If you love liberty, vote NO on this smoking ban poll for business owners

[angelatc]

Many locales are banning smoking in apartments and townhouses now, so you basically can't smoke in your own home.

An apartment is not your property. If the property owner only wants to rent to non-smokers, that's certainly his right. (Personally, I hate the smell of curry.....)

 

[specsaregood]

An apartment is not your property. If the property owner only wants to rent to non-smokers, that's certainly his right. (Personally, I hate the smell of curry.....)

Not sure you could not rent to curry-cookers. As that would effectively discriminate against a protected class.

 

[angelatc]

Most hospitals receive some form of government (public) monies. Private ownership establishments do not. Difference.

Is there actually a problem with letting hospitals decide? Again, when I was growing up, we could smoke in hospitals as long as oxygen wasn't in use. In the 80's, my doctor pulled up a chair and had a smoke while we talked about my symptoms. How horrifying that is for people like Tod, I guess.

 

[angelatc]

Not sure you could not rent to curry-cookers. As that would effectively discriminate against a protected class.

Yeah, but that smell is 10 x's harder to remove than cigarette smoke.

 

[jmdrake]

It's official. I will never again trust anything I read at RPF with regards to health. While I think people should be able to choose to smoke the evidence is overwhelming that it is bad for you.

Big Pharma wants you to Quit Smoking

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/229868-Big-Pharma-wants-you-to-Quit-Smoking


Where is the 'War Against Cell Phones'? WHO guilty of hypocrisy

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/2...r-Against-Cell-Phones-WHO-guilty-of-hypocrisy

Anti-smoking propaganda: Decrease in smoking causes oral cancer?

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/2...ganda-Decrease-in-smoking-causes-oral-cancer-

Nicotine's effect on appetite identified

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/229864-Nicotine-s-effect-on-appetite-identified

 

[phill4paul]

Is there actually a problem with letting hospitals decide? Again, when I was growing up, we could smoke in hospitals as long as oxygen wasn't in use. In the 80's, my doctor pulled up a chair and had a smoke while we talked about my symptoms. How horrifying that is for people like Tod, I guess.

That would depend. Is the hospital a private entity sufficient only on its own funding. If so then yes. Do they receive government funding. Then no. They open themselves up to the dictates of those they receive funding from.

 

[jmdrake]

If you love liberty and good health, please support these products which allow smokers to kill themselves without endangering (or at the very least annoying) others.

Smokeless ashtray.

Electronic cigarettes.

 

[phill4paul]

Meh, my grandfather lived well into his nineties. Smoked hand rolled every day. Filterless. Would that I could live so long and be active and coherent till the end.

 

[Tod]

The whole idea of a Republic is based on the premise that the people will behave civilly and responsibly. Once you toss that premise out the window, a republic cannot stand. With Liberty comes Responsibility. They are flip sides to the same coin. It is impossible to have one without the other.

Take the 2nd Amendment. We have the right to bear arms. But suppose most everyone who bore arms went around shooting things (like signs, parked cars, windows, etc) and people for the fun of it instead of behaving responsibly? How long do you think the 2nd Amendment would remain a part of the Constitution? It would have been repealed long ago. True, there are many people who would like to do away with it no matter if everyone were responsible with their weapons, but there would be many many more if the vast majority of gun owners weren't so responsible. Those in favor of gun ownership wouldn't be able to convince enough people of the importance of gun ownership.

 

[angelatc]

That would depend. Is the hospital a private entity sufficient only on its own funding. If so then yes. Do they receive government funding. Then no. They open themselves up to the dictates of those they receive funding from.

Oh sure. I"m on board with that. IF you want to take the government's money, you have to take the government's rules.

But - and here's that slippery slope argument again - there is a faction of Republicans that think Medicare and Medicaid patients should have their benefits cut off if they don't quit smoking and / or lose weight. Check out this blog post, written by a Republican water-bearer. You'll see my comments in the bottom. It's social engineering - and it makes me genuinely sorry I actually brought kids into this world. http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/2012/03/when-does-state-have-legitimate-state.html

 

[jmdrake]

Banish? Hardly. Individuals within communities are more than welcome to pool their resources for the mutual benefit.

Privately owned by a group of individuals is still privately owned. All religious hospitals are owned by individuals who have pooled their resources for the mutual benefit. "Public" ownership is when someone who may not want to contribute has to contribute through taxes.

 

[donnay]

The Scientific Scandal of Antismoking

By

J. R. Johnstone, PhD (Monash)

and

P.D.Finch, Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Statistics (Monash)​

Science is not always a neutral, disinterested search for knowledge, although it may often seem that way to the outsider. Sometimes the story can be very different.



Smoking and health have been the subject of argument since tobacco was introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century. King James I was a pioneer antismoker. In 1604 he declared that smoking was "a custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." But like many a politician since, he decided that taxing tobacco was a more sensible option than banning it.

By the end of the century general opinion had changed. The Royal College of Physicians of London promoted smoking for its benefits to health and advised which brands were best. Smoking was compulsory in schools. An Eton schoolboy later recalled that "he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoking". As recently as 1942 Price’s textbook of medicine recommended smoking to relieve asthma.

These strong opinions for and against smoking were not supported by much evidence either way until 1950 when Richard Doll and Bradford Hill showed that smokers seemed more likely to develop lung cancer. A campaign was begun to limit smoking. But Sir Ronald Fisher, arguably the greatest statistician of the 20th century, had noticed a bizarre anomaly in their results. Doll and Hill had asked their subjects if they inhaled. Fisher showed that men who inhaled were significantly less likely to develop lung cancer than non-inhalers. As Fisher said, "even equality would be a fair knock-out for the theory that smoke in the lung causes cancer."

Doll and Hill decided to follow their preliminary work with a much larger and protracted study. British doctors were asked to take part as subjects. 40.000 volunteered and 20,000 refused. The relative health of smokers, nonsmokers and particularly ex-smokers would be compared over the course of future years. In this trial smokers would no longer be asked whether they inhaled, in spite of the earlier result. Fisher commented: "I suppose the subject of inhaling had become distasteful to the research workers, and they just wanted to hear as little about inhaling as possible". And: "Should not these workers have let the world know not only that they had discovered the cause of lung cancer (cigarettes) but also that they had discovered the means of its prevention (inhaling cigarette smoke)? How had the MRC [Medical Research Council] the heart to withhold this information from the thousands who would otherwise die of lung cancer?"

Five year’s later, in 1964, Doll and Hill responded to this damning criticism. They did not explain why they had withdrawn the question about inhaling. Instead they complained that Fisher had not examined their more recent results but they agreed their results were mystifying. Fisher had died 2 years earlier and could not reply.

This refusal to consider conflicting evidence is the negation of the scientific method. It has been the hallmark of fifty years of antismoking propaganda and what with good reason may well be described as one of the greatest scandals in 500 years of modern science.

A typical example of such deception appeared in the same year from the American Surgeon General. This was "Smoking and Health",

the first of many reports on smoking and health to be produced by his office over the next 40 years. It declared that in the Doll and Hill study "…no difference in the proportion of smokers inhaling was found among male and female cases and controls." Fisher had shown this was not so. Fisher’s assessment and criticism of the Doll and Hill results is not mentioned, not even to be rejected. Unwelcome results are not merely considered and rejected. They cease to exist.

The work of Doll and Hill was continued and followed up over the next 50 years. They reintroduced the question about inhaling. Their results continued to show the inhaling/noninhaling paradox. In spite of this defect their work was to become the keystone of the modern anti-smoking movement: Defects count for nothing if they are never considered by those who are appointed to assess the evidence.

But their work had a far more serious and crippling disability.

From its inception the British doctors study was known to have a critical weakness. Its subjects were not selected randomly by the investigators but had decided for themselves to be smokers, nonsmokers or ex-smokers. The kind of error that can result from such non-random selection was well demonstrated during the 1948 US presidential election. Opinion polls showed that Dewey would win by a landslide from Truman. Yet Truman won. He was famously photographed holding a newspaper with a headline declaring Dewey the winner. The pollsters had got it wrong by doing a telephone poll which at that time would have targeted the wealthier voters. The majority of telephone owners may have supported Dewey but those without telephones had not. A true sample of the population had not been obtained.

The new Doll and Hill study was subject to a similar error. Smokers who became ex-smokers might have done so because they were ill and hoped quitting would improve them. Alternatively, they might quit because they were exceptionally healthy and hoped to remain so. Quitting could appear either harmful or beneficial. To avoid this source of error another project, the Whitehall study, was begun.

In 1968 fourteen hundred British civil servants, all smokers, were divided into two similar groups. Half were encouraged and counselled to quit smoking. These formed the test group. The others, the control group, were left to their own devices. For ten years both groups were monitored with respect to their health and smoking status.

Such a study is known as a randomised controlled intervention trial. It has become increasingly the benchmark, or as it is often referred to, the "gold standard" of medical investigation. Any week you can open The Lancet or British Medical Journal and you will likely find an example of such a trial to determine the benefits or harm of some new therapy. Such trials are fundamentally different to that of Doll and Hill. This is ironic because Hill had published the influential and much-reprinted textbook "Principles of Medical Statistics" where he considers the relative merits of controlled and uncontrolled trials. His praise is reserved for the former. Of the latter he is particularly critical: Such work uses "second-best" or "inferior" methods. "The same objections must be made to the contrasting in a trial of volunteers for a treatment with those who do not volunteer, or in everyday life between those who accept and those who refuse. There can be no knowledge that such groups are comparable; and the onus lies wholly, it may justly be maintained, upon the experimenter to prove that they are comparable, before his results can be accepted." This criticism by Hill can accurately be applied to the Doll and Hill study. According to Hill’s own criteria, his work with Doll can only be described as second-rate, inferior work. It would be for others to conduct properly controlled trials.

So what were the results of the Whitehall study? They were contrary to all expectation. The quit group showed no improvement in life expectancy. Nor was there any change in the death rates due to heart disease, lung cancer, or any other cause with one exception: certain other cancers were more than twice as common in the quit group. Later, after twenty years there was still no benefit in life expectancy for the quit group.

Over the next decade the results of other similar trials appeared. It had been argued that if an improvement in one life-style factor, smoking, were of benefit, then an improvement in several - eg smoking, diet and exercise - should produce even clearer benefits. And so appeared the results of the whimsically acronymed Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial or MRFIT, with its 12,886 American subjects. Similarly, in Europe 60,881 subjects in four countries took part in the WHO Collaborative Trial. In Sweden the Goteborg study had 30,022 subjects. These were enormously expensive, wide-spread and time-consuming experiments. In all, there were 6 such trials with a total of over a hundred thousand subjects each engaged for an average of 7.4 years, a grand total of nearly 800,000 subject-years. The results of all were uniform, forthright and unequivocal: giving up smoking, even when fortified by improved diet and exercise, produced no increase in life expectancy. Nor was there any change in the death rate for heart disease or for cancer. A decade of expensive and protracted research had produced a quite unexpected result.

During this same period, in America, the Surgeon General had been issuing a number of publications about smoking and health. In 1982, before the final results of the Whitehall study had been published, the then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had praised the study for "pointing up the positive consequences of smoking in a positive manner". But now for nearly ten years he fell silent on the subject and there was no further mention of the Whitehall study nor of the other six studies, though thousands of pages on the dangers of smoking issued from his office. For example in 1989 there appeared "Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking: 25 Years of Progress". This weighty work is long on advice about the benefits of giving up smoking but short on discussion of the very studies which should allow the evaluation of that advice: you will look in vain through the thousand references to scientific papers for any mention of the Whitehall study or most of the other six quit studies. Only the MRFIT study is mentioned, and then falsely:

"The MRFIT study shows that smoking status and number of cigarettes smoked per day have remained powerful predictors for total mortality and the development of CHD [coronary heart disease], stroke, cancer, and COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]. In the study population, there were an estimated 2,249 (29 percent) excess deaths due to smoking, of which 35 percent were from CHD and 21 percent from lung cancer. The nonsmoker-former smoker group had 30 percent fewer total cancers than the smoking group over the 6-year follow up."

This was untrue, as the Surgeon General was later to admit.


Continued...

 

[angelatc]

The whole idea of a Republic is based on the premise that the people will behave civilly and responsibly. Once you toss that premise out the window, a republic cannot stand. With Liberty comes Responsibility. They are flip sides to the same coin. It is impossible to have one without the other.

I am weary of you, especially because you insist on calling yourself a libertarian. Personal responsibility simply means avoiding going to restaurants where smokers smoke. It does not mean the state should have the right to make smokers stop smoking simply because it offends you. That position is fascist, not libertarian.

People like you should be taken to camps, where the government can make sure everybody behaves in the manner that the majority decides is acceptable.

 

[Tod]

I am weary of you, especially because you insist on calling yourself a libertarian. Personal responsibility means avoiding going to restaurants where smokers smoke. It does not mean the state should have the right to make smokers stop smoking simply because it offends you. That position is fascist, not libertarian.

And I of you, tarnishing the good name of Liberty by using it as an excuse for impolite behavior.

 

[phill4paul]

Privately owned by a group of individuals is still privately owned. All religious hospitals are owned by individuals who have pooled their resources for the mutual benefit. "Public" ownership is when someone who may not want to contribute has to contribute through taxes.

That was the message I was trying to convey. You did it better than I. Thank you.

 

[donnay]

I am just trying to put up well researched material to counter the anti-smoking lies:

THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS OF SMOKING AND NICOTINE
http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/therap.htm


Smoking lowers Parkinson's disease risk - More evidence that smoking fights Parkinson - "A new study adds to the previously reported evidence that cigarette smoking protects against Parkinson's disease. Specifically, the new research shows a temporal relationship between smoking and reduced risk of Parkinson's disease. That is, the protective effect wanes after smokers quit."


Impact of Smoking on Clinical and Angiographic Restenosis After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention– This large study shows yet another benefit of smoking. This time the benefit concerns restenosis, that is, the occlusion of coronary arteries. Smokers have much better chances to survive, heal and do well. Where is the press? Nowhere to be found, of course; we are talking about a significant positive about tobacco and smoking, which affects the health of people, don’t we? Well, come on! We are also talking about responsible media, here… people better increase their chances of death from cardiovascular disease then getting the idea that smoking may be good for them – a totally unacceptable paradox.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines paradox in these terms: "A statement or tenet contrary to received opinion or belief … as being discordant with what is held to be established truth, and hence absurd or fantastic". Since the benefits of smoking are too numerous and consistent to be attributable to error or random chance, it follows that the established truth asserting that smoking is the cause of (almost) all disease cannot be true – a reality that dramatically clashes with the gigantic corruption of public health, its pharmaceutical and insurance mentors, institutions and media. Therefore, it is constantly suppressed in the interest of public health, but not of the people.

Severe Gum Recession, Less Of A Risk For Smokers - In the strange world that anti-tobacco has wrought, any research that deviates from the tobacco-is-the-root-of-all-evil template is noteworthy. Here is a study that shows that smokers are actually at lower risk from gum disease. In this page (scroll down) there is more scientific evidence from other sources about oral health and smoking.

Honest scientists have always known that smoking has some benefit. From the apparent shielding effect against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases to the more intangible benefits associated with well-being and tranquility, smoking tobacco in many ways is definitely good for your health.

One of the "Health Warnings" on cigarette pack in Canada. There is no solid proof for any of the diseases attributed to tobacco - just statistics and speculative associations, but the ministries of health continue to lie to the public, in a dazzling display of intellectual, professional, moral and political corruption.

Twin Study Supports Protective Effect of Smoking For Parkinson's Disease – "Dr. Tanner's group continued to see significant differences when dose was calculated until 10 years or 20 years prior to diagnosis. They conclude that this finding refutes the suggestion that individuals who smoke more are less likely to have PD because those who develop symptoms quit smoking." "‘The inverse association of smoking dose and PD can be attributed to environmental, and not genetic, causes with near certainty," the authors write.’

Total silence from the antismoking mass media droids, of course, on this pivotal, long-range study that shows yet another benefit of smoking. The reasons are obvious, and they need no further comments. If the intention of "public health" is to inform the public about the consequences of smoking on health as it proclaims, why don’t we see "warnings" such as: "Smoking Protects against Parkinson’s Disease," or "Smoking protects against Alzheimer’s Disease," or "Smoking protects against Ulcerative Colitis" and so on, alongside with the other speculations on "tobacco-related" disease? Isn’t the function of public health to tell the citizens about ALL the effects on health of a substance? Obviously not. "Public health," today, is nothing more than a deceiving propaganda machine paid by pharmaceutical and public money to promote frauds, fears, and puritanical rhetoric dressed up in white coats.


Does tobacco smoke prevent atopic disorders? A study of two generations of Swedish residents - "In a multivariate analysis, children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of mothers who had never smoked (ORs 0.6-0.7). Children of fathers who had smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day had a similar tendency (ORs 0.7-0.9)."

Kids of smokers have LOWER asthma! You certainly won't see this one on the health news of BBC or ABC, as they are too busy trying to convince us that smokers "cause" asthma in their kids - and in the kids of others. That, of course, is not true, as smoking does not "cause" asthma.

Shocker: 'Villain' nicotine slays TB - "Nicotine might be a surprising alternative someday for treating stubborn forms of tuberculosis, a University of Central Florida researcher said Monday. The compound stopped the growth of tuberculosis in laboratory tests, even when used in small quantities, said Saleh Naser, an associate professor of microbiology and molecular biology at UCF. ... Most scientists agree that nicotine is the substance that causes people to become addicted to cigarettes and other tobacco products."

"… But no one is suggesting that people with TB take up the potentially deadly habit of smoking." Of course not.It is much better to develop medication-resistant superbugs than to start smoking...It should be said that the "most scientists" in question are paid off by the pharmaceutical industry for their research; and that most of the aforementioned "scientists" promote the nicotine-based "cessation" products manufactured by their masters -- mysteriously without explaining why such an addictive substance becomes "un-addictive" when used to quit smoking!

Carbon Monoxide May Alleviate Heart Attacks And Stroke - Carbon monoxide is a by-product of tobacco smoke. A report indicates very low levels of carbon monoxide may help victims of heart attacks and strokes. Carbon monoxide inhibits blood clotting, thereby dissolving harmful clots in the arteries. The researchers focused on carbon monoxide's close resemblance to nitric oxide which keeps blood vessels from dilating and prevents the buildup of white blood cells. "Recently nitric oxide has been elevated from a common air pollutant . . . to an [internal] second messenger of utmost physiological importance. Therefore, many of us may not be entirely surprised to learn that carbon monoxide can paradoxically rescue the lung from [cardiovascular blockage] injury." The pharmacological benefits of tobacco are nothing new.

Smoking Prevents Rare Skin Cancer - A researcher at the National Cancer Institute is treading treacherous waters by suggesting that smoking may act as a preventative for developing a skin cancer that primarily afflicts elderly men in Mediterranean regions of Southern Italy, Greece and Israel. Not that smoking should be recommended for that population, Dr. James Goedert is quick to assure his peers. What is important is not that smoking tobacco may help to prevent a rare form of cancer but that there is an admission by a researcher at the National Cancer Institute that there are ANY benefits to smoking.

Smoking Reduces The Risk Of Breast Cancer - A new study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (May 20, 1998) reports that carriers of a particular gene mutation (which predisposes the carrier to breast cancer) who smoked cigarettes for more than 4 pack years (i.e., number of packs per day multiplied by the number of years of smoking) were found to have a statistically significant 54 percent decrease in breast cancer incidence when compared with carriers who never smoked. One strength of the study is that the reduction in incidence exceeds the 50 percent threshold. However, we think it important to point out that this was a small, case control study (only 300 cases) based on self-reported data.

Nitric oxide mediates a therapeutic effect of nicotine in ulcerative colitis - "CONCLUSIONS: Nicotine reduces circular muscle activity, predominantly through the release of nitric oxide-this appears to be 'up-regulated' in active ulcerative colitis. These findings may explain some of the therapeutic benefit from nicotine (and smoking) in ulcerative colitis and may account for the colonic motor dysfunction in active disease."

Effects of Transdermal Nicotine on Cognitive Performance in Down's Syndrome - "We investigated the effect of nicotine-agonistic stimulation with 5 mg transdermal patches, compared with placebo, on cognitive performance in five adults with the disorder. Improvements possibly related to attention and information processing were seen for Down's syndrome patients compared with healthy controls. Our preliminary findings are encouraging…"

More benefits of nicotine. Of course, it is politically incorrect to say that this is a benefit of smoking - only of the pharmaceutically-produced transdermal nicotine, the one that is terribly addictive if delivered through cigarettes, but not addictive at all, and even beneficial, when delivered through patches....
Antismoking nonsense aside, nicotine gets into the body regardless of the means of delivery. And more evidence about the benefis seems to emerge quite often, though the small size of this study cannot certainly be taken as conclusive.

Nicotine Benefits - The benefits of nicotine -- and smoking -- are described in this bibliography. This information is an example of what the anti-tobacco groups do not want publicized because it fails to support their agenda. Some of the studies report benefits not just from nicotine, but from smoking itself. But of course, according to the anti-smokers, all these scientists have been "paid by the tobacco industry" ... even though this is not true. Sadly, personal slander and misinformation are the price a scientist has to pay for honest work on tobacco.

Parkinson's Disease Is Associated With Non-smoking - Bibliography of references from studies associating Parkinson's disease with non-smoking. Certain benefits of smoking are well-documented, but the anti smoking groups, backed by several medical journals (more interested in advertising revenue than in informing the population), are silent. By the way, what about the cost of non-smokers to society due to their prevailing tencency to contract Parkinson's disease?

Alzheimer's Disease Is Associated With Non-Smoking - "A statistically significant inverse relation between smoking and Alzheimer's disease was observed at all levels of analysis, with a trend towards decreasing risk with increasing consumption".

Research indicating that nicotine holds potential for non-surgical heart by-pass procedures honored by the american college of cardiology - Dr. Christopher Heeschen of Stanford University was honored by the American College of Cardiology for his research on the effect of nicotine on angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth). His work took third place in the 2,000 entry Young Investigators Competition in the category of Physiology, Pharmacology and Pathology. Dr. Heeschen presented compelling data from research done at Stanford revealing that the simple plant protein, nicotine, applied in small harmless doses, produced new blood vessel growth around blocked arteries to oxygen-starved tissue.

Smoking Your Way to Good Health - The benefits of smoking tobacco have been common knowledge for centuries. From sharpening mental acuity to maintaining optimal weight, the relatively small risks of smoking have always been outweighed by the substantial improvement to mental and physical health. Hysterical attacks on tobacco notwithstanding, smokers always weigh the good against the bad and puff away or quit according to their personal preferences.

Now the same anti-tobacco enterprise that has spent billions demonizing the pleasure of smoking is providing additional reasons to smoke. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Tourette's Syndrome, even schizophrenia and cocaine addiction are disorders that are alleviated by tobacco. Add in the still inconclusive indication that tobacco helps to prevent colon and prostate cancer and the endorsement for smoking tobacco by the medical establishment is good news for smokers and non-smokers alike. Of course the revelation that tobacco is good for you is ruined by the pharmaceutical industry's plan to substitute the natural and relatively inexpensive tobacco plant with their overpriced and ineffective nicotine substitutions. Still, when all is said and done, the positive revelations regarding tobacco are very good reasons indeed to keep lighting those cigarettes.

Does maternal smoking hinder mother-child transmission of Helicobacter pylori infection? - "Evidence for early childhood as the critical period of Helicobacter pylori infection and for clustering of the infection within families suggests a major role of intrafamilial transmission. In a previous study, we found a strong inverse relation between maternal smoking and H. pylori infection among preschool children, suggesting the possibility that mother-child transmission of the infection may be less efficient if the mother smokes. To evaluate this hypothesis further, we carried out a subsequent population-based study in which H. pylori infection was measured by 13C-urea breath test in 947 preschool children and their mothers. We obtained detailed information on potential risk factors for infection, including maternal smoking, by standardized questionnaires. Overall, 9.8% (93 of 947) of the children and 34.7% (329 of 947) of the mothers were infected. Prevalence of infection was much lower among children of uninfected mothers (1.9%) than among children of infected mothers (24.7%). There was a strong inverse relation of children's infection with maternal smoking (adjusted odds ratio = 0.24; 95% confidence interval = 0.12-0.49) among children of infected mothers, but not among children of uninfected mothers. These results support the hypothesis of a predominant role for mother-child transmission of H. pylori infection, which may be less efficient if the mother smokes. ". Click here for more information on smoking and pregnancy.

Risk of papillary thyroid cancer in women in relation to smoking and alcohol consumption. - "Both smoking and alcohol consumption may influence thyroid function, although the nature of these relations is not well understood. We examined the influence of tobacco and alcohol use on risk of papillary thyroid cancer in a population-based case-control study. Of 558 women with thyroid cancer diagnosed during 1988-1994 identified as eligible, 468 (83.9%) were interviewed; this analysis was restricted to women with papillary histology (N = 410). Controls (N = 574) were identified by random digit dialing, with a response proportion of 73.6%. We used logistic regression to calculate odds ratios (OR) and associated confidence intervals (CI) estimating the relative risk of papillary thyroid cancer associated with cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. A history of ever having smoked more than 100 cigarettes was associated with a reduced risk of disease (OR = 0.7, 95% CI = 0.5-0.9). This reduction in risk was most evident in current smokers (OR = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.4-0.7).
Women who reported that they had ever consumed 12 or more alcohol-containing drinks within a year were also at reduced risk (OR 0.7, 95% CI = 0.5-1.0). Similar to the association noted with smoking, the reduction in risk was primarily present among current alcohol consumers. The associations we observed, if not due to chance, may be related to actions of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption that reduce thyroid cell proliferation through effects on thyroid stimulating hormone, estrogen, or other mechanisms. "

Urinary Cotinine Concentration Confirms the Reduced Risk of Preeclampsia with Tobacco Exposure - This study, though small, shows one of the benefits of smoking during pregnancy. "These findings, obtained by using laboratory assay, confirm the reduced risk of developing preeclampsia with tobacco exposure. (Am J Obstet Gynecol 1999;181:1192-6.) " Click here for more information on smoking and pregnancy.

Fact Sheet on Smoking and Alzheimer's - From Forest UK.

Smokers have reduced risks of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease - Of the 19 studies, 15 found a reduce risk in smokers, and none found an increased risk. And smoking is clearly associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease, another disease in which nicotine receptors are reduced. The fact that acute administration of nicotine improves attention and information processing in AD patients adds further plausibility to the hypothesis.

The Puzzling Association between Smoking and Hypertension during Pregnancy - This large study has examined nearly 10,000 pregnant women. Conclusion: "Smoking is associated with a reduced risk of hypertension during pregnancy. The protective effect appears to continue even after cessation of smoking. Further basic research on this issue is warranted. (Am J Obstet Gynecol 1999;181:1407-13.) " Click here for more information on smoking and pregnancy.

Smoking: Protection Against Neural Tube Defects? - Swedish researchers have some surprising news for pregnant women who smoke: a decreased risk of neural tube defects in babies. Click here for more information on smoking and pregnancy.

 

[angelatc]

And I of you, tarnishing the good name of Liberty by using it as an excuse for impolite behavior.

And here I was, thinking that you couldn't be any more wrong. Sweetie, you don't want to argue proper etiquette in a polite society with me. I know what every single one of those forks are for, and where they go on a table. And that's just where I start.

You lose again - because publicly criticizing the behavior of others, and advocating for your comfort at the expense of theirs is the actual faux paus. Manners means putting yourself last, not braying about how offended you are by the behavior of others.

 

[phill4paul]

The whole idea of a Republic is based on the premise that the people will behave civilly and responsibly. Once you toss that premise out the window, a republic cannot stand. With Liberty comes Responsibility. They are flip sides to the same coin. It is impossible to have one without the other.

Take the 2nd Amendment. We have the right to bear arms. But suppose most everyone who bore arms went around shooting things (like signs, parked cars, windows, etc) and people for the fun of it instead of behaving responsibly? How long do you think the 2nd Amendment would remain a part of the Constitution? It would have been repealed long ago. True, there are many people who would like to do away with it no matter if everyone were responsible with their weapons, but there would be many many more if the vast majority of gun owners weren't so responsible. Those in favor of gun ownership wouldn't be able to convince enough people of the importance of gun ownership.

Which signs are you talking about shooting? Those people I let onto my personal property with express consent? Or public signs posted at community roadsides? Do not muddy the issue.

 

[jmdrake]

I am just trying to put up well researched material to counter the anti-smoking lies:

If you say so. So the tobacco lobby are the ones who tell the truth and it's the "evil big pharma" that are the liars. Okay. Non smokers live longer than smokers and the epidemiological data proves that but okay. I've heard it all. HIV doesn't cause AIDS but it's the drugs that people take to fight HIV which causes AIDS which is why people live longer after antiviral drugs became widely available....wait a minute...that doesn't make sense. But if this was a thread on HIV invariably someone would post "research" that "proved" this just as surely as you are posting anti-anti-smoking "research". Believe what you want. It's a free country. For now anyway.

 

[donnay]

Pestilence, the Great Plague and the Tobacco Cure

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/234667-Pestilence-the-Great-Plague-and-the-Tobacco-Cure