One of the “progressive” stances many local and state governments are taking is banning smoking in public places. That is to say the government is implementing public policy, and even criminal laws, that prohibit tobacco smoking in workplaces and/or other public areas. At first glance, this approach appears to have the benefit of reducing the risk of cancer from secondhand smoke (often referred to as environmental tobacco smoke or ETS); however, a closer analysis shows that this isn’t only false, but in fact intentionally misleading.
The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) published a report in December of 1992 that claimed that ETS caused 3,000 deaths per year. It was this initial report that spurred the first wave of smoking bans. It had classified ETS as a Class A carcinogen and dealt all but a deathblow to the issue.
This EPA study consisted of what is considered a meta-analysis—a combination of the results of multiple studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In other words,the EPA used 30 different studies comparing ETS exposure to lung cancer rates. After analysis of the data, on page 23 of the study, paragraph 3, it was noted that out of these 30 studies, only five found a statistically significant risk of lung cancer at the 95% confidence level. One study even showed a negative risk or a protective effect. The remaining 24 studies were shown to have no significant increase or decrease in risk.
Would any legitimate epidemologist keep their job if they were caught doubling the margin of error to support a pre-announced conclusion?
When the EPA later released the data used for the report, it was revealed they had used only 11 of the original studies, excluding the other studies that were originally considered. However, even this adjustment didn’t provide the 3000 deaths the initial report claimed. Thus, the EPA adjusted the confidence interval to 90% from 95%, effectively doubling the widely-accepted statistical margin of error.
Would any legitimate epidemiologist keep their job if they were caught doubling the margin of error to support a pre-announced conclusion?
One particular study in California, done by James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat, included 118,094 participants with a particular focus on 35,561 never smokers who had a spouse with known smoking habits. These individuals were followed from 1960 to 1998 in order to measure mortality rates. The study found that no significant associations existed for current or former exposure to ETS before or after adjusting for seven cofounders and before or after excluding participants with pre-existing disease. Moreover, no significant associations were found during shorter follow-up periods of 1960-65, 1966-72, 1973-85 and 1986-98.
More recent studies have also looked into ETS and the risk of myocardial infarction (2006), coronary heart disease (2006) and lung cancer (2002 and 2001). Each was shown to have no correlation between exposure to ETS and a higher risk to any of these ailments.
Imagine now that you own a bar or restaurant and that many of your paying customers enjoy smoking while at your establishment. What right does the government have to tell your patrons they cannot smoke, especially when it’s based on misleading studies?
As a customer, you may then ask, “Why are my rights being ignored? Why must I put up with the secondhand smoke?” The simple answer to that is individuals have a choice to go to any bar or restaurant they would like. In essence, they vote with their money. If a business is losing profit because it allows smoking, you can guarantee it will soon create a non-smoking section or decide to go completely smoke-free in order to maintain profits. Nonetheless, it should be the business that makes that decision, not the government.