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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 11/06/2005 : 20:49:41
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In the Skeptic's Dictionary Newsletter 61, Robert Carroll writes (about halfway down the page),I owe an apology to readers of this newsletter. In April 2004, I wrote the first of several commentaries on Penn & Teller's claim in a Bullshit! episode that the EPA report was bogus that claims that 3,000 people a year die from lung cancer because of secondhand smoke. My initial research into the subject was inadequate and I agreed with P & T. I was wrong to do so. My position was laid out in Newsletters 41, 42, 44, 49, and 50. For the full retraction, see Newsletter 41, though I've posted corrections in each of those newsletters. Personally, I've always been a bit leery of that P&T episode, since it hung so much on Steven Milloy's research, and his stuff has been suspect (with me, at least) from the first time I read it.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 19:25:27 [Permalink]
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| Thanks to Randy, I learned that Penn "is a research fellow at the Cato Institute..." So is Milloy. I'm now not surprised that the Bullshit! episode on secondhand smoke leaned on Milloy's research. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 20:10:47 [Permalink]
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Interesting. Intuitively, I've always been a little suspicious RE the 2nd hand smoke issue, as the extent to which it was deemed "bad" seemed to increase proportionately with how politically vogue going after the tobacco industry seemed to be. I don't smoke, I don't care for the smell of it, and I don't think anyone would argue that it's a dangerous habit (among other things) but similarly, in decades past when smoking in public places (restaurants, cafeterias, workplaces, etc.) was commonly accepted, far fewer people complained that the smoke "bothered them." That was surely in part due to social pressure to exercise tolerance of a popular habit in decades past, but now, I think there's probably more complaining partly because given sanction to do so, some people just like to complain (and exaggerate, of course.) That's not to say I'm a fan of "Big Tobacco", that I advocate their products, or think they're an especially "honest" industry... but to be realistic- for whatever the reasons- beginning a few years back, the government appeared to have moved towards "open season" on tobacco companies after ignoring/appeasing them for many years despite having an awareness of the unhealthy nature of their products. I mean, does it really take a pulmonary researcher to figure out that inhaling smoke doesn't do a person any good? I don't think so.
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Ron White |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2005 : 01:33:26 [Permalink]
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| Not to mention cancer is not the only hazard of second hand smoke. Kids in smoking households have more and/or worse respiratory infections than kids in smoke free homes. |
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