Health Buzz: Smoking Bans Cut Heart Attacks, and Other Health News
Reader Comments
smoking
Both of my parents died from lung cancer and both were smokers, so yes it does KILL, and my children did get sick every time we visited them. Ear infections, sinus infections, etc., we usually had to go to the doctor within a few days of visiting. I was also sicker as a child than I am now living in a smoke free environment. I had a constant runny nose and a cough, not to mention the smell, it literally made me throw up, especially riding in the car! The thing that probably saved a lot of us when we were little was that air-conditioning was not used as much, so windows were open and you got more of an air-flow.
I would love to see all tobacco products banned! Check the heart disease rates, cancers and other smoking illnesses from those countries who now embrace smoking. You'll see that the number of people getting sick with those diseases have gone up!
My dad used to say that smoking wasn't bad either and that it was the government trying to control lives. He showed them by continuing to smoke and dying from it.
Remove US CIGAR SMOKERS from your ploys
Actuarial data shows CIGAR SMOKERS live on average 3 years longer than non smokers.
We don't inhale and just enjoy the flavors of fine hand made tobacco products.
Please don't group us with cigarrette smokers. We aren't!
rhetoric
Any time i see a study that has only two data points ie. this year vs last year or an 18 month period vs the next I get suspicious. If the data were any good at all they would have reported a 10 or twenty year low. I am guessing this is probably a normal fluctuation or variation in the data since no other data was presented. It is great to see their agenda getting published though.....NOT
SHS myth
There is no danger from second-hand smoke. The babyboom period produced a billion kids exposed to SHS, everywhere they went: in homes, yards, playgrounds, grocery stores, post offices, banks; in cars, buses, planes, trains and taxis.
There were smokers in barber shops, drugstores, diners, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, waiting rooms; lobbies, airports, vacation spots; at summer camps, swimming pools, bowling alleys, beaches, parks, and at all the ball games ...
...at adult gatherings, parties, church events; smoke from neighbors and visitors; aunts, uncles, grandparents; smoke from maids, babysitters, and older siblings, even coaches, teachers, scout leaders and den mothers.
Widespread exposure to SMS, every day of their lives.
According to the modern-day crybabies and whiners (think of the children!) none of these kids should have made it past the crib. Actually, they managed quite well, even got through the massive drug scene of the 60s and 70s – with smokers around them all the time, for decades.
So who’s kidding whom?
A billion people in China, and children are exposed to much more smoking there than you ever saw in America, and they don’t die; they don’t get sick, there is no epidemic or threat, simply because there are no ASHoles or agendas, no money trails; no Banzhafs, no Glantzes, or Carmonas; no vapid TV ads offering pills for diahroemic paramiestudapidalisis; none of these dreary lifestyles that embrace fear, pharma, and hypochondria.
American society isn’t healthier, the mentality gets sicker every day. It stems from a time when Pharma discovered no more epidemics coming down the road: no diphtheria, cholera, flu, polio – how to survive? Sell Geritol? They came up with a cool idea, what if smokers bought all their nicotine from us instead of Phil Morris? Think of the profits! They called up the lawyers & marketers and drafted a future plan: first get Joe Senator to put warnings on cigarette packs, bide our time, then go with plan B - slow process, just raise the bar an inch at a time and cultivate an image: first make smokers look like addicts, then like outcasts and lepers; finally like criminals and baby-killers.
I look for where the money’s going.
Because this isn’t about smoking, it was never about smoking.
Smoking has just become a tool in the hands of many.
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More junk science
This is one more example of junk science pressing forward to produce junk policy. Read more closely: the study didn't account for any number of confounding factors, including--incredibly--primary smoking! Furthermore, the study was blended with other studies, and no one has questioned whether there is any basis for comparison between those studies that were blended. As for second hand smoke being the scourge of the apocalypse, this has become the "Big Lie" of the century. the claim has simply been repeated so loudly and so often that it has become an article of faith among people who have never even bothered to look at the data.
Smoking Kills... and so does a lot of other stuff
Smoking kills. Ok. Alcohol kills too. How many highway deaths do we hear about? How many of your children will kill themselves in alcohol binges? Isn't it time we banned alcohol? Oh yah, we did that once didn't we.
Well... apparently food kills. Food is eaten by all the fat people in the USA who's lives will be shortened by their obesity. By God! We should do something! We have to protect those people from themselves, and protect the children that will die when their fat parent rolls over on them in bed and suffocates them. Besides, look at all the money we spend on them for health care.
It appears that deaths due to influenza is one of the top ten reasons for death in america. Why aren't we required to get flu shots? Think of all the lives we could save in america if everyone was required by law to get their flu shot. In addition we could build another bureaucracy, hire more people to spend your tax dollars in a mediocre and inefficient way.
Accidents cause even more deaths each year than does influenza. Let's ban accidents! Hmmm, you're right, that wouldn't work. We could ban the things that cause accidents. Automobiles, machinery, tools.... hmmm, that wouldn't work either would it. What if someone had an accident and the law required that that individual or individuals have the item involved in the accident confiscated, and that they be prohibited from owning that item again in the future. Have a highway accident and your vehicle is confiscated, and can never own one again. Fall from a ladder and land on your child killing them, your ladder is confiscated and you can never own another one. Your child is running with scissors and the fall and end up stabbing themselves in the eye and die... well, put them in the mandated national database indicating they can never have scissors again. The fact that they are already dead shouldn't stop us from being thorough, right?
Am I being silly? You may think so... but a look at history tells a story of silliness put into law and inflicted upon people.
Yeah, I'm a smoker. I enjoy a cigar or two a day. I go out of my way to enjoy them in a way that won't bother other people. More and more we find that that isn't sufficient for you banners out there. Be careful... you may find things banned that you'd wish otherwise.
Freedom and Nazis
The freedom to breathe clean air should be a god given right. However this freedom has to be fought for - and the fight is harder because it is against one of the most vicious addictions known to man.
The "smoking Nazi" is the person who pollutes the air of others with their smoke and violates the non-smokers freedom to breathe clean air.
Yes there are worse health hazards - like trans fats. But with trans fats they are only a self inflicted injury and the hazards are not imposed on others.
Smoking Kills
This is good news. Those who feel compelled to complain about the 'empirical evidence' needing to be stronger are luddites. Let's all get over the fact that smoking is BAD - I quit 20 years ago and it is the best thing I ever did.
Discrediting another conclusive result is childish at best. Those who do can join those who believe AIDS doesn't exist and that the earth is flat.
Nothing more than a thinly veiled agenda.
So not only are the smoking Nazis celebrating the restriction of business owners' property rights (and yes, it's a property issue, not a health issue), but now they are claiming heart attacks are down because of it?? I'm not even sure what's more despicable, the fact that this obviously blatant story is nothing more than a political agenda, the supposed objectivity that went into the story, or people reading this garbage that should be on the opinion page actually believe it because it appears in what is seemingly a reputable publication. As said before by another poster, methodology is everything when claiming something so outrageous. We can claim anything, but without the open and clear methodology, it's worthless. By this standard, New York could claim that people's average weight is down because of the ban on trans fats on local restaurants. Automatically, we have people jumping on the bandwagon demanding more needless restrictions because they saw what the story said. What they don't realize is that perhaps average weight gain is actually down because its a slow economy and people must budget more for food and cannot be as wasteful or gluttonous. Or perhaps the sample size was that of thinner people and was so small it appeared to be effective. Basically, this article is among the worst kind of journalistic abuse and bias. I urge people to take what the news media says with a grain of salt, because despite what we hear, there's always another side, an agenda, or something to be gained.
