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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.
Adding confusion, people with lung cancer or cardiovascular disease are prone to amplify their recall of secondhand smoke exposure. . . .
It has been fashionable to ignore the weakness of "the science" on secondhand smoke, perhaps in the belief that claiming "the science is settled" will lead to policies and public attitudes that will reduce the prevalence of smoking. But such a Faustian bargain is an ominous precedent in public health and political ethics. Consider how minimally such policies as smoking bans in bars and restaurants really reduce the prevalence of smoking, and yet how odious and socially unfair such prohibitions are. .. .
A frank discussion is needed to restore straight thinking in the legitimate uses of "the science" of epidemiology ¿ uses that go well beyond secondhand smoke issues. Today, health rights command high priority on many agendas, as they should. It is not admissible to presume that people expect those rights to be served less than truthfully.
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Early next year, the Baltimore City Council and the Maryland General Assembly will likely vote on legislation to ban smoking in all bars and restaurants. . . .
Free societies allow people to make decisions that others don't like. That includes allowing smokers to have bars and restaurants to cater to their preferences, just as nonsmokers should have establishments that cater to theirs. Baltimore and Annapolis should stand by the ideals of a free society instead of opting to force smokers to live by the preferences of some nonsmokers.
Casual visitors to Milloy's Junk Science Home Page might be tempted to dismiss him as merely an obnoxious adolescent with a website. They would be surprised to discover that he is a well-connected fixture in conservative Washington policy circles. He currently holds the title of "adjunct scholar" at the libertarian Cato Institute, which was rated the fourth most influential think tank in Washington, D.C., in a 1999 survey of congressional staffers and journalists.
Milloy's vitriolic style may seem strange to outsiders, but it generates and channels the anger that right-wing pseudopopulists have become adept at mobilizing against environmentalists. . . .
The conflicts of interest involving Frederick Seitz are even more telling. Shortly before his retirement from Rockefeller University in 1979, he went to work as a "permanent consultant" to the R. J. Reynolds tobacco company, a hiring that was deliberately not publicized. The tobacco industry eagerly traded on Seitz's reputation, even though R. J. Reynolds CEO William Hobbs privately advised executives at Philip Morris in 1989 that Seitz was "quite elderly and not sufficiently rational to offer advice." In June 1993, the CNN news network ran a report citing claims by Philip Morris that "prominent scientists privately agree" with its opinion of the EPA risk assessment of secondhand smoke. "We asked for specifics, promising anonymity if necessary," stated CNN correspondent Steve Young. "The only name Philip Morris provided was the former president of this prestigious institution, Rockefeller University, in New York." Although CNN never discovered Seitz's background as a tobacco industry consultant, he did not perform well in his role as third-party spokesperson. When Young called Seitz to ask directly if he had said that EPA's report was based on flawed science, Seitz responded, "No, I have not."
"You have not said that?" Young asked again.
"I have not said that, no," Seitz replied.
"Well, why not?"
"I haven't read it," Seitz replied.
That same month, however, Multinational Business Services (Jim Tozzi's lobby shop and Steven Milloy's former employer) reported to Philip Morris that it had "initiated discussions with Dr. Seitz of Rockefeller University to support MBS findings on ETS." The following year, a report appeared with Seitz listed as the author, concluding that "there is no good scientific evidence that moderate passive inhalation of tobacco smoke is truly dangerous under normal circumstances."
two weeks ago the National Center for Health Statistics announced some spectacular news. The number of Americans dying from cancer fell for the first time in decades. . . .
For women, two of the most deadly forms of the disease -- lung and breast cancer -- are being successfully treated. For men, death from 11 of the 15 most common forms of cancer are on the decline, including prostate, colon, kidney, lung and leukemia. . . .
Why is cancer death falling? One leading reason has been the positive health effects from a decline in smoking. Tobacco use has tumbled by about half since the 1964 Surgeon General's report on the health hazards of smoking. The other major factors are early detection and better treatment. Both are the result of medical innovation funded by government, private donations, and profit-making bio-medical and pharmaceutical companies.
This is in marked contrast to the anti-cancer record of government-run health systems elsewhere in the world. As Michael Tanner, health-care expert at the Cato Institute, notes: "Because cancer is a slow moving and expensive disease to treat, it is not cost-effective under socialized medicine to treat the disease too aggressively. This saves governments money but at a high human cost."
The statistics bear out Mr. Tanner's point. . . .
We haven't yet won the race for a cure, but we are on the road to winning. Amid all of the criticism of the American medical system, this is progress to be savored by cancer survivors and their loved ones -- and understood by policy makers who want the progress to continue.
Thanks to Madam Chair and to the D.C. City Council for letting me testify today. I only regret that all nine council members who plan to vote to make the District smoke free had more important things to do than listen to the concerns of the businesses and citizens of this city. And I'd like to thank council member Schwartz for her leadership on this issue. . . .
You don't have the right to walk onto someone else's property, demand to be served food or drink someone else has bought, and demand that they serve you on your terms. Free societies don't work that way.
This isn't about worker's rights. The idea that the Washington, D.C. city council is banning public smoking to benefit the city's waiters, waitresses and bartenders is a canard. There are countless jobs and professions that are far more dangerous than serving food or drink in the presence of secondhand smoke. The people who choose those jobs -- cab drivers, fishermen, and police, for example -- take those jobs full-well knowing the risks. The health risks associated with secondhand smoke are debatable. But this simple fact isn't: A waiter or bartender who chooses to work for an establishment that allows smoking knows what kind of environment he'll be working in.
With Prince George's County's ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in effect and the D.C. Council having voted 11 to 1 last week to enact a ban -- an action that could be vetoed by the mayor [front page, Jan. 5] -- supporters and opponents of smoking prohibitions are shifting their focus to new battlegrounds. . . .
Elected leaders have reason to feel uneasy about wading through this stew of science, economics, philosophy and emotionalism, and they shouldn't have to, because a better policy response is available.
One benefit of a free market is that it can cater to a variety of public desires -- including the desire for smoking-allowed or smoke-free bars and restaurants. Government need only pass an ordinance requiring that all places of public accommodation establish either a no-smoking or smoking-allowed policy, that those businesses post the policy clearly at entrances, and that the government establish an enforcement mechanism to ensure that businesses comply with their espoused policies.
In a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, Doug Bandow explains (but does not justify) his decision to write columns supporting the interests of Jack Abramoff's clients at the lobbyist's behest. Bottom line: He did it for the money. . . .
As you may have guessed by now, I speak from experience. From time to time I am accused of being a flack for Big Tobacco because more than a decade ago I accepted a reprint fee from R.J. Reynolds for an op-ed piece about secondhand smoke I had written for The Wall Street Journal. The company used the article in an ad campaign and, since I had retained the reprint rights, paid me $5,000 for the privilege (a pretty fat reprint fee, I admit, but not very much compared to what RJR was planning to spend on the ads). Although I recognized that the transaction might be used against me, I did not see anything unethical about it, since RJR did not commission the article. . . .
I can't help the fact that Philip Morris/Altria has donated money to the Reason Foundation, which publishes Reason (in addition to running a think tank). Last time I checked, the contributions (none of them tobacco-related) amounted to less than 1 percent of the foundation's budget. So although I may not be pure enough to satisy the average anti-smoking activist, I am at least able to alleviate the concerns of radio and TV producers who raise the issue (typically at the prompting of an anti-smoking activist).
In "Tobacco, Smoking, and Insider Trading," Cato senior fellow Robert A. Levy writes, "The purpose of cigarette ads, like automobile ads, is to encourage consumers to switch brands. Ads are not the cause of the problem.
"That said, if the plaintiffs in a tobacco suit can prove that they were defrauded, that they became addicted prior to age 18 by the industry's deception, and if tobacco indeed caused their illness, then they may have a decent legal argument. But if they're not addicted by age 18, at that point they're adults. They're the same adults who are allowed to go to war and kill people, allowed to vote and decide who is going to run the country, to get married, to get divorced, to have an abortion, and those decisions are no less weighty than the decision to smoke cigarettes."
Levy concludes, "If an adult can choose to stop and he doesn't, then he assumes the risk. And we can't hold the tobacco companies responsible, least of all on a retroactive basis."
Regarding "Smoking bans continue an assault on freedom" (Opinions, Monday):
Robert Levy tries to establish his credentials to comment objectively on smoking bans by telling us, "I don't smoke," in the first sentence of his My Turn column. It doesn't fly, though, when we find he is affiliated with the Cato Institute, which dogmatically puts individual rights above the right of the common good. . . .
Frankly, the majority of people don't smoke and we don't like to be in places where it is allowed. When the statewide smoking ban is enacted, violators are going to be reported, with or without a TIPS program. What a ludicrous leap in logic to equate an individual protecting his air by calling in violators of the law with "civilian armies" and "government moles in every restaurant."
I don't smoke. I don't like smoke. I sit in the non-smoking section of restaurants. . . .
a federal judge lambasted the EPA for "cherry picking" the data, excluding studies that "demonstrated no association between ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) and cancer."
And two years before that, the American Heart Association journal, Circulation, reported no increase in coronary heart disease associated with secondhand smoke "at work or in other settings."
So what? Maybe secondhand smoke doesn't kill people, but how about the harm to those with asthma, respiratory infections or eye allergies?
Well, listen to Jane Gravelle of the Congressional Research Service, testifying before Congress in 1994: "The statistical evidence does not appear to support a conclusion that there are substantial health effects from passive smoking."
The war on tobacco started with a proven truth: primary smoke is a high-risk factor for lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema. But that fact has mushroomed into an assortment of untruths, eroding the credibility of government agencies and the rule of law.
Smoking bans are really about unrestrained government, an anti-tobacco crusade against thousands of private businesses and millions of smokers without grounding in fairness or common sense, and without an appreciation for the principles that nourish a free society.
One of America's most persecuted minorities is smokers. . . .
a free society must allow people to do stupid things. Unfortunately, the anti-smoking movement has moved from accommodation to suppression. Smokers also have become the great deep pocket for legislators and lawyers.
The latest anti-smoking effort is legislation to deliver the industry to the tender mercies of the FDA. Sens. Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Mike DeWine, Ohio Republican, are leading the effort to expand the FDA's authority over cigarettes (and smokeless tobacco). . .
Unfortunately, legislative proposals to allow FDA regulation over cigarettes are really yet another attempt to move to de facto tobacco prohibition -- even while solidifying the market share of entrenched operators like Philip Morris. Uncle Sam should leave smokers, and the rest of us, alone.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a
"PTBS" (if you will) "continues its controversial muckraking... by confronting many of the institutions that society holds dear," say the gentle folks at Showtime PR. But that doesn't quite capture the irreverent, profanity-strewn, no-holds-barred style of exposé preferred by the portly Penn Jillette (a fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, by the way) and his mute sidekick, Teller.
In the past two seasons, Penn & Teller have done their best to obliterate the myths surrounding such issues as second-hand smoke [This graph only]
More ammunition for the anti-smoking crowd will soon be released in a new book The Price of Smoking (MIT Press). According to pre-publication reports, the authors -- Duke University economist Frank Sloan and four colleagues -- estimate the actual costs of smoking at nearly $40 per pack. That includes roughly $33 for reduced life expectancy and tobacco-related disabilities; $5.44 for the costs of secondhand smoke, and $1.44 for pooled-risk programs like Medicare, Medicaid, group life insurance and sick leave.
Regrettably, the data will be exploited by zealots to stop the rest of us from making our own decisions about cigarettes. That's why it's important to understand the $40 cost and the public policy implications of Sloan's work. Assuming the numbers are accurate, their principal utility lies in helping private parties make rational choices, not in promoting yet another anti-tobacco crusade. So let's dissect the data. . . .
In a nutshell, then, Sloan and his colleagues have identified three types of costs: Private internalized costs can be eliminated by choosing not to smoke. Externalized costs of secondhand smoke can mostly be redressed by recognizing private property rights and providing for smoke-free areas on government property. Externalized costs of pooled risk programs can be remedied by permitting rational discrimination against smokers who impose those costs.
Yes, there may be some residual cost for which smokers should be accountable. But don't forget that state and federal excise taxes already yield revenues of 76 cents per pack and smokers have been socked with a quarter-trillion-dollar cost payable to state governments under the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement. In short, smokers more than pay their way.
The Bush DOJ apparently believes that it is a prosecutable offense -- under the made-for-mobsters Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (search) (RICO), no less -- for legitimate businesses to defend their products.
Let's take the issue of secondhand smoke, for example, and see who else may have run afoul of the Bush DOJ's dim view of those who have denied that secondhand smoke (search) is a health threat. . . .
So let me see if we can make sense of this. A federal judge says the EPA trumped up the evidence that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer. A prestigious medical journal publishes an editorial by a prominent health researcher criticizing a purported link between secondhand smoke and heart disease. The chairman of the EPA's review panel compared the risk of secondhand smoke to cross-town traffic. And juries don't seem inclined to reward secondhand smoke lawsuits.
But it's a RICO offense for the tobacco industry to say and do these same things? . . .
Until the president does something about the DOJ's rogue $280 billion lawsuit against the tobacco industry, cries about John Edward's trial lawyer connections will ring hollow.
Now it's the California state legislature, about to consider a bill to shield every sun worshipper statewide from the tribulations of beach smoking, and defend every grain of sand along the 1,100-mile coastline against cigarette litter. . . .
Five years later, a federal judge lambasted EPA for "cherry picking" the data, excluding studies that "demonstrated no association between ETS and cancer," and withholding "significant portions of its findings and reasoning in striving to confirm its a priori hypothesis."
More recently, in the May 2003 British Medical Journal, researchers found that passive smoke had no significant connection with heart disease or lung cancer death at any level of exposure at any time. . . .
If the scientific evidence were more compelling and the ban were limited to, say, reading rooms in public libraries, elevators in government office buildings, and restrooms at a state university, then a ban might be warranted. Not otherwise.
Government, not secondhand smoke, is polluting the beaches. Surely we can protect the legitimate rights of non-smokers without prohibiting smokers from relishing an occasional cigarette by the sea.