to spousal and workplace ETS. There was no detectable risk after cessation of exposure."

A few more

"In general, there was no elevated lung cancer risk associated with passive
smoke exposure in the workplace. ..."
- Brownson et. al.
American Journal of Public Health, November 1992, Vol. 82, No. 11

"... no evidence of an adverse effect of environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace."
- Janerich et al. New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 6, 1990

"... the association with exposure to passive smoking at work was small and not statistically significant."
- Kalandidi et al.
Cancer Causes and Control, 1, 15-21, 1990

"We did not generally find an increase in CHD risk associated with ETS
exposure at work or in other settings."
Steenland et al.
Circulation, Vol. 94, No. 4, August 15, 1996

"... no statistically significant increase in risk associated with exposure
to environmental tobacco smoke at work or during social activities...."
- Stockwell et al.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 84:1417-1422, 1992

"There was no association between exposure to ETS at the workplace and risk of lung cancer."
Zaridze et al., 1998
International Journal of Cancer, 1998, 75, 335-338

Signs do not have to be placed on any door on a church, let alone every door.

... a law that says a structure with three walls is illegal as a smoking shelter really is just aching for someone to have a go at it through the courts.

Allow me to answer that. The 38-year Enstrom and Kabat study, published in the British Medical Journal

"Conclusions: The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."

Or maybe you'd like to read THIS rebuttal of the Enstrom and Kabat "research"

However, this is typical of ALL governments over the past 30 years. Take a good idea and turn it into a monster.

But the American Cancer Society (ACS) - the organisation whose data was used - has strongly criticised the study. The analysis was funded by the tobacco industry

Like the report damning an artificial sweetener was funded by the US sugar industry, and a report condemning sugar was funded by the US sweetener industry.