Tidbits and Talking Points
"Thus for every $1 spent on direct service, approximately $6.40 is spent on compensation and overhead. In all ten states, salaries and fringe benefits are by far the largest single budget items, a surprising fact in light of the characterization of the appeals, which stress an urgent and critical need for donations to provide cancer services."
- Dr. Samuel Epstein (talking about the American Cancer Society)
"Although smoking was completely unrestricted inside the main office areas of the facility, ETS levels, either areal or from personal exposure measurements, were lower than those estimated by Occupational Safety and Health Administration to be present in such facilities."
- From The Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology
"When the median values for nicotine and ETS particles are converted to cigarette equivalents, Stockholm housewives and househusbands living with smokers would receive 6-9 cigarette equivalents per year, working nonsmokers living with smokers would receive 0.6-0.7 cigarette equivalents at home, and nonsmokers working with smokers would be exposed to 0.1-0.2 cigarette equivalent at work. "
- From The Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health
"Anti-smoking activists have yet to explain where were all the childhood asthma and SIDS cases in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when smoking indoors was commonplace and adult smoking rates were much higher than they are now."
- Steven Milloy
"During much of history, scientists contended, “the dose makes the poison.” Indeed, small levels of substances can be helpful or benign, but at high levels, they can sicken or kill. But during the latter part of the 20th century, regulators, many in the “environmental community,” and a few scientists abandoned this idea. They contended that many chemicals can have adverse effects at any level and that risks increase linearly with any dose above zero. On the basis of those assumptions, regulatory policy around the world has focused on ways to regulate chemicals to reduce exposure as close to zero as possible. But many scientists question whether such “linearity” even exists. They contend that the old way of thinking was correct: many chemicals are safe under a given “threshold” or exposure level, with each chemical having its own threshold."
- From CEI
"Ultimately, the study does not exonerate tobacco companies, but it strikes a blow at the public’s misperception of the ill effects of secondhand smoke--and does so shortly after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s creation of a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, based largely on purportedly life-threatening health hazards to employees. The study suggests that the public’s fears--and politicians’ ideas--about how we are affected by [environmental tobacco smoke] may be misguided."
- From Environmental News
"Far from being the last word on the health effects of secondhand smoke, Carmona's report and its uncritical acceptance by frequent commentators on smoking raise questions about bias, error, and the deliberate orchestration of public opinion."
- From Health Care News
"If, as we suspect, he is referring to deaths caused by exposure to secondhand smoke in restaurants and bars, the estimate of 1,000 deaths prevented is patently absurd. Our best estimate of the number of deaths prevented is somewhere between zero and a hypothetical ten to fifteen. There is no evidence that any New Yorker — patron or employee — has ever died as a result of exposure to smoke in a bar or restaurant."
- Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
"In the studies cited by the surgeon general, not only do the researchers have no control over the exposures to secondhand smoke, they don't even know what the data are. A weak association is a fortuitous finding. Converting it into a causal link bypasses the scientific method, and has been termed 'statistical malpractice' in the literature. This unethical application of statistics to the imperatives of health policy is a common occurrence in politically motivated science."
- Dr. Jerome Arnett
"I talked to one of researchers about that simple observation. After stumbling and stammering for an explanation, he finally referred me to the 'study’s statistician,' Dr. Stan Glantz -- as if some statistical mumbo-jumbo would credibly explain why the 1998 dip in heart attack rates was just an anomaly but the 2002 dip was definitely due to the smoking ban."
- Steven Milloy
"The epidemiological evidence doesn't come close to justifying the outlandish claim secondhand smoke kills more people than handguns. Since "the dose makes the poison," it's far from clear that passive inhalation of secondhand smoke poses any significantly increased health risk at all."
- Gene Healy