Doctor debunks the anti-smoking data and other legislative nonsense...

I heard Dennis mention this article yesterday and interview the doctor who wrote it today. Dr. Gio Batta Gori is a renown epidemiologist and toxicologist and for whatever reason, the WaPo decided to publish his piece. Here's a snippet... Lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases develop at advancing ages. Estimating the risk of those diseases posed by secondhand smoke requires knowing the sum of momentary secondhand smoke doses that nonsmokers have internalized over their lifetimes. Such lifetime summations of instant doses are obviously impossible, because concentrations of secondhand smoke in the air, individual rates of inhalation, and metabolic transformations vary from moment to moment, year after year, location to location. In an effort to circumvent this capital obstacle, all secondhand smoke studies have estimated risk using a misleading marker of "lifetime exposure." Yet, instant exposures also vary uncontrollably over time, so lifetime summations of exposure could not be, and were not, measured. Typically, the studies asked 60--70 year-old self-declared nonsmokers to recall how many cigarettes, cigars or pipes might have been smoked in their presence during their lifetimes, how thick the smoke might have been in the rooms, whether the windows were open, and similar vagaries. Obtained mostly during brief phone interviews, answers were then recorded as precise measures of lifetime individual exposures. In reality, it is impossible to summarize accurately from momentary and vague recalls, and with an absurd expectation of precision, the total exposure to secondhand smoke over more than a half-century of a person's lifetime. No measure of cumulative lifetime secondhand smoke exposure was ever possible, so the epidemiologic studies estimated risk based not only on an improper marker of exposure, but also on exposure data that are illusory. So we're basing scientific studies and are forming public policy on nothing more than anecdotal assumptions? Great. One thing to note here is that no one is saying second hand smoke isn't unhealthy, all we're questioning is how unhealthy. Is it worth the panic that the prohibitionist anti-smoking zealots have caused? The answer there is an emphatic no. The risk of cancer due to second hand smoke is largely exaggerated. There's no reason to ban smoking outdoors as several SoCal cities have done. There's no reason to force privately owned businesses to prohibit smoking. It kind of makes you wonder what else are scientists with agendas lying about... Global warming perhaps? Is global warming really humanity's fault? They talk all about CO2 emissions, but fail to note that over the last century as temperatures have increased, during that same period CO2 emissions have dropped. Maybe those scientists are using the same computer models that back in the 70's were predicting a global freeze or reports that had us running out of landfill space by 2000 due to the overwhelming amount of garbage we produce. That's the best part about liberal agendas... you can talk and talk and talk, throwing out opinions as if they were facts and never be held accountable to them by the MSM. It must be nice. And then in the name of energy conservation, California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has introduced a bill that would ban incandescent light bulbs... You know up until now, I'd thought the banning trans fats in restaurants was the dumbest piece of legislation going. Levine's bill is completely f*cking retarded. If you want people to buy florescent bulbs because they're more energy effficient, you don't start by banning he competition, you make the alternative more attractive. Pass tax breaks for the manufacturers and tax incentives for the consumer. You don't make light bulbs illegal. It's like California (and the rest of the country for that matter now that the Dems are in charge) is being manhandled and driven right off a cliff by a bunch of 2 year olds in the Democratic party. And dumb 2 year olds at that! "We don't like this... ban it! This makes us feel bad... ban it! Personal responsibility and a free market system? Rubbish! We know what's best for everybody!" What a bunch of crap.