A mad scientist I know tells me that real scientists are leery of statistics, as they’re too easy to manipulate to get the “results” you want, and not the actual truth. It seems they have good reason to be. A study published in the journal Pediatrics concludes that “Smoking in movies is a risk factor for smoking initiation among US adolescents.” The problem? That isn’t what they studied!
Instead, the study asked whether adolescents watched movies where smoking was portrayed and whether they had tried a cigarette. Nobody bothered to ask which one preceded the other, or whether the adolescents were influenced by the movies.
Simply, correlation does not imply causation. And that’s not the only problem with the study, either.
Someone reviewed and approved this junk for publication in a respected journal. And to make matters worse, some people who really should know better are running full-page ads in the New York Times urging the movie industry to “voluntarily” give an R rating to any movie where smoking is portrayed, citing this bogus study.
It’s one thing to argue that smoking among teenagers is a serious public health issue (it is). But this sort of junk hurts the cause of stopping smoking among teenagers, and ultimately, makes those who oppose the use of tobacco look like idiots. Stop with the junk science and the flawed statistics, already.
(Hat tip to Hit and Run.)
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NoMorePoints.com
Nov 22, 2005
Your right! If you have ever taken Stats in college, especially on the Graduate level, the only thing you really learn is how to actually manipulate them. Besides, if everyone quite somking, then they would have those silly “SmokeAway” ads on TV.
Spence
NoMorePoints.com
J. Bruno
Nov 22, 2005
Personally, I think smoking in doors in public places should be illegal for the same reasons that pissing on someone is. Whatever alleged health-risks notwithstanding.
Michael Hampton
Nov 22, 2005
We aren’t talking about smoking indoors in public places; we’re talking about smoking indoors in private places. This is what these smoking bans are doing.
marcus aurelius
Nov 27, 2005
Activists seem to have a problem distinguishing “public” from “private”.
They also seem to have a problem with these two government air quality test results:
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2005/10/lets-review.html
Lynda Duguay
Dec 07, 2005
This study is now part of the study of international studies accordin to pr news wire dec 5 2005! Study promoted by Dr. Glantz, and in the pediatric journal. A study of 42 worldwide studies. Talk about ability to skew an cherry pick the results further.
Jan 01, 2006
Chicago, Washington, D.C. ban smoking - Homeland Security or Homeland Stupidity
Bill Hannegan
Jan 23, 2006
Good news! Huge new ETS study suggests smoking bans are not necessary after all.
Press Release
For Immediate Release: December 5 , 2005
Do Smoking Bans cause a 27 to 40% drop in admissions for myocardial infarction in hospitals?
December 5, 2005
Antismokers claim that studies have shown that bans bring about an immediate and drastic decrease in heart attacks among nonsmokers exposed to smoke at work.
This claim was never true to begin with – the cited studies never separated and analyzed nonsmokers as a separate group – and it has now been pointed out in the pages of the BMJ that even the claim of saving lives among the combined population of smokers and nonsmokers might be worthless.
While many making that claim may have believed their information to be accurate, it is now obvious that its basis has been thrown strongly into question. As Jacob Sullum noted in a December 1st reaction to the announcement, “An effect this dramatic (i.e. an immediate and pronounced drop of hospital admissions for heart attacks) should have been noticed all over the country…”
Just a week before the Chicago Aldermen were due to vote on a citywide smoking ban, two independent researchers working together, David W. Kuneman and Michael J. McFadden, unveiled a new study covering a population base roughly 1,000 times as large as the previous town-based studies. The new study indicates strongly that rather than a 30% decrease in heart attacks, statewide smoking bans seem to have literally NO EFFECT AT ALL on heart attack rates. Incredibly the data even indicates that California’s statewide heart attack rate went UP by 6% in the first full year of their total smoking ban!
The data for the study and the basis of its design have been backed up and expanded by well-known antismoking researcher Michael Siegel who has come out in support of the researchers’ approach as providing “compelling evidence that brings into question the conclusion that smoking bans have an immediate and drastic effect on heart attack incidence.” His observation is echoed by researcher Kuneman who asks, “Ever wonder why you didn’t hear about post ban heart attack declines in New York City? Or in Minneapolis or Los Angeles? Now you know!”
On December 4th the British Medical Journal entered the fray with the online publication of a Rapid Response by Mr. McFadden outlining the new research and posing sharp criticisms of the earlier studies and of the refusal of the authors of those studies to respond to previous criticisms and questions. McFadden points out that the data in the Kuneman/McFadden study are fully open for public examination and far less selective than the data in the earlier studies and notes with pride that he and his co-researcher have been quick to respond to all queries posted about their methodology on Dr. Siegel’s web blog.
He also poses the wider ranging question of whether studies commissioned by the “Antismoking Industry” should begin to receive the same cautious reception accorded those commissioned by “Big Tobacco.” The current study, as well as an earlier one by the duo, were unfunded and neither researcher receives grants for their work from either interest group. Kuneman sharply asks the question, “Why the difference between the studies? For one thing we weren’t dependent on antismoking-targeted grants!”
At this point there appears to be very little, if any, real scientific support for the claim that protecting nonsmokers from normal levels of exposure to secondary smoke prevents any heart attacks. And it is this claim that has always provided the impressive numbers upon which ban advocates have pressed legislators to pass smoking bans.
Without those numbers proponents of extreme bans are left with little other than the widely discredited EPA figures relating ETS to lung cancer and a few isolated instances of hospitality workers who have come to believe that their own cancers were caused by working in smoking establishments. Samantha Phillipe, editor of the longstanding smokersclubinc.com newsletter, notes that while it’s always a cause for sadness when someone becomes ill that it’s even more sad when they are misguidedly advised to blame family and friends for their illness.
Without a compelling body of scientific evidence backing them up, smoking bans are an unnecessary and overbearing intrusion of government into the spheres of free choice, private property and free enterprise. And the Kuneman/McFadden study points up just how uncompelling even some of the strongest and most publicised evidence actually is.
References:
1) Article: A Preliminary Study
2) Mike Siegel’s blog analysis and follow up comments:
3) BMJ Response: Helena 1000 Days
4) Jacob Sullum’s REASON column: Hit and Run
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
Mid-Atlantic Regional Director of SmokersClubInc.com
web page: http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/
Email: Cantiloper@aol.com
marcus aurelius
Feb 23, 2006
since somebody mentioned Stanton Glantz, did you know he has received money from Nicoderm interests at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation?
http://www.rwjf.org/programareas/resources/grant.jsp?id=044070&pid=1141
RWJF owns 80 million shares of Johnson & Johnson stock……the Nicoderm manufacturer. Just a coincidence?..I think not.
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-is-pharmaceutical-company-funding.html
Bill Hannegan
Apr 09, 2006
Stanton Glantz is trying to fiddle with the scientific standards of the major health groups, but Audrey Silk has once again caught him and blown the whistle with this press release:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060617183015/http://www.eisinc.com/release/storiesh/NYCCIT.001.html
Jun 29, 2006
Surgeon General clouds tobacco smoke issue - Homeland Stupidity
GARY STEFFEN
Feb 24, 2007
THE ANTI-SMOKING BAN IS EASY WHEN 75% OF THE PEOPLE DON’T SMOKE, BUT THE % OF SMOKERS HAS LEVELED OFF AT 25%. THE STATE WIDE SMOKING BANS ARE TRYING TO CONTROL OUR LIFE CHOICES EVEN AT PRIVATE FUNCTIONS. IT’S PURE SOCIALISM AT WORK WHICH SCARES ME MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE. THE MAJORITY OF OUR TOP LEADERS IN OUR WEALTHIEST CLASS ARE SOCIALISTS AND BELONG TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. I THINK SOCIAL SECURITY IS THE ONLY SOCIALIST PROGRAM THAT HAS WORKED OUT OF 100′S. LIKE I SAID I FEAR SOCIALISM MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, BECAUSE THE WEALTHIEST CLASS IS POSITIONING ITSELF IN TOTALLY RULING THIS COUNTRY. IT WAS EASY IN EUROPE TO ADOPT SOCIALISM AFTER BEING RULED BY MONARCHIES FOR CENTURIES. THE U.S. HAS ALWAYS STOOD AGAINST THE ELITISTS FROM RULING PEOPLE, BUT OUR OWN ELITISTS ARE TEARING DOWN OUR PIONEER ETHIC MORE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE. THEY WANT TO ELIMINATE ALL OPPOSITION, SO THEY CAN RULE.