Passive smoking a real danger

In a report titled, "Cigarette Taxes to Fund Health Care Reform: An Economic Analysis," the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that the EPA study made subjective judgements, failed to account for factors that could bias results, and relaxed scientific standards to achieve the desired pre-determined results.

What they did was to ignore any data that did not conform to their publicly stated conclusions, conclusions made even before the research was begun! Hardly scientific!



The EPA report was a meta-analysis which combined the findings of 11 US studies. None of the 11 studies found a statistically significant risk because the low end of their CI was less than 1. A possible reason for 'false negative' findings is too small a number of subjects causing a wide CI range. Statisticians call this 'low power'. In order to increase power the EPA combined the studies. The result was still not statistically significant because the low end of the CI range was less than 1.0.

To achieve the results that their theory demanded (that secondhand smoke causes cancer) they simply altered the statistical methods used. They lowered the confidence level to 90% in violation of their own published standard: "Guidelines for Carcinogenic Risk Assessment (51 FR 3392)."

Based on the weight of the selective scientific evidence, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that the widespread exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the United States presents a serious and substantial public health impact.

With one exception (Fontham), no major scientific study has found a danger in casual exposure to smoke in workplace or social settings. They found it in non-smoking spouses exposed for over 40 years. The danger, if any, from casual exposure is too small to measure. The CRS reported that other studies that showed no relationship were ignored, stating that "the one with the largest number of observations found no overall increased risk of lung cancer among nonsmoking spouses of smokers."
 
talon said:
In a report titled, "Cigarette Taxes to Fund Health Care Reform: An Economic Analysis," the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that the EPA study made subjective judgements, failed to account for factors that could bias results, and relaxed scientific standards to achieve the desired pre-determined results.

What they did was to ignore any data that did not conform to their publicly stated conclusions, conclusions made even before the research was begun! Hardly scientific!



The EPA report was a meta-analysis which combined the findings of 11 US studies. None of the 11 studies found a statistically significant risk because the low end of their CI was less than 1. A possible reason for 'false negative' findings is too small a number of subjects causing a wide CI range. Statisticians call this 'low power'. In order to increase power the EPA combined the studies. The result was still not statistically significant because the low end of the CI range was less than 1.0.

To achieve the results that their theory demanded (that secondhand smoke causes cancer) they simply altered the statistical methods used. They lowered the confidence level to 90% in violation of their own published standard: "Guidelines for Carcinogenic Risk Assessment (51 FR 3392)."

Based on the weight of the selective scientific evidence, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that the widespread exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the United States presents a serious and substantial public health impact.

With one exception (Fontham), no major scientific study has found a danger in casual exposure to smoke in workplace or social settings. They found it in non-smoking spouses exposed for over 40 years. The danger, if any, from casual exposure is too small to measure. The CRS reported that other studies that showed no relationship were ignored, stating that "the one with the largest number of observations found no overall increased risk of lung cancer among nonsmoking spouses of smokers."
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Its considered good form to quote your sources.
 
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