Huh?
That kind of "fact" is pure, unadultered DISinformational rhetoric.
Posted on 06/27/2006 8:49:35 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Over 30 years of practice, I have seen many non-smokers with lung cancer. Many of these have had significant exposure to second-hand smoke from spouses or work environment. Whether that exposure was sufficient to cause the cancer is a matter of conjecture. Perhaps there were other factors like radon exposure, etc. It is difficult for epidemiologists to exclude all confounding variables to make a "clean" study, and many of the studies on passive smoking are far from perfect. However, taken together, the studies collectively show some linkage between passive smoking and adverse health effects. How significant that link is in shaping public policy i.e. smoking ban, is a matter of debate.
This is true, but also misleading. There is a difference between sidestream smoke, i.e. smoke from a cigarette laying in an ashtray, vs. smoke that is inhaled by the smoker, which is filtered, reducing the concentration of many of these "tars" which are carcinogenic. Although sidestream smoke is worse, it is in much less concentration than the smoke inhaled by the smoker and exhaled into the room.
My grandfather died of emphysemia and I watched him die in his final hours. I was only 17. My dad died when I was only 21 of heart problems, suffered from the ravages of malaria he caught in WWII in North Africa. He was ill for years. I did have to watch his ebbing away of life. My sister passed away quite suddenly in ONE tiny moment at 38 of a brain aneurysm, no warning, no help. She died within hours.
Yes, you CAN crack jokes about a lot of things and laugh....or you can hold on to the pain and grief, really really, really tight, think of it every day, never let it go, wear it like a badge of honor and lecture others when they tread on you oh-so-tender toes.
Abraham Lincoln: The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.
I choose to laugh rather than to cry. The remark was general and lighthearted. You knew that but chose the weepy, victim path. That is YOUR choice on how to react to life. It's not mine.
Working in paint and laquer factories, coal mines, refineries and other chemically laden places takes its toll.
Humans died from lung cancer LONG before there was tobacco usage. The "black lung" from mining killed millions.
However, stay on your soap box, you have nothing to lose. No one will listen to you anyway.
Don't take this personally but, imho, doctors "practice" medicine all their lives. What doctors know could be put in a thimble. The less arrogant ones admit that.
That kind of "fact" is pure, unadultered DISinformational rhetoric.
You said: My poor father smoked plus he was surrounded by other smokers. Thank God he was in Florida and not here in Maine, so I didn't have to watch as he slowly, oh so slowly wasted away. Being robbed of your father's love by an early preventive death is nothing to crack jokes about, believe me.
***
I went through a similar ordeal with my mother, who died at 43 of lung cancer (which had spread pretty much all over). I truly regret losing her so young, before she could meet her grandchildren and see me become a little more successful than I was when she died. It was a pretty horrible way to go.
But two things: 1) She decided to smoke, wanted to smoke, enjoyed smoking and knew what she was doing; 2) She was not fun to be around with her constant smoke, and I know that there would have been HUGE arguments about her not being allowed to smoke in my house and around my kids.
I fully support the rights of people to smoke, and I frankly doubt much of the report regarding second hand smoke. I don't think it is that much of a health hazard in limited quantities, and for many people it is no hazard at all. I just don't like the stench. I think back to my days living at home, waking up early in the morning, breathing relatively fresh air, only to hear my mother wake up and flick her lighter before even getting out of bed, as I awaited the smell making its way all through the house, into my room, my clothes, my hair, etc. Of course I could do or say nothing, and for the most part I did say nothing. She knew it bothered me and either couldn't quit or didn't care what I thought. She was nearly a chain smoker. In the car it was awful, and my sister and I would crack the rear windows in hopes of getting a little fresh air.
My sister smokes still today, after watching her mother die of lung cancer. She is weak. She has tried many times to stop, but cannot. I remember her lighting up in the limousine on the way to the cemetery to bury my mother.
Still, I support the freedom of people to smoke, and to allow it on the premises they own.
Someone mentioned an interesting point the other day. Almost everyone (I understand) has a negative first experience with smoking, and yet so many get addicted. This is unlike experiences with other drugs where you at least get high, even the first time. It truly must be a powerful addiction.
Sorry for the ramble.
"My father was an alcoholic, a gambler and a womanizer! I worshipped him."
John Travolta, "The General's Daughter"
Reading comprehension is a lost art...
Best I can tell, this article is about second hand smoke. Any thoughts on the relevant subject?
Maybe this might be a source of some information. The Surgeon General is part of Health & Human Services and they run some program called Healthy People 2010. They have the Robert Wood Johnson foundation working/funding in partnership with them.
Healthy People 2010 Home Page -- Healthy People 2010 challenges individuals, communities, and professionals — indeed, all of us — to take specific steps to ensure that good health, as well as long life, are enjoyed by all.
Healthy People is managed by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (odphp.osophs.dhhs.gov), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (hhs.gov)
Implementation of Healthy People 2010
Partnerships for a Healthy Workforce sponsored by the Partnership for Prevention and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
First, what did the WHO study do wrong? The most massive, controlled and long-term study ever made on Second Hand Smoke by the UN World Health Organization?
It came to the opposite conclusion.
Second, If the conclusions of this "study" are so clear, why isn't there a strong and unequivocal recommendation to ban all tobacco products immediately and to make them 'illegal substances'?
Onward, to read all the comments from perhaps the most clueless people on earth: anti-smokers...
Wow. An attempt at objectivity, albeit a failed one.
Just like the study in question. Science does not allow for emotional baggage.
Oh, by the way, this article and the report are about Second Hand Smoke. Are all oncologists unable to grasp reading comprehension?
Congratulations on being perhaps the only radiation oncologist to have never experienced non-smoking related cancers...
And nary a word as to why only 25% of smokers ever get cancer.
Or what the huge WHO study on second hand smoke did wrong, to come to the opposite conclusion and get hidden away for all time...
*sigh*
A little learning is a dangerous thing...
Have a nice day.
Good one...
I'll help you sell tickets when you find some takers.........
Cute but irrelevant. Science by humor or anecdote is not science.
Explain or laugh away the documented fact that of the 10 longest lived human beings of record, nine of them smoked past the age of 95.
Normal human beings can't live their entire lives controlled by the weaknesses of the bottom of the gene pool.
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