Talk:Passive smoking

Enstrom and Kabat POV and bad sources

It says:-

Notably, the study had failed to identify a comparison group of "unexposed" persons.[117]

Source 117 has a some warped logic.

1. You cannot generate an RR without a comparison group.

2. The author of this source claims there is no comparison group because smoking was allowed in public places at the time so therefore everyone was exposed to ETS, i.e. impossible to find someone not exposed. The guy is crazy, the control group is good. Even if the groups are slightly redefined as this guy suggests; one group is exposed to ETS at home and outside the home, the control group is just exposed to ETS outside the home from time to time.

3. We have to remember that the American Cancer Society commissioned this report and only withdrew funding when they realized they were not going to get the results they wanted.

4. Published in the British Medical Journal which provoked a barrage of condemnation in which the then BMJ editor Dr Richard Smith was accused of every failing from naivety to active promotion of evil. His accusers demanded that he withdraw the article. To his credit, Smith refused, pointing out that the BMJ exists to publish science not polemic, and that the American study was proper, peer-reviewed science. A robust and persuasive anti-smoker, he replied that although the BMJ was "passionately anti-tobacco" it was not "anti-science". He went on to explain that "the question [of whether passive smoking kills] has not been definitively answered." "I found it disturbing that so many people and organisations referred to the flaws in the study without specifying what they were. Indeed, this debate was much more remarkable for its passion than its precision."

Source 118 - Is a letter asking for funding in a study in low levels of active smoking no doubt because Enstrom believed as the European study (Bjerregaard, Raaschou-Nielsen, Sørensen et al 2006 - see Richard Doll and Occasional smoking below) found that there was no relationship between occasional smoking and lung cancer.

Source 119 - Has the subtitle "Did the tobacco industry skew results of survey?" probably not! since the results are consistent with the WHO study on passive smoking. "Criminal racketeering" please.

The other sources are irrelevant Enstrom admits that after the ACS pulled out the tobacco industry funded the end of the report.

What is notable is that no-one has pointed out specific problems with the research and the findings are consistent with other studies.

The WHO study (Boffetta 98) found:-

Social study Male & Female RR = 1.03

Effect on children RR = 0.78 (note that they found ETS beneficial to children)

Workplace RR = 1.17

Spousal RR = 1.16

(NONE OF THESE ARE SIGNIFICANT ASSOCIATIONS, RR is less than 2. For the positive effect in chrildren to be significant it should be under 0.5).

Enstrom and Kabat

Lung Cancer Men RR = 0.75

Lung Cancer Women RR = 0.99

(NO SIGNIFICANT ASSOCIATIONS)

This is all consistent.

Here is a list of 57 partner studies (one partner smoked, the other didn't) from International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol83/mono83-7B.pdf

RR's over 3 = 0

RR's 2.5 or higher = 2

RR's over 2 = 7

RR's under 1 = 8

RR's 0.5 and under = 2 (i.e. passive smoking is beneficial)

RR's marked NR = 12 (i.e. RR was not reported)

With RR's like this any epidemiologist worth his salt will see this as inconclusive. That is an average of 1.39 of the 45 studies not marked NR.

Occasional smoking and Richard Doll

I suggest both of these are important to this subject.

Sir Richard Doll's "British Doctors Study" the study that proved the increased risk of lung cancer, concludes that "on average those who smoke until age 30 have no excess mortality, those who smoke until age 40 lose 1 year, those who smoke until 50 lose 4 years, and those who smoke until age 60 lose 7 years". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Doctors_Study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC437139/ http://www.who.int/docstore/bulletin/pdf/issue1/smokingand.pdf?ua=1

On Desert Island Discs in 2001, Sir Richard Doll, the man who proved the incontrovertible causal link between active smoking and lung cancer, said: "The effect of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn't worry me."

The risk of lung cancer according to Doll's groundbreaking study 1950, table 14.

No smoking- 50 in 1 million = 0.00005% (1 non smoker in 20000)

1 to 4 cigarettes per day- 307 in 1 million = 0.000307% (1 light smoker in 3257)

50+ cigarettes per day- 3344 in 1 million = 0.003344% (1 heavy smoker in 300)

IF YOU CONSIDER THESE FIGURES, THE ACTUAL CHANCES OF LUNG CANCER ARE SMALL!

In a pan European study the effects of occasional smoking were studied with no significant results

The effect of occasional smoking on smoking-related cancers

Bjerregaard BK, Raaschou-Nielsen O, Sørensen M, Frederiksen K, Tjønneland A, Rohrmann S, Linseisen J, Bergman MM, Boeing H, Sieri S, Palli D, Tumino R, Sacerdote C, Bueno-de-Mesquita HB, Büchner FL, Gram IT, Braaten T, Lund E, Hallmans G, Agren A, Riboli E (December 2006). "The effect of occasional smoking on smoking-related cancers: in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)". Cancer Causes Control 17 (10): 1305–9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco "A 2006 European study on occasional smoking published findings that the risk of the major smoking-related cancers for occasional smokers was 1.24 times that of those who have never smoked at all but the result was not statistically significant. (For a confidence interval of 95%, this data showed an incidence rate ratio of 0.80 to 1.94.)"

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10552-006-0068-9

Article Doesn't Reflect Latest Research

There is "No Clear Link Between Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer" per Journal of the National Cancer Research Institute, December 17, 2013. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.58.238.95 (talk) 22:24, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I added a comment on this study under Effects. It seems appropriate given that it is the largest and most recent study on the subject, and plenty of smaller and older individual studies are directly referenced.Darkthlayli (talk) 18:42, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

That is a primary source. We should be using review articles and other high quality secondary sources per WP:MEDRS Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:30, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, I added the primary source to a long list of other primary sources, that had been there for years until you removed it. It is... interesting that these primary sources bothered no one until an important primary source took an opposing viewpoint and was added. Secondly, this article is still littered with references to primary sources, which you apparently are not interested in replacing. But thirdly, note the following quote from the Wikipedia Policy you so thoughtfully referenced for me.

  "If the conclusions of the research are worth mentioning (for instance, publication of a large, randomized clinical trial with surprising results), they should be described as being from a single study, for example:
  "A large, NIH-funded study published in 2010 found that selenium and Vitamin E supplements increased the risk of prostate cancer; it was thought they would prevent prostate cancer." (citing PMID 20924966)
  After enough time has passed for a review in the area to be published, the review should be cited in preference to the primary study.

Well, this is precisely a large trial with surprising results (not to anyone with knowledge of the field, but certainly to anyone who relied upon this article for their information), and enough time has not passed since its publication for a review to include it. Digging indicates that your secondary source nowhere considered this study (not surprising since it is from late 2013 and this review is dated 2014, but really is much older than that). So I don't think WP:MEDRS in any way precludes inclusion of this reference.

But just from a common sense perspective, can it really be right not to mention the largest, most recent study if its conclusions fly in the face of the article's text, given that no reputable researcher has even tried to impugn the study (as in the case of Enstrom and Kabat, say)?

This article has used too many primary sources for some time. The solution is not to use even more primary sources but to replace them with secondary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:46, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

There was many issues with this paper including that they state "It’s hard to say anything conclusive with such small numbers” [1] And they did find some concern "The only category of exposure that showed a trend toward increased risk was living in the same house with a smoker for 30 years or more. In that group, the hazard ratio for developing lung cancer was 1.61, but the confidence interval included 1.00, making the finding of only borderline statistical significance." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:52, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

These were not "issues" with the paper, and have not been raised by the scientific community as problems with it. Every study has its limitations. In fact, the study is the largest of its kind - no other study on secondhand smoke and lung cancer boasts as high a sample size. And if a category which includes an increased hazard ratio but whose confidence interval includes 1.00 is grounds for concern, then there is nothing in this world that does not merit concern, and there are literally 100 of categories in each study and some will show increased hazard ratios by chance. To say the finding was of "borderline statistical significance" is nonsensical - it was not because the confidence interval included 1.00. The fact remains that the researchers themselves said there was no clear link between lung cancer and secondhand smoke, and no one has impugned the study, including the commenter you quote. Reference to this study, the largest and most recent of its kind and in clear contradiction of the prior statements, needs to be in this article or the article is just not complete. I plan on adding it back and will take the issue to administrators if you seek to delete it, as its removal represents clear POV pushing.Darkthlayli (talk) 17:27, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

For reference the underlying study is PMID 25316260.

No it's not POV-pushing, it's adherence to WP:MEDRS the medical sourcing guideline. Has the study been taken into account in a high-quality literature review? If so we might be able to use the review, but this a primary study.

Here's something very strange, the Peres article says "found no link between [lung cancer] and secondhand smoke" but the abstract of the study itself says "Among NS, prolonged passive adult home exposure tended to increase lung cancer risk." I'm having trouble reconciling the two.

The other side of "Nobody has discredited this study" is, "If the study is so good and useful, how come it hasn't been picked up in a literature review?" Without a good, high-quality WP:MEDRS-compliant secondary source, the article shouldn't be quoting this (or any other) primary source. Zad68 02:29, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Adding, OK I see it in Results but not Conclusions: "Among NS, any passive smoking exposure did not significantly increase lung cancer risk." Without a well-qualified defintion of "any" this is hard to use. Again, we should be looking to secondary sources and not cherry-picking items not even included in the conclusions of primary studies. Zad68 02:36, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I have previously made the point, but will make it again, that it is not included in literature reviews precisely because it is recent. To accuse me of cherry-picking for using the largest and most recent study is disingenuous at best. And as has also been said, you are not adhering to Wikipedia policy by deleting this reference - the cited policy makes specific provisions for just this type of primary study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.80.187.189 (talk) 03:49, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Why "causes" is better than "can cause"

I repeat here what has been said before about the two variants ("causes" vs "can cause") of the second sentence in the lead paragraph.

I have expressed the case for the first formulation very extensively in a previous Talk contribution (see [2]), which has not been challenged. Changing "cause" to "can cause" fails to make the point clearer - it rather obscures it, as it implies a meaning of "cause" which is different from the way the term is used in epidemiology and by the public health community (see definition of causality in epidemiology).

Moreover, the lead paragraph is a summary of the article and should be consistent with the body of the article. The "cause" formulation is consistent with all other references to causality in the body of the article, which have been around for a long time and have been well accepted by all editors:

• "secondhand smoke ... causes the same problems as direct smoking" (first sentence of Effects section)
• "the 3rd leading cause of preventable death" (last bullet point before Children section)
• "Another research financed by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare and Bloomberg Philanthropies found that passive smoking causes about 603,000 death a year, which represents 1% of the world's death." (same paragraph)
• "In France passive smoking has been estimated to cause between 3,000 and 5,000 premature deaths per year" (last paragraph of Evidence section)
• "The International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization concluded in 2002 that there was sufficient evidence that secondhand smoke caused cancer in humans" (first sentence of Risk level section)
• "The governments of 168 nations have signed and currently 174 have ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which states that "Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability." (last bullet point in list below Opinion of public health authorities section)
• "In 1993, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report estimating that 3,000 lung cancer related deaths in the United States were caused by passive smoking annually." (first sentence of EPA lawsuit section)
• "...the District Court for the District of Columbia found that the tobacco industry ... responded with 'efforts to undermine and discredit the scientific consensus that ETS causes disease'." (Tobacco industry response section, 1st paragraph)
• "The U.S. District Court, in U.S.A. v. Philip Morris et al., found that '...despite their internal acknowledgment of the hazards of secondhand smoke, Defendants have fraudulently denied that ETS causes disease.'" (Tobacco industry response section, paragraph before Position of major tobacco companies)
• "The ruling found that tobacco companies undertook joint efforts to undermine and discredit the scientific consensus that second-hand smoke causes disease, notably by controlling research findings via paid consultants." (under US racketeering lawsuit against tobacco companies)

All the instances of "causes" read very naturally, some being quotation of people (such as the judge of the Federal court) who are not specialized in epidemiology.

The body of the article contains not a single instance of "can cause".

Even Philip Morris, in stating their official position on the issue on their website, say unambiguously:

• "Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes diseases, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheezing, otitis media (middle ear infection) and sudden infant death syndrome."

• "The World Health Organization External reference (WHO) provides information on its website which states that secondhand tobacco smoke is dangerous to health and that it causes cancer, heart disease, and many other serious diseases in adults.

I see therefore no valid reason to change the formulation which has been in place for years now and has withstood the test of time. It is succinct, articulate, corresponds to the worldwide consensus of public health experts and authorities. What else do we want!

--Dessources (talk) 01:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but it isn't open and shut for individuals, just for populations. There are other causes after all. We should be able to express the distinction somehow. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

True. However, when talking about this subject, health authorities and other pertinent sources use the epidemiological definition of causation (the verb "causes" in the lead links to such definition to make this clear). In the context of causality used by such sources, replacing "causes" with "can cause" might introduces an ambiguity for some readers, who could interpret this as meaning that the causality is not established yet (and surely the tobacco industry would be pleased to exploit such ambiguity). While for some diseases we can only say that current evidence is suggestive but not efficient to infer a causal relationship (using the US Surgeon General terminology), there are many diseases - and not just lung cancer - where evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship with exposure to passive smoking. Wikipedia rules are that "we publish the opinions only of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves." This makes the issue easy here: all the major reliable sources we cite say that exposure to secondhand smoke "causes" diseases and none of them use the "can cause" terminology. Even Philip Morris uses the "causes" terminology.

Interestingly, it seems to me that the "can cause" vs. "causes" debate is rather specific to passive smoking. The sentence "active smoking causes lung cancer" is well accepted and is not subjected to the same objections, while it actually makes use of exactly the same epidemiological definition of causation, as indeed active smoking does not cause all smokers to get lung cancer. Restricting the view to a particular individual, his/her active smoking can indeed cause him/her to have lung cancer.

Finally, the "causes" terminology seems also more widely accepted. On my side of the world, a Google search for "smoking causes lung cancer" produces 119'000 hits, while "smoking can cause lung cancer" gives only 21'000 hits, almost six times less. For passive smoking, the difference is not as large, but still in the same direction: "passive smoking causes lung cancer" gives 7'490 hits, while "passive smoking can cause lung cancer" produces 3'360 hits, i.e. less than half.

Dessources (talk) 00:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The issue is apparently a difference between common-language English and specialist terminology. A link to the epidemiologist's definition of "cause" seems necessary, but our article epidemiology does not address it well, and the principle of least astonishment applies. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Good point. It seems however that the Google search settles the issue of least astonishment, since "causes" far outnumbers "can cause" on the web. In the current article, I see no reason to compromise on the principle of verifiability. And also, should one invoke the least astonishment principle to justify the "can cause" formulation, one would also have to be consistent and apply it throughout the article.

Finally, regular editors of this article know well that it is the target of attacks by people whose position on the issue coincides strangely with the fraudulent view of the tobacco industry. Their first objective is to mitigate the degree of causality between exposure to passive smoking and diseases, in spite of the fact that it is perhaps by far the most reliably established of all links between environmental factors and diseases. There are tobacco denialists, and this page needs to be protected against their attacks (of course, not all Wikipedians who modify this article in a way that moves its contents away from established evidence are denialists, but some definitely are.)

This "causes" formulation has been around for years in the current article and seems very well accepted. I even claim it is the one which creates least astonishment, as common usage of the word "cause" is closer - and even perhaps identical - to the way epidemiogists use it. A good evidence of this is provided by the following search I conducted on Google: when typing "drunk driving causes car accidents" I get 12'400 results. When searching for "drunk driving can cause car accidents", I get only 8 results, while everybody knows that driving a car while drunk does not inevitably lead to an accident. So perhaps people are more educated about epidemiology than we think.

Dessources (talk) 17:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

A wp:GOOGLE test isn't verifiable. We need wp:Reliable sources to cite that will demystify "cause". LeadSongDog come howl! 01:43, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, and I wouldn't refer to a Google search in the article. But the wp:GOOGLE rules does not apply to discussions on the Talk pages, where Wikipedians are free to express their views with the entire palette of arguments they deem suitable, as long as the debate remains civil and respectful, like the one we have now.

Dessources (talk) 11:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

And, BTW, I thought it was clear that the whole point of my comment above was to draw attention to the numerous quotations of highly reliable sources already present in the body of the article where "causes" is used instead of "can cause". Do you mean we need more reliable sources than the WHO Framework Convention, a treaty ratified by 178 countries, the report of the US Surgeon General, the monograph of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, prepared by a panel of the world's best experts, the US Environment Protection Agency, the California Environment Protection Agency, the National Cancer Institute, the US District Court for the State of Columbia, and ... even Philip Morris? If there are other sources which can challenge these, it would indeed be important to consider them.

Dessources (talk) 11:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I very much disagree. I challenge the earlier discussion on this after having read it, and will be glad to have that discussion further as may be desired on this talk page. The body of the article ought to be using "can cause" if sticking with WP:NPOV. That it does not, is violation of that pillar for it is placing opinion (however much that is met with consensus) over the epidemiological understanding of causal inference. Let us quote that here so there is no mistake about what that is saying.

Although epidemiology is sometimes viewed as a collection of statistical tools used to elucidate the associations of exposures to health outcomes, a deeper understanding of this science is that of discovering causal relationships.

"Correlation does not imply causation" is a common theme for much of the epidemiological literature. For epidemiologists, the key is in the term inference. Epidemiologists use gathered data and a broad range of biomedical and psychosocial theories in an iterative way to generate or expand theory, to test hypotheses, and to make educated, informed assertions about which relationships are causal, and about exactly how they are causal.

Epidemiologists Rothman and Greenland emphasize that the "one cause – one effect" understanding is a simplistic mis-belief. Most outcomes, whether disease or death, are caused by a chain or web consisting of many component causes. Causes can be distinguished as necessary, sufficient or probabilistic conditions. If a necessary condition can be identified and controlled (e.g., antibodies to a disease agent), the harmful outcome can be avoided.''

The smoking data (via "causes") is written as if "one cause - one effect" and in doing so is misappropriating the term. As noted here, the diseases and death attributed to smoking are caused by a chain consisting of many component causes. If we linking to the epidemiological understanding of "causes" then we are misrepresenting the term by leaving it as is. Your entire argument for this is based on the opinions of others and deeming that as "authority." I grant that there is consensus in these opinions, but not that none of these opinions align with the usage of the term as stated in the epidemiology link which I have quoted above. If truly aligning with what is stated in that link, the lead would read, "Exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke has been found to have a inferred causal relationship to cases of disease, disability, and death." By going with simply "causes" this is clearly changing the way in which epidemiologists use the term. Gw40nw (talk) 23:03, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not possible to change "causes" into "can cause" in the body of the article, since these occurrences of "causes" are in quotations of the most authoritative sources on the subject.

Dessources (talk) 11:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Clearly you aren't reading what I'm writing, or for that matter what I am not writing. All I am saying is that we need to provide readers a link to a properly referenced explanation of what "cause" means in an epidemiological context. Doing so would largely avoid the need for the disputation which other editors seem to have found necessary. Is that so complicated? We wikilink things all the time! LeadSongDog come howl! 18:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

My apologies for the misunderstanding. Do you mean that the explanation provided by the link to "Causal inference" when clicking on "causes" is not clear? Upon re-reading that article, I guess you are probably right. Unfortunately, I don't know of any better explanation. It would be nice if you, as an expert editor, would find one.

Dessources (talk) 18:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Just note though that in my note above I was addressing Gw40nw proposal to amend the body of the article...

Dessources (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Apart from the occurrences of "causes" in quotations, it is possible to change "causes" to "can cause" or something closer to the accurate interpretation of epidemiological causal inference. These alleged most authoritative sources are misusing the term. In their quotes, I am glad that we have it the way they are stating it. Makes them look like they lack clear understanding on how causation works within science and reason. Yet, on Wikipedia, the "can cause" is presentation of NPOV content that aligns with understanding of terms, not popular, albeit misguided, interpretations.

I know the body of the article was previously amended to "can cause" and then I discovered yesterday that it was reverted back to "causes" which apparently is based on your recent arguments put forth on Talk Page. I strongly believe, and will continue to argue for "can cause" despite all the popular people's infallible interpretation to see it as "causes." I presented the exact text that "causes" is currently linking to. In that, it says, "the key is in the term inference." It also says, "the 'one cause – one effect' understanding is a simplistic mis-belief. Most outcomes, whether disease or death, are caused by a chain or web consisting of many component causes." Apart from the lead, but found in this article and in the many sources, it is routinely presented as: one cause (smoking/passive smoking) leads to the effect (death, disease, disability). I don't dispute that this is the popular interpretation, but do dispute that understanding of epidemiological causal inference. That it is linked in the article is good, otherwise I'd be disputing it as anti-science. That it is linked and not changed to "can cause" is leading me to dispute it as anti-epidemiological. Gw40nw (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Dear Gw40nw: "These alleged most authoritative sources are misusing the term." Well, whether we like it or not, and in the absence of better sources, we have to stick to what these authoritative sources say - that is the rule on Wikipedia (see: WP:SOURCES). If you think these sources are misusing the term "causes", I would then invite you to share with us the authoritative sources on which you base this judgement. I for my part would be very interested in knowing them and learning about their arguments. Then we can decide whether it is legitimate to change the present term. In the mean time, I see no reason to change it.

Dessources (talk) 21:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking closer at the question, it's not that they are "misusing" the term, so much as that the term does not have a single agreed-upon definition. Rather there are ongoing debates, as seen in PMC 3888277, PMC 3219814, and PMC 2706236. Indeed, the first of these (Morabia) makes it clear that the philosophers have yet to get their act together fifty years after the Bradford-Hill criteria were published (1965): "Besides Hume and Mill, the epidemiologic literature is clueless about a plausible, pre-1965 philosophical origin of Hill's viewpoints. Thus, Hill's viewpoints may be philosophically novel, sui generis, still waiting to be validated and justified." For all the time, money, brainpower and effort that goes into identifying the "causes" of disease, we remain unclear on the precise meaning of the word. How crazy is that? Still, Hill's usage clearly predominates in medicine. As he famously put it: “What I do not believe is that we can usefully lay down some hard-and-fast rules of evidence that must be obeyed before we accept cause and effect. None of my nine viewpoints can bring indisputable evidence for or against the cause-and- effect hypothesis and none can be required as a sine qua non.” In other words, look at all the criteria, then make the most reasonable judgement call: is there some better explanation of the evidence alternative to causality? LeadSongDog come howl! 22:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the explanation and for the fascinating references. This is indeed an interesting subject. It seems to me that one way to approach the question would be via experimental philosophy as some of our cognitive biases (no judgment implied) are probably at play in our understanding of the concept of causality and different groups of people may understand it differently. In the mean time, the safest is probably to stick to the language used in authoritative sources.

Dessources (talk) 01:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Use of Tobacco and Passive Smoke Equates to Lower Risk of Dementia

There have been strong suggestions that dementia is a deficiency of acetylcholine in studies. Since literally all nicotine does is produce acetylcholine, does that not suggest a therapeutic use? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.76.16 (talk) 05:34, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Article is cartoonishly biased – we need cleaner science on Wikipedia

This article is most politically biased science article I've yet seen on Wikipedia. We have a serious problem on Wikipedia of science pages being hijacked by political activists. It makes Wikipedia much less credible.

The section Controversy Over Harm has the following subsections:

6.1 Industry-funded studies and critiques 6.2 Tobacco industry response 6.3 US racketeering lawsuit against tobacco companies

I assume I don't need to explain how absurdly biased and one-sided this is.

The Wang, et al study is a very high-quality study and avoids the problem of recall bias. It found no evidence of increased lung cancer risk except in women who live with a smoker for more than 30 years. I just added it earlier today and another editor deleted the sentence and rewrote it to spin it as "prolonged exposure increases risk" or something like that, deleting the fact that it's only people who live with a smoker for more than 30 years. This is a ridiculous, irresponsible approach to science.

We also need to abandon the dichotomous oversimplification of risk and actually specify risks. "Increases risk" is extremely misleading when the risk is a very low probability. We need more rigor and more statistics knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueSingularity (talk • contribs) 00:59, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Political activists like the Surgeon General, IARC and World Health Organization? They all state similar conclusions. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:10, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, "increases risk" is incredibly vague, and does not indicate statistical significance. A study run by someone who expects a certain conclusion may point to "increased risk" by only paying attention to statistical differences that support their opinion, despite infinitesimal statistical significance. This was part of the US District Court's issue with the EPA study that the court threw out, claiming it was "cherry picked." Vacating that judgment was only done on the basis that the study carried no regulatory weight, not a refutation of the study's court-acknowledged lack of scientific basis.

This article shows it's bias from the beginning, starting with such unscientific language as this: "The health risks of second-hand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus," despite the fact that the legislatively most important large study done on the issue, that concluded SHS was a risk factor for various things, was thrown out by a District Court for making conclusions before research, in the court's own words, "EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun" in addition to significant other violations of sound scientific procedure and the EPA's own policies. The "scientific consensus" statement, which defines the nonobjective tone which continues through the entire article, is refuted as well by the fact that there have been several major scientific studies done which refute the causal link between SHS and cancer or other maladies. That the author may not like the political or industrial funding behind such studies does not exclude them from being part of the community of scientists who create "scientific consensus," nor does it necessarily make the scientists of whose conclusions the author approves any less influenced by political interests. The opposite statement could just as easily be made, depending upon one's view of who has more scientific credibility. Such a blanket statement simply should not be made in a forum that expects to have any credibility. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.28.66.163 (talk) 18:34, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I entirely agree with the above editor. This article is obviously heavily biased. SmokeyTheCat 19:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Suggest you review the cited sources. Tong & Glantz are pretty direct about it. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

The article needs re-writing by someone who hasn't swallowed the currently fashionable and very obvious anti-smoking zeitgeist. The Greeks smoke twice as much as the British and live just as long. The Japanese smoke nearly twice as much and live longer. And that's active smoking. So how can passive smoking be anything but completely trivial? Anyone interested can confirm what I write by comparing the tables here on Smoking by Country with Smoking by Life Expectancy. I don't have links on this but it's still true. There is so much anti-smoking propaganda that is has now become apparently the norm but propaganda it remains. Wikipedia should be above this but sadly it presently isn't on this issue. SmokeyTheCat 01:39, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Ref summary

First of all we should generally not use primary sources per WP:MEDRS so maybe we should trim [3]

Second the source says "Among NS, prolonged passive adult home exposure tended to increase lung cancer risk" which is better summarized as "Prolonged secondhand smoke exposure also increases the risk of lung cancer" than "However, more recent research has found little or no harm from secondhand smoke except for those who had lived with a smoker for at least 30 years." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:00, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I support efforts to add more of the extensive documentation of harm caused by passive smoking, in spite of the well-documented campaign to suppress and confuse evidence about this issue. Reify-tech (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

What 'well-documented campaign' ? I don't know where you live, Reify-tech, but here in the UK there is a blanket ban on smoking in all public enclosed spaces and despite the fact that 6,000 pubs have closed because of the ban, benefiting no-one, and not the slightest talk of moderating the ban by any of the legislators. Indeed there is deranged talk of increasing the ban to include open-air public spaces likes parks and squares. ASH, the largest but not the only anti-smoking lobbying group, employs twenty people full-time to continue to churn ever more anti-smoking propaganda while Forest the only group which represents the UK's ten million smokers has but a single employee. SmokeyTheCat 09:33, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Would help if you would provide refs. The talk page is not a soap box. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:36, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes please see WP:NOTAFORUM... Wikipedia articles need to document what's happening but article Talk pages are not for discussing personal opinions about article topics. Zad68 02:14, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

The whole article is a soapbox for the currently fashionable Healthist anti-smoking hysteria. SmokeyTheCat 10:52, 23 June 2015 (UTC)