Shawn
sheilaETS studies and how to understand them
A very poorly produced but highly informative video.
TABLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL TOBACCO SMOKE AND LUNG CANCER
STUDIES UP TO 2006
Pie Chart of the studies.
Articles Showing not to Trust Low Relative Risk
Award winning article in Science Epidemiology faces its limits.
Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?
The case against the 1992 EPA Report
The Congressional Research Service published a report on the studies November 14, 1995
The fourth circuit Federal Court of Appeals later overruled the District court’s decision on jurisdictional grounds (Link here for the written decision) , but did not overrule the substantive findings of the Judge.
WHO 1998
On March 8, 1998, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported “The world’s leading health organization has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect.”
Meta-Analysis
Meta-analysis has been defined as “the process of aggregating the data and results of a set of studies, preferably as many as possible that have used the same or similar methods and procedures; reanalyzing the data from all these combined studies; and thereby generating larger numbers and more stable rates and proportions for statistical analysis and significance testing than can be achieved by any single study”. But this is almost never the case for meta-analyses of ETS, performed from cherry-picked and dissimilar studies to demonstrate a politically pre-conceived outcome: that the prohibition of smoking is legitimate because passive smoking hurts people. But the meta-analysis of studies that prove nothing cannot prove anything.
Beware of Meta-analyses Bearing False Gifts
EPIDEMIOLOGIC EVIDENCE IN PUBLIC AND LEGAL POLICY:REALITY OR METAPHOR?
Surgeon Generals Report (2006)
Where’s the Consensus on Secondhand Smoke?
Surgeon General Trades Integrity for Advocacy
Surgeon General’s Report Blows Smoke
The Missing Study
Did Carmona and coauthors cherry-pick the data? Absolutely. They ignore the largest and most credible study ever conducted on spouses of smokers, by Enstrom and Kabat, published in the May 12, 2003 issue of the British Medical Journal. The authors found:
“The results do not support a causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality. The association between tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.”
Now there will be those that will say that Enstrom was paid off by Big Tobacco. The facts are that it was origionally a study funded by The American Cancer Society when they found that the numbers wouldn’t fit their agenda they abandoned the study.
In the interest of transparency and full disclosure, the paper included the following detailed statements about the funding history of the study and the competing interests of the authors: “Funding: The American Cancer Society initiated CPS I in 1959, conducted follow up until 1972, and has maintained the original database. Extended follow up until 1997 was conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles with initial support from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, a University of California research organisation funded by the Proposition 99 cigarette surtax. After continuing support from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program was denied, follow up through 1999 and data analysis were conducted at University of California at Los Angeles with support from the Center for Indoor Air Research.
Defending legitimate epidemiologic research: combating Lysenko pseudoscience
Here are a couple more you may consider adding.
http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/science-and-the-law/
http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/a-new-american-cancer-society-study/