I started reading "Tobacco and Smoking- Opposing Viewpoints" by David Bender et al. published in 1998.

If you aren't aware of the book's intent, it reprints articles written by people both pro-tobacco and pro-smokefree air. Of course, no one is truly educated on a topic until they know both sides of the coin.

Thomas Jefferson stated that "difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry leads to truth."

This is an earnest attempt to see exactly what divides our seemingly "unbridgeable" gap. Perhaps we can all read this book together and argue from the same footing instead of posting trick questions that lead the other party into premeditated traps?

Ah, yes, the Opposing Viewpoints series. As it happens, I have the one on smoking and tobacco somewhere. The series is intended for college freshmen/high school senior level, and is generally a pretty good series on various controversial topics. The problem is that the contents are very general (and sometimes even condensed) essays, good for a beginner, but most of the people on this forum are NOT beginners on the tobacco issue.

Here's an idea: Why don't you just stop trying to control everyone and instead discuss the issues intelligently and sincerely without stock talking points and with respect for other people with whom you might disagree?

We know who Roger Jenkins is, for example, and we know he's an expert and has done honest research. You might not LIKE the results of his research, but that doesn't mean it's not valid. When you fly off attacking him simply because of the funding, without ever addressing the research itself (or perhaps without even having read it), you show yourself to be an irrational, unreasonable person.

Lose the attitude and the cliches, and show some evidence of a reasoned approach, and then--and only then--can there be a rational discussion.

BTW, Thomas Jefferson would have been appalled by the anti-tobacco movement for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that he made a good deal of money from his tobacco farms (and was also a tobacco user).

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Originally posted by NicoNazi:
I started reading "Tobacco and Smoking- Opposing Viewpoints" by David Bender et al. published in 1998.

If you aren't aware of the book's intent, it reprints articles written by people both pro-tobacco and pro-smokefree air. Of course, no one is truly educated on a topic until they know both sides of the coin.

Thomas Jefferson stated that "difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry leads to truth."

This is an earnest attempt to see exactly what divides our seemingly "unbridgeable" gap. Perhaps we can all read this book together and argue from the same footing instead of posting trick questions that lead the other party into premeditated traps?

Can you please point out what trap you've been led into??? Just becaus the majority of this forum disagrees with you (which is to be expected) doesn't mean they're leading you into a trap.

quote:

Originally posted by Wanda Hamilton:
The series is intended for college freshmen/high school senior level. ...good for a beginner, but most of the people on this forum are NOT beginners on the tobacco issue.

Now THERE is an ego pat... good job, team! You're all doing so well!

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BTW, Thomas Jefferson would have been appalled by the anti-tobacco movement for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that he made a good deal of money from his tobacco farms (and was also a tobacco user).

I suppose you enjoy discrediting American heros, much the same way you do with credible medical researchers. Time to rehash all the nasty things George Washington did to apple trees, or the number of slaves owned by all our other founding fathers.

Why is breaking the status quo (smoking bans) such a hard thing for some people to take? Should slavery come back? Perhaps lose the whole Civil Rights movement? I know, let's power our cars with coal again!

Shucks, Wanda.

The whole point of this thread was to find common ground. Instead, you came on the offensive- saying my book wasn't good enough or lacked "content."

From what I've read so far, I can see why you don't like the book! The arguments written by your side are pretty weak- both logically and medically. A former NSA member (all 7,400 of what used to be them) has a silly piece in there too.

Why should I even care about your point of view? You don't seem too eager to learn about mine and the rest of the medical community.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by NicoNazi:


From what I've read so far, I can see why you don't like the book! The arguments written by your side are pretty weak- both logically and medically. [QUOTE]

Yet you offer no rebuttle when your questions are answered, and only offer questions that are leading and can't stand simple tests.

Once a coward always a coward, huh Nazi?

Tch, tch, tch. Once again, you didn't read with comprehension. Is it deliberate or are you just a bad reader?

Actually, I said the series was generally a very good one, and is IS designed for HS seniors/college freshmen (they even have series for K-6 in this publishing empire). What I said was this was too general for this audience. It's also somewhat dated. You are apparently a beginner, who has done little research except you are all a-lather about the lame, old tobacco industry documents (not much there, really).

It's clear from the discussions that you have little sophistication about anything else. By all means, read the high school book, but DO try to read with comprehension.

And the fact is that you didn't really try to have a rational discussion; instead, you tried to dictate that everybody should read a little book and then we would discuss it. That's hardly a way to approach a rational discussion--except for a control freak, that is.

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Why should I even care about your point of view? You don't seem too eager to learn about mine and the rest of the medical community.

The majority of my research is looking at the methodologies of the research of your side and the medical community and showing how the messages that are reported in the press are not supported by the findings.

Ever take a look at Kawachi's work on social cohesion, stress, weight gain? Ever hear of the Roseto paradox, an Italian American town whose inhabitants smoked heavily and cooked with lard but nonetheless had an unusually low incidence of heart attack. Roseto's residents' good health was associated with a conspicuously old-fashioned immigrant culture and closeness. By the '60s, however, they began to see younger Rosetans adopting the more individualistic ways of the wider world--for example, building terraces in back of their houses rather than porches in front. Within another decade, Roseto's heart-attack fatality rate was as high as that of neighboring towns.

In 2000, a Kawachi study concludes that the declines in health associated with job strain are as large as those associated with smoking and sedentary lifestyles.

Ever look at the 93 EPA report and wonder just where that number came from that 3000 Americans die from ETS exposure annually? Ever wonder why the NHANES reports that Americans are exposed to 75% less ETS today than they were just ten years ago, but antis keep spouting that 3000 number? In fact, A Judson Wells just chastised the Cailifornia EPA in their report for bumping up the numbers from his work in the 80's that was the basis for the EPA's numbers through faulty equations in their effort to classify ETS as a carcinogen last year. They agreed to lower them.

Ever wonder why the Anne E Casey Foundation reports that smoking rates are going down in expectant mothers, they are exposed to much less ETS during pregnancy, yet incidence rates of low birth weights and premature births continue to climb? Yet anti-smokers continue to swear that smoking or exposure to smoke is the primary "cause" of both those birthing conditions.

Ever wonder why as American are exposed to much less ETS than ten years ago, asthma rates continue to rise?

Fact is that we all look at your anti-smoking research and that of the medical community and there are literally tons of inconsistencies.

So with all this rock-solid research supporting your notion that SHS (not ETS, that is the industry's terminology that intends to "soften" the implied presence and effect) is not harmful, why is it banned in most all federal buildings and virtually everywhere but bars/bowling alleys/casinos, etc?

Let me guess... big government conspiracy based on bad medical research??

SHS is the incorrect term coined by the anti-smokers to cast a more sinister light on it, because true second-hand smoke is only that portion which was already inhaled and expelled by the smoker. Do you call smoke from your fireplace that goes into your neighbor's house "second-hand woodsmoke"? Or "second-hand campfire smoke" for you nature lovers? Or do you call flatulence "second-hand gas"? Of course not.

Call it what you want. It is correctly banned in federal and state buildings because those buildings are true "public" places, paid for and owned by all taxpayers. Bowling alleys, bars, and restaurants are privately owned business concerns, which is NOT public property. So are airlines, but the bureaucrats look at that as part of the national transportation systems, and the airlines capitulated long ago to give up their private ownership rights for subsidies.

It is not banned in all businesses. The health departments of a handful of states have usurped OSHA authority to regulate workplace safety issues. ETS rarely ever exceeds OSHA regulated permissible exposure limits for any of the individual chemical components in even the smokiest of barrooms. When it does, it's simply a matter of insufficient ventilation.

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mine and the rest of the medical community

Ah, so you claim to be part of "the medical community," and you also apparently claim "the rest of the medical community" agrees with you about tobacco smoke.

Well, most of the rabid antis are NOT in the medical community--or at least aren't MDs or biochemists, or members of any of the biological research establishment. Some are mechanical engineers, some are former lobbyists, some are lawyers, some are epidemiologists, some are "health physicists," some are economists, and some have that really nothing degree--MPH (master's in public health, which is NOT a biomedical or scientific degree, but a sort of business administration degree in public health). True, there are some MDs, but some of those aren't practicing or researching MDs but rather working for big bucks for one of the big health "charities" or for Big Pharma.

Here's what one actual MD, Alvan Feinstein, Sterling Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Yale University and Editor of the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology had to say in response to the EPA's taking offense at his criticism of the EPA report: "I certainly meant no personal slights in my term 'perversion of science,'...I have no doubt that you and your colleagues probably devoutly believe in what you have done, and that, alas, has been true of all of the great blunders throughout the history of medical science. They have been devoutly believed in. It is not that people were committing fraud. It is not that they were doing misconduct. It is not that they were trying to sell delusions to the public. They, themselves, honestly believed their own delusions...."

I do think Dr. Feinstein said it all, and it's still as true today as it was back in 1993 when he said it.

quote:

Ah, so you claim to be part of "the medical community," and you also apparently claim "the rest of the medical community" agrees with you about tobacco smoke.

Isn't that like when the entire medical community laughed at Dr Barry Marshall for claiming that the majority ulcers were caused by bacteria rather than an over production of gastric acids? No one supported research to determine the mechanisms because the pharmaceutical companies were happy to go on selling antacids indefinitely, rather than a single regimen of antibiotics. And they all laughed at Dr Marshall even after he intentionally drank bacteria to give himself ulcers and took antibiotics to cure them... and that was only in 1983. Don't ever question years of medical dogma...

Yeah, kind of like that, Lock.

Also glad you educated NicoNazi about ETS vs SHS. I've already recommended the EPA report as a source for some of the ETS studies' results, but apparently he hasn't looked at it, because it uses "ETS" throughout.

You all have been doing the bulk of educatin' all week. Heck, he's got 81 posts already in just a week or so. I have 688 after 4 years.

I just wish I could find the old post where we lit into Jan Fernee from Philip Morris so I can demonstrate how most of us really feel about big tobacco instead of trying to come up with a silly little poll. All I can find is this one reference.