Catch up

The debate returns at Frank Davis's...

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"It's very scientific"

It was a mark of the crankiness of Victorian-era anti-cigarette campaigners that they claimed cigarettes caused instantaneous death (see Chapter 2, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist). And it was partly because the public became weary of such obvious scare stories that they found it difficult to believe the real truth—several decades later—that chronic smoking could cause fatal diseases in middle- and old-age.

But everything comes full circle and the latest comments from the new Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin, seem designed to take us back at least 100 years. Her predecessor was a tough act to follow. Scientifically illiterate statements like "There is no significant scientific evidence that suggests smokeless tobacco is a safer alternative to cigarettes" and "There is no safe level of secondhand smoke" set new standards of quackery at the Surgeon General's office. But the new incumbent looks up to the job, and when you have an obese Surgeon General serving a president who smokes, all bets are off.

The latest headline claim—breathing a puff of secondhand smoke can kill you instantly—is really just a variation of Carmona's "no safe level" rhetoric. It takes the theoretical possibility that someone at death's door who is critically, terminally ill with heart disease could be finished off by smoking a cigarette, and then extends it to suggest that healthy people are being killed in the street from breathing secondhand smoke.

Benjamin has done nothing to distinguish between these very different situations. Indeed, she has gone out of her way to add to the confusion. This is very clear from her recent interview with Ed Baxter on KGO Radio. Baxter gives her every opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding but Benjamin just keeps piling it up. The transcript is below, and requires little further comment, but I recommend listening to the audio to get a measure of the woman. She doesn't exactly ooze authority. (Listen here - starts at 17.00). My thanks to Becky Johnson for helping with the transcript.

EB: Well, this may be, there have been a lot of warnings about cigarette smoking, but this may be the scariest I've seen. So we really wanted to get it straight from the person who did the study and the survey so we went straight to the top. Surgeon General, Regina Benjamin is on the KGO live line. Thank you for joining us.

RB: Thank you for having me.

EB: If I'm reading this correctly, you're saying your next cigarette could be your last. That's a dramatic way of putting it: "The next cigarette could be your last." This  is a report coming straight out of the Surgeon General's office. Cigarette smoking can cause instantaneous shut down of systems, is that true?

RB: It can certainly cause a heart attack and death, that's true. This report is the 30th Surgeon General's report on tobacco. The previous reports have focused on what diseases are caused by tobacco. But this particular report focuses on how tobacco smoke really damages every organ in your body. One of the things we know is that if you inhale cigarette smoke or inhale passive, second-hand smoke you might have an underlying cardiac disease like heart disease and didn't even know it. When you inhale it, those chemicals, they can irritate the blood vessels, irritate that lining, causing immediate damage. And also cause your blood to be thicker and clot quicker so that can cause an immediate heart attack. So just that one cigarette can cause a heart attack.

JLJ: So even just second hand smoke? Just a whiff of the smoke?

RB: That's correct. We know that cigarettes today have over 7,000 chemicals and chemical compounds. And inhaling those chemicals causes immediate damage to your blood vessels.

EB: And this, of course, would be more severe or traumatic to somebody who has a chronic condition, who has been smoking for a while....

RB: No, it's anyone! Most people who have heart disease, for example, don't even know they have heart disease because they never had any symptoms.

EB: So anyone just walking on a street, a first cigarette or just second hand smoke?
This could be caused by hypertension or any underlining disease, correct?

RB: Any underlying disease or people who may appear to be very healthy and just didn't know it! And also people who are healthy, it affects them as well. It affects your blood vessels and can damage your DNA. We find that people who, particularly women who have reproductive problems, because the DNA is affected by the chemicals in the tobacco. We didn't even know these chemicals existed. We didn't even know that there were 7,000 different chemicals and chemical compounds so these things are new. It's very scientific, but how these chemicals affect your body. Every organ in your body.

EB: We know it causes cancer. It may lead to heart disease. People are talking about chronic diseases. We're talking about instantaneous—and I just want to make sure we're understanding this correctly—instantaneous... your next cigarette or breathing someone's secondhand smoke could cause, basically, an acute episode that could lead to instant death.

RB: That's correct. The other thing is that these cigarettes today are more addicting. The nicotine, the chemical compounds that we now have the science behind—and this report tries to explain how it becomes much more addicting.

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On e-cigs, snus and harm reduction

I've got an article up at Spiked today on the subject of the possible prohibition of e-cigarettes. With the exception of The Independent, the British media have ignored today's study in Tobacco Control which recommends taking e-cigarettes off the market while their safety is tested (and if you think they'll ever come back on the market, I have some magic beans you might be interested in). This being Tobacco Control, the study isn't available online, but I describe the main findings—which are few—in the article. Michael Siegel also discussed it on his blog yesterday.

The simple truth is that not one death has been attributed to the use or misuse of e-cigarettes since they appeared in 2004. Niche product though it may be, this is a sufficient length of time for any action against it now to be viewed as reactionary rather than precautionary. In the same six years, some stop-smoking drugs have been shown to have killed many people, and of course several million more have had their lives cut short as a result of cigarette smoking. And yet it is the e-cigarette that faces the chop.

Do have a read...

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John Banzhaf is a liar

I've just been over to John Banzhaf's ASH website to see if he's said anything particuarly insane since the last time I visited and I see he is now claiming that ASH is 'America's first antismoking and nonsmokers' rights organization'.

This happens to be something I know a bit about. So let's see...

The Anti-Tobacco League was formed in Massachusetts in 1850.

The Anti-Cigarette League was formed in Chicago in 1899.

The Nonsmokers Protective League was formed in New York in 1911.

Action on Smoking and Health was formed in 1968.


Now, I pick my words carefully when dealing with this notoriously litigious individual, but let me say loud and clear that John Banzhaf is a liar.

Sue me, fatso.



[PS. New CATCH up now at Frank's gaff]

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No. Inception.

I'd hate to think that some of you may have missed the fact there are new Alan Partridge episodes available online. Now scratching a living presenting Mid Morning Matters on North Norfolk Digital, it's so funny you'll want to drink a weak Australian lager.

Fill yer boots...

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Tobacco and Allergies: Is There a Connection?

[This is a guest post from An Apple a Day, who contacted me a while back offering to write something. At the time they had a post on their site about allergies so I asked them if they would give us an answer to the question of whether people can really be—as some claim—allergic to tobacco.] 

Edward Stern is a guest blogger for An Apple a Day and a writer on earning your online nursing degree for the Guide to Health Education.


We’re all well-versed in the fact that smoking is bad for you [I wouldn't be too sure about that - CJS]. But can you really be allergic to tobacco? By definition, an allergic reaction is the result of your body fighting off something it believes to be harmful such as a disease. Allergies manifest themselves in hives, itching, irritation, redness, more mucus produced, etc. Therefore, if there are people allergic to tobacco, it would mean their bodies find tobacco harmful and are reacting to it.

Whether this actually happens, and why, is still up to much debate. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study claims that individuals may be allergic to tobacco smoke. These allergies demonstrate themselves through nasal symptoms like runny nose and congestion. Tobacco smoke allergies may also cause headaches and nausea. Children with such allergies are susceptible to ear infection and lung deficiencies, such as a greater risk for asthma. Most of these symptoms are easily treated with over-the-counter medicines.

This begs the question: what ingredient is actually responsible for the “allergic reaction”? Is tobacco itself the culprit? Cigarettes are filled with all kinds of chemicals and carcinogens that are far more likely to act as irritants to our system and create allergy-like symptoms. How do these “allergies” manifest across different brands of cigarettes? The EPA study asserts that people can be allergic to smoke, yet failed to indicate what types of cigarettes were smoked in the studies conducted and what ingredients were present in the cigarettes. Other studies shedding light on these questions are scarce. Before any hard claims are made that tobacco causes allergies, more research needs to be conducted.

Regardless, claims of “tobacco allergy” seem to be sufficient for anti-smoking advocates who want to ban smoking from public places, or in places like Los Angeles, where the city wants to ban smoking outside of homes. People are allergic, that's enough, and no one really dares to question the veracity of such statements or what they really mean.

I'm not trying to say that cigarettes aren’t harmful. They are. But in making a case for legislation that bans personal habits from public places, I would argue that lawmakers need to know their facts and steer clear of studies that are speculative at best. Until someone knows why these supposed “allergic” reactions occur (and can definitively pinpoint tobacco as the active trigger), the topic should be avoided in anti-smoking legislation discussions.

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What's the catch?

A quick reminder that the debate at Frank's is continuing with three more posts since I last mentioned it:

CATCH-3: Frank Davis adds his 2 cents to the discussion
CATCH-4: Chris Snowdon responds to Rich White and Frank Davis
CATCH-5: Frank Davis continues the discussion

To all those who have been commenting, I have been reading and I will try to reply to all your questions. Unfortunately, time has not been on my side recently, not least thanks to the inability of Britain's train operators, coach companies and taxi drivers to handle a dusting of snow in December.

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