Secondhand Smoke & Mirrors

What do most of your criticisms have in common? They are revisionist cherry picking descriptions of old disputes. Catch, as usual you think your brash tone and flat assertions can substitute for argument. Sorry, but I just don't play that game. "Cherry picking descriptions of old disputes"? These are actual studies, not rehashing of the same EPA meta-study that fuels nearly every extant anti-smoking diatribe against secondhand smoke. Why did I choose to show studies that cover every period up to the recent past? Because it's relevant. Ideologues such as yourself tend to think that they can throw something out there absent its context, and push their preferences as good science. You wouldn't know good science if it bit you on the ass.

A critique of old studies is not the same as evidence "supporting the contention that second hand smoke is harmless." Its just a critique of old evidence. You provide ZERO evidence that second hand smoke is "harmless". Straw man, much? This is the reason I don't generally have conversations with you. Not only do you talk out of your ass, but you generally misconstrue your opponents argument because you simply don't have the mental guns to deal with it, instead. Where did I say that secondhand smoke was "harmless"? In your imagination. The evidence that was provided suggests that secondhand smoke is not a significant health hazard in concentration normally casually encountered by non-smokers.

Nobody, and I mean nobody has to show that secondhand smoke is "harmless." There's not a thing on God's green earth that's "harmless" under all circumstances, including gravity. So get over yourself, already. You make the following categorical claim: It is a scientfic fact that there is no safe level of exposure to tabacco smoke and its many toxins and carcinogens. Thank you for providing a clear-cut example of anti-smoking hysteria. As the studies I've linked to show, it is, in fact, NOT "a fact." As Dr. Michael Siegel noted, that contention is a bunch of crap. If you think it is not a bunch of crap, please cite the study that shows that any exposure whatsoever to secondhand smoke causes immediate damage and equates to immediate increases in risks to health. If you can't show it, kindly retract your assertion.

Dont confuse the methodological difficulties in making totally bullet proof studies to demonstrate that connection as evidence that no connection exists. It's your hubris that makes you think I ever have, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that you have zero problem taking correlation with causation. Nevertheless, I would be highly surprised to find whether any of your subsequent linked studies haven't simply made that assumption. Certainly any that take the epidemiological evidence and make a linear projection backward to conclude that no level of secondhand smoke exposure is "safe" are ignoring serious problems with this methodology, as highlighted by the CRS' 1994 memo-- which I doubt you've bothered to read, being simply so convinced that you've received the Gospel according to non-smokers.

The link between tobacco smoke and lung cancer existed long before it was proven and criticism of the link was not evidence of its safety. Yes, and the understanding that the risks of lung cancer were dependent on dosage and length of exposure has existed equally long. Congratulations on your second fallacy in as many paragraphs-- do continue to throw out these straw men; it's illuminating as to just how desperate an anti-smoking zealot will become when someone has the gall to challenge their preconceived notions.

A lot of tobacoo advocates like to pretend that Judge Osteens judicial opinion in 1998 is the definitive word on second hand smoke - its not. He is a legal expert not a scientific expert, nor is the 1993 EPA study frozen in time. Osteen spent probably one hell of a lot more time than you, actually interviewing scientists who were conducting these sort of studies, and I'll lend his opinion far more weight than I ever would yours. His scientific objections to the EPA study remain unchallenged and unrefuted. And you'll have a hell of a time convincing me that the EPA study isn't "frozen in time" considering how many subsequent "studies" rely on it to bolster their own shoddy science.

Case in point: the "most recent report" you link to merely rehashes the same points made in the EPA study, going so far as to actually cite the EPA study as the origin for these contentions. Yeah, that's a new @!$%#ing report. Strangely, the gamut of your so-called new reports simply restate the suspect conclusions I addressed in the article. Somehow you think that simply repeating these assertions constitutes something new, while giving me @!$%# about "rehashing old disputes." Quite obviously, they are not "old" disputes in the sense that they are still relevant today, and are still presented as though they have not been challenged and are not based on shoddy science.

So while you rely on a well-worn panoply of rhetorical wordsmithing, as with your interesting tangent as to whether I think various agencies are part of some "conspiracy," I will continue to wait for you to present something that doesn't already prove the points which I have stipulated-- smoking is bad, people who live with smokers and are subjected to continuous exposure to secondhand smoke are most at risk, etcetera-- and instead actually shows what you @!$%#ing contend: casual exposure to secondhand smoke equates to immediate damage to one's health.

Because nothing you've linked to shows it. It merely asserts it. Much as I have said people such as yourself are only capable of doing. Congratulations-- you know how to link. Now provide some evidence that you know how to think.

We can be as friendly or as unfriendly in our discussion as you choose. But stick to the points and leave the fallacies behind.

This is a fallacy. His objections were to the rule making procedures utilized in 1993. No, in addition to his objections to "rule making procedures," he objected to what the EPA called "science" in that it was not scientific. See pages 89-90 of the ruling, where the decision states that the EPA

• publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun i.e. confirmation bias
• adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion i.e. deviated from accepted scientific practice in order to reach this preordained conclusion
• disregarded information and made findings on selective information i.e. cherry-picked the studies in order to reach this conclusion, rendering their findings invalid
• failed to disclose important findings and reasoning i.e. concealed disconfirming data

Those are objections to the "science". Additionally, as you note, the decision also objected to the shenanigans played by the EPA in reaching their conclusion-- from the same section (pp 89-90)-- [the EPA] excluded industry by violating the [Radon] Act's procedural requirements and deviated from its Risk Assessment Guidelines. Additionally, the decision notes (page 64) that the EPA's own internal risk assessment experts advised the Agency that the Risk Assessment did not support a Group A classification for secondhand smoke:

EPA's Risk Criteria Office, a group of EPA risk assessment experts, concluded that EPA failed to reasonably explain how all relevant data on ETS, evaluated according to EPA Risk Assessment Guidelines' causality criteria, can support a Group A classification.

The conclusion to be reached is that the EPA study was both shoddy, scientifically speaking, and politically motivated, irrespective of the suggestions of the data.

What makes you assume nothing has changed. Reading the reports to which you link, for one thing. For example, from Excerpts from The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke (2007)

This excerpt highlights the serious health risks that secondhand smoke exposure poses to our children... Children whose parents smoke and who grow up in homes where smoking is allowed are also more likely to become smokers themselves. The home is the major setting where children are exposed... In 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its risk assessment of secondhand smoke as a carcinogen (USEPA 1992)... Estimates of approximately 3,000 U.S. lung cancer deaths per year in nonsmokers were attributed to secondhand smoke.

What becomes evident on reading the report is that the "new" study references and accepts the conclusions of the studies which the studies I presented in my article refute. Furthermore, from accepting these unwarranted assertions, the "new" report simply repeats the assertions made in those studies, irrespective of findings in intervening years that undercut the assumptions used previously to reach what I think can legitimately be called spurious conclusions about the dangers of casual exposure. So, for instance, no mention is made of the Department of Energy study or the ORNL study which measured actual exposure to secondhand smoke in restaurants. Rather, we get projections about what the exposure "must" be. Significantly, the chapter on exposure to secondhand smoke is titled Estimates of Exposure-- and that's what it provides, estimates (although it does mention in passing that the range of exposure has been measured between 68 micrograms/cubic meter and "not detectable.") It's unclear how repeating a flawed approach can be said to yield "new" results. Non-valid is non-valid. the "newness" of the non-valid conclusions doesn't make them any more valid.

Why do you assume the Surgeon General is a fool exactly? I don't assume the Surgeon General is a fool. I assume the Surgeon General knows that smoking is bad for one's health, and accepts Godber's proposition that the only way to convince smokers to stop is to simply legislate smoking out of existence based on convincing people that smoking harms others. I assume you are the fool, as it is quite obvious that you haven't read any literature that might undercut your assumptions, and that when (if) you have, you've conveniently swept those results under the rug as though they don't exist.

I read it. What makes you assume I didnt? The fact that you're apparently ignorant of the contents of the studies to which I refer.

You said you had evidece that second hand smoke is harmless. Where is it? I did? Where? What I said, and allow me to quote myself, since you're apparently irresistably wedded to straw-man arguments is that I provided evidence that secondhand smoke is harmless "as usually encountered by non-smokers not married to smokers" That's an important distinction. Your studies focus on the location of greatest exposure to secondhand smoke-- the home. They rightfully conclude that high concentrations of secondhand smoke have adverse health effects, as I stated in my article I'm not arguing that secondhand smoke is "harmless," but that in commonly encountered situations it has no permanent or lasting effect on otherwise healthy individuals. You will not drop dead of a heart attack if you encounter secondhand smoke in a restaurant for 30+ minutes, despite admonitions by anti-smoking forces that you will. That's an hysterical claim based on either a misunderstanding of the science, or an intentional distortion of it-- one that you seem apparently willing to promote.

So, I'll ask again, where are your "new" studies that actually address the problems of bias and assumption built into the studies that are currently used to bolster claims about the "danger" posed by secondhand smoke to individuals who only casually encounter it? Are there newer studies that show actual exposure to secondhand smoke, measuring the concentrations and drawing conclusions about outcome based on the real world? You haven't provided any. Instead, you've provided more of what was already stipulated-- secondhand smoke in high enough concentrations (as in a home occupied by a smoker) can reach sufficient levels to constitute a health threat.

That's a far cry from supporting the assertion that walking past a smoker on the street or working in a restaurant that allows smoking constitutes a significant danger. That's something that, despite the wealth of links you've provided, you clearly haven't shown.

If you read the memo, it is ONLY a comment on a 1988 Study By Wells. The attempt to imply that it was based upon anything else is completely misleading. In fact, you are quite wrong about this. Allow me to quote

This memorandum is in response to your request for information on the possible source of an estimated premature 50,000 deaths from passive smoking effects... Generally, there are two ways that one might try to estimate the number of premature deaths, if any, from passive smoking. One could rely on estimates of physical absorption of the components of smoke and then use those estimates to extrapolate based on studies of the effects of active smoking. These are called dosimetric approaches. Secondly, one might try to directly estimate the effects of passive smoking by comparing disease rates of individuals who are and are not exposed to passive smoke. These studies are the epidemiological one. [sic] ...Obviously, one might be interested in the extent to which the estimates derived from these two approaches are similar, or are different.

...These are potential problems with both methods. The physical extrapolation method used above assumes a linear relationship between the incidence of a disease and exposure. Based on evidence from the pattern for active smoking, however, a linear method may not be correct. ...Of course, it is possible that the disease rises less than proportionally with exposure. [13] At the same time, it is possible that there is a threshold which is so small that individuals are not exposed to experience health damage. It is also possible that continue [sic] is not the best measure of exposure; some exposure measures show larger and some show smaller effects.

Problems also occur with epidemiological studies. It is always possible that relationships found with human population studies are due to chance, even in a perfectly designed study, and while there are statistical methods that assign probabilities of error, they are still probabilities. In addition, the precision of the specific estimates is always in question.

...In sum, this analysis suggests that the Wells estimates are so high relative to measures of physical exposure that they seem implausible. It also suggests that the absence of controls or the inability to control for other factors may be a major problem in relying on epidemiological estimates of the health effects of passive smoking.

Contrary to your assertion that the memo is specific only to Wells' estimate, the memo clearly addresses problems with both epidemiological and dosimetric approaches to estimating risks.

In other words, once again, you are simply wrong, and apparently disinterested in the truth.

Of course the 1988 study by Wells is only one of many studies. Of course, there have been many more supportive studies since 1994, all of which are ignored here. Show them. Or more specifically, show even ONE that doesn't merely follow a linear extrapolation to reach an estimate of deaths due to cardiovascular injury caused by secondhand smoke-- i.e. the kind of study which acknowledges the potential errors inherent in epidemiological estimates, and measures other estimate methods that may actually fit real world evidence better than the method you prefer.

The ETS report by its own terms is a limited only to Cancer Risk which represents a small fraction of the mortality associated with ETS. The study addresses the heart disease risk in Appendix A, and concludes that the same errors and shortcomings of the EPA's report on lung cancer risks affect estimates of heart disease risks, as well. Clearly, you didn't read that far. Again, your preference for assertion over evidence becomes evident.

The claimed findings are the authors own spin and not actually the findings of the report. I'm sorry, but there is much more evidence of this as relates to the EPA study and all subsequent studies which rely, in full or in part, on its conclusions than there is that the findings of the report as presented above are my own "spin." Quoting the CRS paper, It is clear that misclassification and recall bias plague ETS epidemiology studies. It is also clear from the simulations that modest, possible misclassification and recall bias rates can change the measured relative risk results, possibly in dramatic ways. ...the most prudent inference from the data is that no excess lung cancer deaths are indicated for these exposure levels. I don't think it gets any clearer than that. It's certainly not my "spin" that caused the authors to include these assertions.

So your complaints about "ignorance and/or failure to read and comprehend the report" and "intentional deception" seem much more appropriate leveled in your direction, Catch. So which is it?

Pray, continue...

Why are you continuing to pretend that the science of the effect of second hand smoke stopped in 1993? Why are you pretending that that's what I'm doing?

Your list of the Judges opinion about the approach in 1993 is just his opinion of what occurred in 1993. And it's relevant because a number of current "reports" rely heavily on that discredited study, including some that you link to above. how many ways do you want me to say this to you, Catch?

I found this in a few minutes. Interesting. It ties, again, to the suggestion of a mechanism by which secondhand smoke could act influence heart disease if exposure is constant or long-term. Which is a different beast than the contention that "30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke could lead to a heart attack." 30 minutes of exposure could lead to platelet aggregation, which, over the course of several decades, could lead to heart disease. That, despite the way in which the authors frame their conclusions, is about all that can be said of this study.

Attacking studies that showed harm is not evidence that exposure is harmless. You're absolutely right, it only shows that those particular studies can't be relied upon as proving harm. On the other hand, numerous studies that showed no statistically significant link between secondhand smoke and risk of death DO suggest that below a certain threshold exposure is harmless. Which you continue to ignore.

Are you honestly calling Appendix A, where the report says we dont have time but this basically applies to everything else is the "Definitive study"! No, I merely call Appendix A proof that you didn't bother to read the study, when you make allegations such as that the CRS report only addressed lung cancer. The CRS report was intended primarily to supplement the EPA study, as I noted. Since the EPA study dealt primarily with lung-cancer, it comes as no shock that the CRS paper deals primarily with lung-cancer.

Why do you believe that the science of second hand smoke stopped in 1994 even if it were definitive. Catch, I'm not going to continue legitimizing this straw-man of yours by addressing it. Respond to what I wrote, or don't. Don't continue to misconstrue it. it makes you look like an ass. I know you think it works (hence your knee-jerk resort to the tactic in nearly every response you type in any subject), but I'm not interested in playing that game.

HINT: "Brief Overview" and "definitive study" are NOT synonyms. BIGGER HINT: I never said they were.

In otherwords you are calling the most recent surgeon general and all recent surgeon generals liars. Sure, if you want to boil it down that way. Or you could also categorize it as me saying that their vested interest in reducing smoking may motivate presenting the data in a certain light, irrespective of evidence contrary to the conclusion they promote. Again, I would think that if the estimates they concur with in terms of the number of victims of ETS were true, we'd see the bodies. We'd see people dropping dead after 20 minutes exposure to ETS, as well as likely seeing people drop dead after 30 minutes exposure to similarly chemically composed pollutants, such as car exhaust.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you should really substantiate such allegations. I believe I did so. Read the article.

The report is quite clear and it is not posed as a noble lie as you so breathlessly assume. The report quite clearly relies on the discredited EPA study for a number of its less credible assertions. As such, it is proposed as a noble lie. I don't "breathlessly assume" such, i consider it such based on careful consideration. Several thousand words into this discussion, your assertion that my position is a "breathless assumption" is yet another indication that you prefer rhetorical devices to considered argument.

You're welcome to your opinion that the Surgeon General, the American Lung Association, et al, would give due concern to disconfirming evidence, but I think that the counter-evidence I've shown, that both you and these groups pretend does not exist, suggest otherwise. I'm sure researchers such as James Enstrom, Geoffrey Kabat, Elizabeth Whelan, Michael Siegel, et al, would concur.

Deal with the disconfirming science, as well as what supports your position. But quit repeating yourself. I don't have any desires to keep pointing out your logical fallacies, just as I don't have any desire to continue to hear you call me a liar (no matter how careful your word choices in leveling that claim).

You say that you have failed to support your thesis that it is heavily relied upon. You fail to support your assumption that subsequent resports do not address the concerns raiseed. Catch, I'm not going to spend a lot of time cutting and pasting from your reports, since it's quite evident that for every post I make in response, you'll make four separate responses in an effort to simply smother what I have to say with your blizzard of "is not"s. Anyone who wants to see how much the EPA study, the California EPA study which relies upon it, etcetera are relied upon by the reports you cite need only click on your links and read them. It isn't as if they're hiding their resources. They are pretty up front in citing the EPA study, and in maintaining the same flawed assertion of 63,000 annual deaths due to secondhand smoke (an estimate that apparently hasn't changed in the decade since it was first made. I noted the reliance, I quoted an example, and I don't think there's any additional "support" that I could give that would be satisfactory to you. You really don't care whether there is contradictory evidence.

The fact that it second hand smoke can have demonstrable impact upon physiology within 30 minutes does not mean we expect to see people drop dead. Exactly, Catch. Thanks for restating what I've already said. Nonetheless, anti-smoking forces misconstrue the science to support exactly that contention.

It relies on subsequent studies.

In the decade since the 1992 EPA report, scientific panels continued to evaluate the mounting evidence linking involuntary smoking to adverse health effects (Table 1.3). The most recent was the 2005 report of the California EPA (Cal/EPA 2005).

Right: the California EPA study which, itself, relied heavily on the 1992 EPA study. Do you even read the stuff that you put out there?

Your whole thesis rests on the assumption that every study and report since 1993 have all been tainted by the 1993 EPA study and any reference forever should be forbidden. No, sadly for your argument, my "whole" thesis" does NOT rest on that argument. MANY of the studies which you cite use the EPA study without comment as to its flawed methodology. Many others continue in the same epidemiological veined that the CRS noted in its 1994 memo could contain serious over-estimations of effect. Few to none measure actual exposure rates. Those that attempt to assess exposure rates do so through reference to cotinine, which is a bit better than a guess, but is a methodology that can be misleading unless confounding effects are controlled for. Of course, none of this means squat to you, because these studies give the result you prefer to promote. Therefore, addressing their flaws is something that shouldn't be allowed. Hence...

Thats nice dogma but not good science. It's a nice charge, but I'm anything if dogmatic. Show me where you've once admitted that there are any flaws in the studies, whatsoever, or dealt at all with the disconfirming evidence that's out there, other than to simply ignore it. You, Catch, are the dogmatist, here. But somehow, in upside-down-land, you've decided that admonishing people to look at all the evidence and consider the studies' shortcomings as well as conclusion equates to "dogma." I think the absurdity of the charge is self-evident.

Why not just admit you were wrong when you wrote "the Congressional Research Service produced a definitive study on the perils of secondhand smoke."? Because I wrote a large paragraph surrounding the findings of the CRS study which you have ignored in preference to claiming that the phrase "brief overview", which was used in reference to the appendix on heart disease and ETS, somehow miraculously applies to the whole study? Seriously, I reiterate, do you read?

It does no such thing. What do you base this upon? Do you understand the pathology of heart disease? Because I'm guessing that you do not, considering that you mistake biomarkers of heart disease, and a proposed mechanism by which heart disease could be exacerbated by secondhand smoke with the contention that secondhand smoke causes 50,000+ deaths annually due to heart disease. Using the very text you blockquoted, here's the relevant part that you apparently skimmed over

They provide strong evidence that these biomarkers are causally related to disease risk and indicate that the magnitude of each of the associations with fibrinogen and homocysteine observed in our study should translate into increases in disease risk of the order of 5%,13,14 although their combined effect is likely to be greater than this. This is lower than the excess risk of 30% estimated from case-control studies using cardiovascular disease as the main outcome,17 perhaps because other mechanisms are playing a role.5

The study you provided to bolster your case actually undercuts the estimate commonly used to arrive at 50,000+ deaths by heart disease due to ETS.

You cantinue to asser that every subsequent study relies on the 1992 EPA report and not only that but on the discredited portions of the report. This is false. Your lack of reading comprehension is really quite astounding. I've asked you to quit promoting your straw men as opposed to what I've stated.

Additionally, this Since 1992, several additional reviews of the evidence have been carried out, and all, except for a review by an industry-sponsored panel,16 have concluded that passive smoking increases risk for lung cancer in nonsmokers. is simply untrue. Enstrom and Kabat's study found no significant correlation. This study was done in 1998. It's instructive to look at how the study was conducted, as well. Originally funded by the American Cancer Society, this study reviewed data for secondhand smoke exposure available over a 30+ year span. When it became evident that the data did not support the conclusions the ACS wanted, ACS pulled fundiing from Enstrom and Kabat. I order to finish the study, Enstrom sought funding from Philip Morris, with the proviso that the company not even see the study until after publication. The ACS and anti-smoking forces have since attacked the study as "Big Tobacco" propaganda, despite the fact that it utilized the ACS' own data, and was originally funded by the ACS, and that Philip Morris had no input into the science, whatsoever.

Additionally, in a followup study from 2006, Enstrom, et al, found similar results, and critiqued the shortcomings of existing epidemiological studies, concluding

The present meta-analysis indicates how sensitive the summary RRs are to the inclusion of CA CPS I and/or CPS I results and to use of a consistent definition of exposure. Our results indicate that the ETS–CHD association is considerably weaker than that reported in previous meta-analyses. We believe the primary reason our meta-analysis shows a very weak relationship between ETS and CHD deaths is because actual levels of ETS exposure are too low to cause many deaths. Because the whole issue of the health effects of ETS exposure has been highly politicized, there has been a pattern of selectively using the available evidence to make the strongest case against ETS. However, science requires that all of the evidence be evaluated critically and even-handedly. The uncertainty of the epidemiologic evidence on passive smoking and CHD needs to be acknowledged. Public health practitioners should focus on the strong evidence regarding the adverse effects of active smoking on CHD. The case against active smoking is not helped by exaggerating the evidence on passive smoking.

Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Coronary Heart Disease Mortality in the United States—A Meta-Analysis and Critique, Inhalation Toxicology, 18:199–210, 2006, Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC. James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat.

But, hey, you already have the "truth" and need no additional input, right?

Let's conclude this charade: there is no way in hell that a simple blizzard of links from you is going to convince me that the studies I've referenced are wrong. Only addressing those studies themselves would be capable of doing that. Likewise, no amount of evidence, reports or studies that I present to you, no matter their scientific validity, will cause you to deviate from your preferred conclusion. Therefore it's a bit fruitless for us to go back and forth. I think I've shown where your "thinking" on the matter goes off the rails. My own opinion is that you have done nothing to undercut my argument, and have, instead, weakened your own. Your opinion is probably different.

But there's plenty of information from both sides present in this article and subsequent threads for people to draw their own conclusions. I'm content to allow them to do so. I suggest you also be content to do so.

Because, frankly, this back and forth is beginning to get a bit boring.

You fail to support your assumption that subsequent resports do not address the concerns raiseed

Nice try in trying to insist that it my job to prove a negative. I have proved numerous reports and studies that rely upon study after study.

Wow. You're so out of it that you don't even recognize that you're blockquoting your own words.

Let's assume for a second that whose job it is to prove what is relevant to the conversation (I don't think it is, because I don't think you care about reaching common ground, but let's go ahead and assume it is relevant). You made an affirmative defense with this conclusion-- the shortcomings of the EPA study, etcetera, have been addressed in subsequent studies. Whose job is it to prove that assertion? Certainly not mine. I have neither the time nor inclination to review the mass of links which you've provided, and judging from your past performance, any study or report which I find has NOT addressed those flaws will simply be dismissed out of hand--"OK, not that one, but the others." It's your job to show that the stuff you link to addresses the issues raised, if what you're claiming is that they avoid those issues. Show where the issues were addressed.

Instead, in the first report you linked, which I actually did you the courtesy of reading, it does NOT address the shortcomings of epidemiological studies in general, and quotes the discredited EPA study without comment, does not show how the confounding variables that were raised in objections to the EPA meta-study were accounted for, etcetera. So on its face, I think the claim is bogus. I don't think that they've addressed those issues.

That you're this ignorant of the difference between proving a positive and proving a negative suggests, once again, that you're either disingenuous in your comments, or simply ignorant. Rather than slur your character, I lean toward concluding that you're simply ignorant.

the estimates clearly have changed. Where? The reports and studies you linked to, when they give an estimate at all, cite the "50,000+" figure for cardiovascular deaths. All except for the one that actually attempted to measure exposure, which cited a 5% rate, rather than a 30% rate, leading to a conclusion that's only 16% the commonly cited figure-- supporting my argument.

You've got a strange notion of defending your viewpoint.

Nice illustration of your hypocrisy. I am open to new studies, you are the one who claims the "definitive answers" and the state of science are all to be found in Judge Osteeens opinion and a CRS report from 1994 that included a brief overview of many of these issues. You're so open to new studies that you've conveniently ignored any that I've provided. Then you have the gall to say that I'm being hypocritical. Followed by a reiteration of your straw man argument. It merely cements your reputation as an hysteric.

Yes you provide some critiques of the state of the findings before 2000. I provide information after that. You're an idiot, Catch. Riddle me this-- does the year 2006 come after the year 2000? One need look no further than this fact to see that you're dishonest in your defense of your position.

Here is how Bush's Surgeon General Summed it up Here's how I sum it up: some of the studies you provided make the same point that I've made (for instance that the actual incidence with regard to cardiovasc8ular disease is closer to 5% than to 30%), none of the studies you provide that I've taken the time to look at so far address the shortcomings of the EPA study, comment on those shortcomings, or otherwise address the shortcomings of the epidemiological model in estimating possible deaths due to secondhand smoke. All your bluster aside, you've done nothing to prove that they have, other than to off a Surgeon General's opinion as fact.

Again, failure to address the issues I've raised coupled with simple reiteration of your assertions is not a refutation, it's a repetition. And it has grown exceedingly boring. So thanks for playing, but if your intention is to simply continue in this vein, please spare us all. We're all very familiar with your opinion on this subject, at this point.

No problem. This isn't all the criticism of the studies, but it's certainly a start. I could have included quite a bit more, but the article would probably have had to run several thousand more words. As is, I think what's provided makes the pertinent point.