In the early 1990s, I had been a member of the EPA panel charged with evaluating the evidence for an association of passive smoking with lung cancer. It was clear that the leadership of the committee was intent on declaring that passive smoking caused lung cancer in non-smokers. I was the sole member of the 15-person panel to emphasize the limitations of the published studies—limitations that stemmed from the rudimentary questions used to characterize exposure. Many members of the committee voiced support for my comments, but in the end, the committee endorsed what was clearly a predetermined conclusion that exposure to secondhand smoke caused approximately 3,000 lung cancers per year among never-smokers in the United States.
This is where things stood in the late 1990s, when I was contacted by James Enstrom of UCLA. He asked if I would be interested in collaborating on an analysis of the American Cancer Society’s “Cancer Prevention Study I” to examine the association between passive smoke exposure and mortality. I had been aware of Enstrom’s work since the early 1980s through the medical literature. We were both cancer epidemiologists interested in lung cancer occurring in people who had never smoked, and we had both published numerous studies documenting the health risks associated with smoking as well as diet and other behaviors. In addition, Enstrom had begun his collaboration with the American Cancer Society with Lawrence Garfinkel, the vice president for epidemiology there from the 1960s through the 1980s. Garfinkel was one of the advisors on my (later published) master’s thesis on the topic of lung cancer occurring in never-smokers, which I completed at the Columbia School of Public Health in the early 1980s.
From his work, I had a strong impression that Enstrom was a rigorous and capable scientist, who was asking important questions. Because I had been involved in a large case-control study of cancer, I welcomed the opportunity to work with data from the American Cancer Society’s prospective study, since such studies have certain methodologic advantages. In a case-control study, researchers enroll cases who have been diagnosed with the disease of interest and then compare the exposure of cases to that of controls—people of similar background, who do not have the disease of interest. In a prospective study, on the other hand, researchers enroll a cohort, which is then followed for a number of years. Since information on exposure is obtained prior to the onset of illness, possible bias due to cases reporting their exposure differently from controls is not an issue.
After several years of work, our paper was published by the BMJ on May 17th, 2003, addressing the same question Takeshi Hirayama had posed 22 years earlier in the same journal: whether living with a spouse who smokes increases the mortality risk of a spouse who never smoked. Based on our analysis of the American Cancer Society’s data on over 100,000 California residents, we concluded that non-smokers who lived with a smoker did not have elevated mortality and, therefore, the data did “not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality.”
The publication caused an immediate outpouring of vitriol and indignation, even before it was available online. Some critics targeted us with ad hominem attacks, as we disclosed that we received partial funding from the tobacco industry. Others claimed that there were serious flaws in our study. But few critics actually engaged with the detailed data contained in the paper’s 3,000 words and 10 tables. The focus was overwhelmingly on our conclusion—not on the data we analyzed and the methods we used. Neither of us had never experienced anything like the response to this paper. It appeared that simply raising doubts about passive smoking was beyond the bounds of acceptable inquiry.
The response to the paper was so extreme and so unusual that it merits a fuller account, which I will offer below.
“Science” has discredited itself. “Medicine” has discredited itself. “Economics” has discredited itself. You’re on your own. What do you plan to do about it?
Just like Covid.
We are right and you should shut up…. WOW
I was thinking of discrediting myself. It seems to be the done thing.
I’ve never believed the second hand smoke studies but quitting smoking was the best thing I’ve ever done. Smoke if you want to but it’s a stupid (and ridiculously expensive) thing to do. And for God’s sake, the world is NOT your ashtray! Now get offa my lawn.
I started smoking at age 10 … as Eric Burden sang in 1967 …
I had my first cigarette at 10
And for girls I had a bad yen
And I stopped smoking at age 10 … one day was all it took. Had a smoke in my tree fort. Turns out it was much nicer getting a girl up there 🙂
I grew up with parents who chain smoked, lived with my grandmother who chain smoked … and when she had 4-tables of bridge players over … the air became both a solid and a gas. My first employer, an older Japanese man, chain smoked bull Durham cigarettes he rolled himself. I was “hot boxed” by his cigarettes that looked like joints for 5 years. And the bong smoke I was exposed to in both HS and college … good gawd. But funny thing … nobody has ever studied exposure to that “in-favor” type second hand smoke.
So far … at age 68 … I have never had cancer or respiratory issues of any sort, knock on wood. Yes, this is just anecdotal information … but it sounds like none of the “Studies” were any more sophisticated than that. Oh and my grandmother passed away, peacefully, in her sleep at age 93. Yes, she had stopped smoking finally by age 70.
No, I’ve never believed the “science” behind secondhand smoke hysteria. Just more “mob” behavior spurred by rubbish “Studies” that should never be called “Science”.
I had both a grandfather and a grandmother who were married to chain smokers. The smokers died, the non smokers lived to be 90, neither had any lung diseases, ever. Any questions?
Smoking worsens the teeth and gums, which is a hidden source of plaques in the arteries.
Personal anecdote. Mother smoked 90+ years lived to 101, Dad never smoked lived to 104. All their kids, still kicking. No lung cancers anywhere.
But, if you overindulge in anything it will harm you. 25 apples, 25 glasses of milk or 25 cigarettes, none will do you good.
Side note: remember the study in the early Covid days where they found smokers were not as likely to contract Covid? Hostile environments are not conducive to viruses.
Nicotine attaches to ACE-2
Whether the locus is effectively blocked or not we’ll never know.
Similarly, from one of the “cultural commentors” (?)…
“If one could prove that a significant percentage of SS guards in concentration camps consistently behaved with some decency and compassion towards inmates, would anyone in their right mind ‘go there’, even if it were !00% true, especially if the research was even minutely supported with money and publicity through ex SS personnel and Nazi sympathizer sources?
You would have to ‘brave’ in the pursuit of ‘truth’, or perhaps running a slightly less than salubrious agenda…”
Piffle…. Truth should be pursued relentlessly in both scientific and historic, and for that matter every context.
Who was Yaroslav Hunka???
Back in the day when someone scolded me for smoking I would simply tell them that my grandfather lived well into his nineties. When they asked if he smoked I would reply “No. But he minded his own f*cking business”.
Great story! Wins the internet for me today!
I’m a rather heavy smoker for rather many years.
I still drop, chop, split, haul and burn firewood.
I suspect, in spite of smoking, I’ll still be reasonably spry and able to do such until I’m at least 85.
I’ll be 85 in 3 days BTW.
The ending of the conclusion of the linked article though –
“We should develop an appreciation for the arduous process of trial-and-error that has led to such triumphs as the development of vaccines against human papillomavirus, the development of anti-retrovirals for the treatment of HIV-AIDS, and the development of effective mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 built on research conducted 15 years earlier. Armed with examples like these, we will be better able to resist the siren-call of risks that never seem to reach the level of having a detectable effect.”
Anti smoking was the template for how to bring about social change.. Of course the tobacco companies where lynched.. One would expect the cancer rate to drop when smoking went from 45% to 12.. It didn’t.. Never mind undetectable 2nd hand smoke deaths..
Yes.. We detect more cancer these days and cure a great deal of it.. Most of the progress is in finding and curing the undeadly varieties.. The deadly fast moving stuff couldn’t care less about smoking..
Nobody cares.. Smokers are new aged (N words) and non smokers feel good about themselves for not being (N words).. A show of hands on Covid deaths being accurately reported and the (N words) who didn’t want mRNA therapy?.. Social change in regards to vaccines?..
You know its BS when politicians and NGOs $$$ get involved.. With reputations and money on the line nobody has the balls to take a second look.. From school crossing guards to global warming.. We are up to our ears in it.. Superstitious nonsense is the human condition..
Smoking was the forefront for government control over one’s life, fostered by partial universal health care (Tommy Douglas, not dead enough), and ill-designed world-wide studies, mostly funded by governments to get the desired results.
Oh maybe alcohol prohibition was actually first, commensurate with granting women the right to vote. No studies required.
COVID is just another layer, as are completely useless carbon taxes on fossil fuel.
And now, everyone is whining about freedom, as your favorite stuff gets regulated to death or banned, mostly by all levels of expensive governments. Hoard WD-40 or else. And corporations and NGOs are all green (with fees for that) and will control your Internet searches.
You all voted for this!!!
The second- hand smoking research is awful. In the 1920’s to mid-1980’s, lots of people smoked. Many of we old stock (I guess that is the new vocabulary) Canadians grew up in households, and went to places where smoking was very common, including health care facilities, university classrooms and all workplaces. Guess what, we are living longer than ever!
Have you any idea how much people pay for taxes on booze, cigs, heating, gas, pathetic cars?
Read the covid article as this is CONTROL, not science, just like the second hand smoke THEORY.