Tuesday 31 August 2010

Safe levels of secondary smoke possible?

As a non-scientist I'm not particularly keen on reading technical pieces about chemistry or air quality but I was intrigued by this piece on an experiment in Staffordshire, where an environmental officer said that a study 'found a child [in a car] inhales three times the amount of smoke that would be considered safe to inhale over the course of a day'?: previously discussed here.


It is part of the faith of anti-smoking authorities the world over that there is no safe level of secondary smoke. Google the phrase and read about it being quoted everywhere in the world. But inevitably the protest arose that 'no safe level' was scientifically nonsensical and represents only a value judgement on the act of smoking itself.  


A measurable level of toxicity in the air can be dealt with. Air cleaning systems improve all the time: they are more sophisticated than creaking fans in the ceiling. But the anti-smokers have never wanted the problem to be dealt with rationally. Even though smoke is not as hazardous as other substances in the working environment it is not an industrial by-product, so can be excluded by means of prohibition and really because there is no safe level, only a ban will eradicate exposure. Any other toxin can be dealt with by calm efficiency, but ETS (secondary smoke) has magic qualities that allow it to evade effective control.


This piece provides an account of an OSHA measure of secondary smoke achieved by measuring nicotine only, rather than compounding it with measurements of formaldehyde and benzene, which form part of background pollution. Unfortunately the piece, though entitled 'OSHA sets safe level of second hand smoke', fails to link to OSHA itself, which is rather odd.  Yes, it's from a pipe smoking web site but I found it informative.


This famous table ('The Dose Makes The Poison') gives a breakdown of toxins found in smoke, and their toxicity.


Surely it is essential to uphold the notion that all risks are measurable, and that only by establishing a safe level of any risk is it possible to deal with it. 'No safe level' implies that something kills on impact. Deadly substances have to be contained and isolated if contact with them presents a clear danger to human life. Secondary smoke has formed the backdrop of life in the licensed trade and informal social life and many workplaces for generations and clearly doesn't fall into this category, since our elderly people are living longer than ever. 


Anyone who wants people to fear the impact of secondary smoke, when there are so many airborne chemicals resulting from the industrial-scale incineration of minerals, is guilty of shameless scaremongering, and enormous social and economic damage.  

6 comments:

Rollo Tommasi said...

If you’re going to quote that remark from the US Surgeon General’s report, then you need to quote the full explanation, which is this:

“We know that secondhand smoke harms people’s health, but many people assume that exposure to secondhand smoke in small doses does not do any significant damage to one’s health. However, science has proven that there is NO risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Let me say that again: there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion. Brief exposure can have immediate harmful effects on blood and blood vessels, potentially increasing the risk of a heart attack. Secondhand smoke exposure can quickly irritate the lungs, or trigger an asthma attack. For some people, these rapid effects can be life-threatening. People who already have heart disease or respiratory conditions are at especially high risk.”

Which of these statements do you dispute? Interestingly, while Michael Siegel suggests that the Surgeon General should have given less presentational focus to this remark, he doesn’t question the accuracy of the argument. http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2006/06/surgeon-generals-report-publicity.html

It is wrong to suggest that only secondhand smoke is deemed to have no safe level. For instance the EPA has stated “EPA believes that any radon exposure carries some risk - no level of radon is safe.” - http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html

The article you link to about OSHA’s perspective features a piece of deceitful pro-smoker misquoting (yes, ANOTHER one….). They quote “It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." Yet they ignore the very next sentence:

“The more central concern of the Agency is that synergism of the chemicals in tobacco smoke may lead to adverse health effects even though the PELs are often not exceeded.”
http://www.nycclash.com/PELs.html

In other words, a deliberate attempt to suppress a clear statement by OSHA that the risks of tobacco smoke cannot accurately be assessed by looking only at the PELs of the individual chemicals it contains. All of which renders irrelevant your “Dose Makes the Poison” table.

And all of which means a claim about risks of passive smoking being “shameless scaremongering” is well off the mark.

Anonymous said...

Bog off Rollo.

Rollo Tommasi said...

Charming.

Anon1 said...

“However, science has proven that there is NO risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Let me say that again: there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion. Brief exposure can have immediate harmful effects on blood and blood vessels, potentially increasing the risk of a heart attack. Secondhand smoke exposure can quickly irritate the lungs, or trigger an asthma attack. For some people, these rapid effects can be life-threatening. People who already have heart disease or respiratory conditions are at especially high risk.”


Rollo, could you explain the “definitive evidence” that breathing SHS for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion? There is no evidence that brief exposure to SHS “causes” heart attacks. The claim, using the word “potential”, is entirely speculative. Concerning SHS “irritating the lungs” or triggering an asthma attack, the Surgeon-General has obviously never heard of anxiety reactions and somatization, i.e., psychologically-mediated symptoms, particularly with all of the inflammatory propaganda of the last few decades. Until the current antismoking crusade, ambient smoke (whether tobacco, cooking, or heating) was never considered as a trigger for asthma. They were typical phenomena in most households. There are even asthmatics that smoke. And, as exposure to SHS has declined over the last decade, the incidence of asthma has increased!
Here’s another hint, Rollo. Whenever you see the word “prove(n)” concerning scientific enquiry, the author(s) really don’t understand the tenets of scientific enquiry. Proofs are found in mathematical theorems, not in the scientific method (hypothetico-deductive system).
Rollo, you fail to comprehend that the Office of the Surgeon-General, together with many other medically-aligned organizations, have long been committed to a Smokefree World; long before even the idea of SHS “danger” was concocted towards this end (see the Godber Blueprint www.rampant-antismoking.com ). What is to be expected from these organizations is regular, severe over-interpretation of data in working to an ideological conclusion.
If there is no safe level of tobacco smoke, then there is no safe level of any smoke (cooking, heating). In fact, there would be no safe level of ambient air generally since it also contains most of the chemicals found in smoke. There would be no safe level of water because it also contains potential carcinogens. There would be no safe level of food for the same reason. The “no safe level of SHS” claim is nothing short of abominable. It is a violation of the toxicological maxim “the dose makes the toxicity/poison”. It is a maxim regularly violated by antismoking claims. It can only promote psychological dysfunction (a detrimental health effect) and the ramifications thereof.

“The more central concern of the Agency is that synergism of the chemicals in tobacco smoke may lead to adverse health effects even though the PELs are often not exceeded.”
Again, why is SHS being singled out, made to appear as very different to anything else on earth? The synergism argument, speculative as it is, would also apply to ambient air generally, water and food.

Belinda said...

From Anon 1, part 1


“However, science has proven that there is NO risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Let me say that again: there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Breathing secondhand smoke for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion. Brief exposure can have immediate harmful effects on blood and blood vessels, potentially increasing the risk of a heart attack. Secondhand smoke exposure can quickly irritate the lungs, or trigger an asthma attack. For some people, these rapid effects can be life-threatening. People who already have heart disease or respiratory conditions are at especially high risk.”

Rollo, could you explain the “definitive evidence” that breathing SHS for even a short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion? There is no evidence that brief exposure to SHS “causes” heart attacks. The claim, using the word “potential”, is entirely speculative. Concerning SHS “irritating the lungs” or triggering an asthma attack, the Surgeon-General has obviously never heard of anxiety reactions and somatization, i.e., psychologically-mediated symptoms, particularly with all of the inflammatory propaganda of the last few decades. Until the current antismoking crusade, ambient smoke (whether tobacco, cooking, or heating) was never considered as a trigger for asthma. They were typical phenomena in most households. There are even asthmatics that smoke. And, as exposure to SHS has declined over the last decade, the incidence of asthma has increased!
Here’s another hint, Rollo. Whenever you see the word “prove(n)” concerning scientific enquiry, the author(s) really don’t understand the tenets of scientific enquiry. Proofs are found in mathematical theorems, not in the scientific method (hypothetico-deductive system)

Belinda said...

From Anon1 part 2

Rollo, you fail to comprehend that the Office of the Surgeon-General, together with many other medically-aligned organizations, have long been committed to a Smokefree World; long before even the idea of SHS “danger” was concocted towards this end (see the Godber Blueprint www.rampant-antismoking.com ). What is to be expected from these organizations is regular, severe over-interpretation of data in working to an ideological conclusion.
If there is no safe level of tobacco smoke, then there is no safe level of any smoke (cooking, heating). In fact, there would be no safe level of ambient air generally since it also contains most of the chemicals found in smoke. There would be no safe level of water because it also contains potential carcinogens. There would be no safe level of food for the same reason. The “no safe level of SHS” claim is nothing short of abominable. It is a violation of the toxicological maxim “the dose makes the toxicity/poison”. It is a maxim regularly violated by antismoking claims. It can only promote psychological dysfunction (a detrimental health effect) and the ramifications thereof.

“The more central concern of the Agency is that synergism of the chemicals in tobacco smoke may lead to adverse health effects even though the PELs are often not exceeded.”
Again, why is SHS being singled out, made to appear as very different to anything else on earth? The synergism argument, speculative as it is, would also apply to ambient air generally, water and food.