The rest of the story is that ASH’s claims (both of them) are false and there is absolutely no documentation that supports either claim.
State House Dome: Smoking ban will return
Apr. 9, 2006
TOM FAHEY??????????
The next question is what kind of campaign issue the smoking ban will make this fall. The ban on smoking in restaurants and bars died on a 12-11 vote Thursday in the Senate.
One pro-ban lobbyist said right after the vote that the campaigns “have started already.”
Opponents said they fought for individual freedoms and personal choice. They refused to bail out businesses unwilling to take a risk and ban smoking themselves. Those for the ban stuck to the health issue – both for people who don’t have the sense to leave a smoky bar and for workers who inhale second-hand smoke all day or night.
Sen. David Gottesman said the issue should not be partisan, since it involved health.
Forget that. Right after the vote, Democratic Party chairman Kathy Sullivan put out a short statement.
“Ideology should never be put above health and safety, and that is what happened today. Frankly, I think voters will hold their senators accountable for this vote in November, and we will see enough seats change in the fall elections that it will pass smoothly next session.”
STRONG FEELINGS
After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Bob Clegg dismissed a UNH Survey Center poll that found 79 percent support for the ban. He said the survey relied on a small sample of voters.
“I’m sorry, but 402 voters out of 735,000 doesn’t make a mandate,” he said.
The intensity of feelings brought out the whackos on both sides. Senators who opposed the ban said they got harassing phone calls, threats against them and their families, and wishes for a happy cancer.
Those who wanted the ban said they got some of the same, including letters with swastikas on it.
Sen. Carl Johnson said he’d never been treated this way, and his hands shook as he read from a statement saying the smoking ban side will be the worse for it.
“When I’m told that I’m promoting cancer, that’s downright disrespectful,” he said. Callers verbally abused his wife, too, he said, calling that “deplorable and disrespectful.”
Among other points that came up during debate:
Sen. Bob Flanders said smoking bans should be decided by communities. That idea has been killed in the House.
Sen. Bob Boyce deplored interference with private choices. If you outlaw smoking, outlaw tobacco, too, he said.
“Maybe we should also ban the wheel while we’re talking here. Chances are someone will be injured on a highway,” he said. (He didn’t mention the strange case of Gary Dodds, Democratic congressional candidate who crashed his car in Dover on Wednesday and was found safe Thursday after extensive search efforts.)
Sen. Lou D’Allesandro noted that the entire State House is smoke-free.
“Why is this building better than a restaurant? Why? Are the people here any different than the people who go to a restaurant?” he asked.
The State House has been smoke-free since 1990 under the same bill that mandated smoking sections in most restaurants. Sen. Sheila Roberge co-sponsored that bill. She didn’t speak Thursday before joining the GOP to block the total ban in HB 1177.
Anti-Smoking Group Uses False Information to Support New Hampshire Smoking Ban
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) – a Washington, D.C.-based anti-smoking group – has sent a message to each member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives supporting a bill, under consideration now, that would ban smoking in restaurants. The communication sent to each House member indicated that breathing secondhand smoke for even brief periods can be deadly to people who don”t have asthma and that breathing secondhand smoke for as little as 30 minutes raises the risk of a fatal heart attack in a nonsmoker to the same level as in a smoker.
A major justification in support of a smoking ban that ASH provides is the following scientific claim about the health effects of secondhand smoke:
“Even for some people without respiratory conditions, breathing drifting tobacco smoke for even brief periods can be deadly. For example, the Centers for Disease Controls [CDC] has warned that breathing drifting tobacco smoke for as little as 30 minutes can raise a nonsmokers risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker.”
The Rest of the Story
The rest of the story is that ASH”s claims (both of them) are false and there is absolutely no documentation that supports either claim.
There is simply no solid evidence that breathing secondhand smoke for brief periods can be deadly to nonsmokers. The only exception to this would be severe asthmatics, for whom a brief exposure could trigger an asthmatic attack, which could potentially be fatal. But this claim excludes asthmatics. What it is clearly referring to is death from a fatal heart attack. But there is no credible evidence that I have seen that is sufficient to document a claim that a person is at risk of a heart attack from breathing secondhand smoke briefly.
The second claim is completely fallacious. It is simply not true that breathing in drifting tobacco smoke for 30 minutes raises the risk of a fatal heart attack in a nonsmoker to the same level as in a smoker. And there is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim.
Moreover, I can find not a shred of evidence that CDC made any such claim. What CDC said was that 30 minutes of exposure could cause endothelial dysfunction equivalent to that seen in a smoker. But nowhere did CDC state that 30 minutes of exposure could raise the fatal heart attack risk to that of a smoker.
In fact, you cannot get a heart attack from breathing in secondhand smoke for just 30 minutes if you are otherwise healthy. It just can”t happen. You cannot develop atherosclerosis in 30 minutes!
Suffice it to say that for the first claim, there is simply not sufficient evidence to support it.
And the second claim is simply a bunch of crap.
Now let me make it clear that I am arguing that these claims are fallacious and false. I”m not arguing that ASH is lying. In other words, it is possible that ASH actually believes the crap they are stating. I”m not claiming they are deliberately trying to deceive people. It is quite possible that they actually believe the ridiculous, implausible, and impossible claim that they are making. Although if that”s true, you would think it would help them to get some sort of physician or scientist on board as quickly as possible to help prevent them from spreading such false information.
Regardless of the reasons or intentions, the bottom line is that a prominent anti-smoking group is spreading complete misinformation in an attempt to promote a public policy. And I find that wrong and irresponsible. And I think it severely harms the credibility of the entire anti-smoking movement.
For the movement to save itself and preserve any semblance of scientific integrity and credibility, I think anti-smoking groups and advocates need to clearly and publicly reject ASH”s misinformation, and explain to the public that these claims are untrue and do not represent the thinking of the entire movement, but simply of one fanatical organization that is going far beyond the realm of science to support its agenda.
