The Obama Deception

[candyman]

Alright...I will bring out the big guns from one of my final papers...

Admittedly, the average age of death for smokers is not hugely different to non-smokers. But that is not the real point here. The main issue is that we are constantly told that smoking is the leading cause of premature, preventable death (the Department of Health reiterated this to me only recently), and yet official statistics reveal that smokers have an average life expectancy of 72 years and the majority of smoking-related deaths occur above the national life expectancy. This is quite a big discrepancy, and hardly one that has snuck by unnoticed past the Department of Health. No, this is a clear and deliberate lie. For years the counter-argument to the tobacco control movement has been that statistical correlation doesn't mean causation: just because smokers die younger does not mean smoking is responsible. This is true. But, now our argument should be an outright challenge of the data, because offficial figures show they are lying to us. They are so confident of their control over our passive acceptance that they do not even bother trying to hide all the conflicting numbers!

The anti-smoking movement claim smoking takes more than 10 years off our life. So apparently then, smokers tend to live beyond the life expectancy anyway but had they not smoked would have lived a further decade above that expectancy. The mind boggles. It must also be remembered that 'smoking-related disease' is just an umbrella term for any disease like COPD or lung cancer, they cannot prove smoking caused it so what we are left with is that X amount of people suffer some form of respiratory disease at that time in their life - then smoking gets the blame.

Now we will look at lung cancer death rates. According to Cancer Research UK there are over 34,000 lung cancer deaths (LCDs) annually. In America there are 160,000 per year. According to the 1993 EPA report a non-smokers risk of lung cancer is 1/10,000 per year. Of 225 million Americans, 20% smoke, meaning there are 180 million non-smokers. 1/10,000 = 18,000 non-smoker LCDs per year. Of 45 million smokers in the USA, the LCD of 1/1000 = 45,000 for non-smokers. This means there are 97,000 unaccounted cases of lung cancer deaths in non-smokers each year. Even if we suppose smokers have an increased risk of 20 there are still 52,000 unaccounted LCDs. Something does not add up.

The tobacco control movement claims there is no safe level of exposure to second hand smoke, as stated in the 2006 Surgeon General's Report. The 1993 EPA report said that a non-smokers risk of LCD is 1/10,000 per year, and a non-smoker exposed to passive smoke has a 20 increase over that, so .2/10,000 per year or 1/50,000 per year.

What does this translate to? Of 50,000 non-smokers, 49,999 will not get lung cancer. In other words, 99.998% of exposed non-smokers will not suffer a lung cancer death. 1/50,000 exposed non-smokers having a LCD is a risk rate of .00002. To clarify:

1.0=1% risk

0.1=1/10th of 1%

0.01=1/100th of 1% risk

0.002=2/10th of 1/100th of 1%

An inextricably low number then, but apparently unsafe. Whilst on the subject, if there is no safe level of exposure to SHS then that means walking past a smoker is as dangerous as sitting in a smoky room for hours, because no safe level means that any exposure is the maximum risk. Although don't hold your breath to hear that in the media.

And...here is a letter to the British Goverment from a medical professional working for WHO...WHO is the World Health Organization btw...

By: James P. Siepmann, MD

Yes, it is true, smoking does not cause lung cancer. It is only one of many risk factors for lung cancer. I initially was going to write an article on how the professional literature and publications misuse the language by saying "smoking causes lung cancer"1,2, but the more that I looked into how biased the literature, professional organizations, and the media are, I modified this article to one on trying to put the relationship between smoking and cancer into perspective. (No, I did not get paid off by the tobacco companies, or anything else like that.)

When the tobacco executives testified to Congress that they did not believe that smoking caused cancer, their answers were probably truthful and I agree with that statement. Now, if they were asked if smoking increases the risk of getting lung cancer, then their answer based upon current evidence should have be "yes." But even so, the risk of a smoker getting lung cancer is much less than anyone would suspect. Based upon what the media and anti-tobacco organizations say, one would think that if you smoke, you get lung cancer (a 100% correlation) or at least expect a 50+% occurrence before someone uses the word "cause."

Would you believe that the real number is < 10% (see Appendix A)? Yes, a US white male (USWM) cigarette smoker has an 8% lifetime chance of dying from lung cancer but the USWM nonsmoker also has a 1% chance of dying from lung cancer (see Appendix A). In fact, the data used is biased in the way that it was collected and the actual risk for a smoker is probably less. I personally would not smoke cigarettes and take that risk, nor recommend cigarette smoking to others, but the numbers were less than I had been led to believe. I only did the data on white males because they account for the largest number of lung cancers in the US, but a similar analysis can be done for other groups using the CDC data.

You don't see this type of information being reported, and we hear things like, "if you smoke you will die", but when we actually look at the data, lung cancer accounts for only 2% of the annual deaths worldwide and only 3% in the US.**

When we look at the data over a longer period, such as 50 years as we did here, the lifetime relative risk is only 8 (see Appendix A). That means that even using the biased data that is out there, a USWM smoker has only an 8x more risk of dying from lung cancer than a nonsmoker. It surprised me too because I had always heard numbers like 20-40 times more risk. Statistics that are understandable and make sense to the general public, what a concept!

The process of developing cancer is complex and multifactorial. It involves genetics, the immune system, cellular irritation, DNA alteration, dose and duration of exposure, and much more. Some of the known risk factors include genetics4,5,6, asbestos exposure7, sex8, HIV status9, vitamin deficiency10, diet11,12,13, pollution14 , shipbuilding15 and even just plain old being lazy.16 When some of these factors are combined they can have a synergistic effect17, but none of these risk factors are directly and independently responsible for "causing" lung cancer!

Look in any dictionary and you will find something like, "anything producing an effect or result."18 At what level of occurrence would you feel comfortable saying that X "causes" Y? For myself and most scientists, we would require Y to occur at least 50% of the time. Yet the media would have you believe that X causes Y when it actually occurs less than 10% of the time.

As ludicrous as that is, the medical and lay press is littered with such pabulum and gobbledygook. Even as web literate physician, it took me over 50 hours of internet time to find enough raw data to write this article. I went through thousands of abstracts and numerous articles, only to find two articles that even questioned the degree of correlation between smoking and lung cancer (British lung cancer rates do not correlating to smoking rates)19,20 and another two articles which questioned the link between second hand smoke (passive smoking) and lung cancer.21,22 Everywhere I looked, the information was hidden in terms like "odds ratio," "relative risk," or "annualized mortality rate." Most doctors probably could not accurately define and interpret them all these terms accurately, let alone someone outside the medical profession. The public relies on the media to interpret this morass of data, but instead they are given politically correct and biased views.

If they would say that smoking increases the incidence of lung cancer or that smoking is a risk factor in the development of lung cancer, then I would agree. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the need to use language appropriately in both the medical and scientific literature (the media, as a whole, may be a lost cause).

Everything in life has risk; just going to work each day has risk. Are we supposed to live our lives in bed, hiding under the blanket in case a tornado should come into our bedroom? We in science, have a duty to give the public accurate information and then let them decide for themselves what risk is appropriate. To do otherwise is a subtle imposition of our biases on the populace.

We must embrace Theoretics as a discipline that strives to bring objectivity and logic back into science. Every article/study has some bias in it, the goal is to minimize such biases and present the facts in a comprehensible and logical manner. Unfortunately, most scientists have never taken a course in logic, and I'm sure that English class was not their favorite. Theoretics is a field of science which focuses on the use of logic and appropriate language in order to develop and communicate scientifically credible theories and ideas which will then have experimental implications. As someone whom I respect says, "Words mean things." Let us use language and logic appropriately in our research and in the way that we communicate information.

Yes, smoking is bad for you, but so is fast-food hamburgers, driving, and so on. We must weigh the risk and benefits of the behavior both as a society and as an individual based on unbiased information. Be warned though, that a society that attempts to remove all risk terminates individual liberty and will ultimately perish. Let us be logical in our endeavors and true in our pursuit of knowledge. Instead of fearful waiting for lung cancer to get me (because the media and much of the medical literature has falsely told me that smoking causes lung cancer), I can enjoy my occasional cigar even more now...now that I know the whole story.

1. USWM smokers have a lifetime relative risk of dying from lung cancer of only 8 (not the 20 or more that is based on an annual death rate and therefore virtually useless).

2. No study has ever shown that casual cigar smoker (<5 cigars/wk, not inhaled) has an increased incidence of lung cancer.

3. Lung cancer is not in even in the top 5 causes of death, it is only #9.

4. All cancers combined account for only 13% of all annual deaths and lung cancer only 2%.

5. Occasional cigarette use (<1 pk/wk) has never been shown to be a risk factor in lung cancer.

6. Certain types of pollution are more dangerous than second hand smoke.3

7. Second hand smoke has never been shown to be a causative factor in lung cancer.

8. A WHO study did not show that passive (second hand) smoke statistically increased the risk of getting lung cancer.

9. No study has shown that second hand smoke exposure during childhood increases their risk of getting lung cancer.

10. In one study they couldn't even cause lung cancer in mice after exposing them to cigarette smoke for a long time.23

11. If everyone in the world stopped smoking 50 years ago, the premature death rate would still be well over 80% of what it is today.1

References (I back up my statements with facts, will those who respond do the same?)

1. Articles:

Pisani P, Parkin DM, Bray F, Ferlay J, Estimates of the worldwide mortality from 25 cancers in 1990, Int J Cancer 1999 Sep 24;83(1):18-29; "Tobacco smoking and chewing are almost certainly the major preventable causes of cancer today."

American Thoracic Society, Cigarette smoking and health.. , Am J Respir Crit Care Med; 153(2):861-5 1996; "Cigarette smoking remains the primary cause of preventable death and morbidity in the United States."

Nordlund LA, Trends in smoking habits and lung cancer in Sweden, Eur J Cancer Prev 1998 Apr;7(2):109-16; "Tobacco smoking is the most important cause of lung cancer and accounts for about 80-90% of all cases of lung cancer among men and about 50-80% among women."

JAMA 1997;278:1505-1508; "The chief cause of death included lung cancer, esophageal cancer and liver cancer. The death rate was higher for those who started smoking before age 25. If current smoking patterns persist, tobacco will eventually cause more than two million deaths each year in China."

JAMA 1997;278:1500-1504; "We have demonstrated that smoking is a major cause of death in China...."

Hecht SS hecht002@tc.umn.edu, Tobacco smoke carcinogens and lung cancer, J Natl Cancer Inst 1999 Jul 21;91(14):1194-210; "The complexity of tobacco smoke leads to some confusion about the mechanisms by which it causes lung cancer."

Sarna L, Prevention: Tobacco control and cancer nursing, Cancer Nurs 1999 Feb;22(1):21-8; "In the next century, tobacco will become the number-one cause of preventable death throughout the world, resulting in half a billion deaths."

Liu BQ, Peto R, Chen ZM, Boreham J, Wu YP, Li JY, Campbell TC, Chen JS, Emerging tobacco hazards in China: 1. Retrospective proportional mortality study of one million deaths, BMJ 1998 Nov 21;317(7170):1411-22; "If current smoking uptake rates persist in China (where about two thirds of men but few women become smokers) tobacco will kill about 100 million...."

Nordlund LA Trends in smoking habits and lung cancer in Sweden. Eur J Cancer Prev 1998 Apr;7(2):109-16; "Tobacco smoking is the most important cause of lung cancer and accounts for about 80-90% of all cases of lung cancer among men and about 50-80% among women."

Skurnik Y, Shoenfeld Y Health effects of cigarette smoking, Clin Dermatol 1998 Sep-Oct;16(5):545-56 "Cigarette smoking, the chief preventable cause of illness and death in the industrialized nations."

2. Websites:

JAMA Website: http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/sci-news/1996/snr0424.htm [link no longer active as of 2004]; "Yet huge obstacles remain in our path, and new roadblocks are being erected continuously," writes Ronald M. Davis, M.D., director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, Mich., in urging a review of the effort against "the most important preventable cause of death in our society."

JAMA Website: http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/sci-news/...203.htm#joc6d99 [link no longer active as of 2004]; "According to the authors, tobacco use has been cited as the chief avoidable cause of death in the U.S., responsible for more than 420,000 deaths annually ...."

JAMA Website: http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v281n2/ffull/jwm80010-2.html [link no longer active as of 2004]; "The researchers reported that deaths caused by tobacco...."

3. The World Health Report 1999, chapter 5 and Statistical Annex and CDC data (http://www.cdc.gov/scientific.htm).

4.Mutat Res 1998 Feb 26;398(1-2):43-54 Association of the NAT1*10 genotype with increased chromosome aberrations and higher lung cancer risk in cigarette smokers. Abdel-Rahman SZ, El-Zein RA, Z

5. Schwartz AG, Rothrock M, Yang P, Swanson GM, "Increased cancer risk among relatives of nonsmoking lung cancer cases," Genet Epidemiol 1999;17(1):1-15

6. Amos CI, Xu W, Spitz MR, Is there a genetic basis for lung cancer susceptibility?, Recent Results Cancer Res 1999;151:3-12

7. Silica, asbestos, man-made mineral fibers, and cancer. Author Steenland K; Stayner L Cancer Causes Control, 8(3):491-503 1997 May

8. Lam S, leRiche JC, Zheng Y, Coldman A, MacAulay C, Hawk E, Kelloff G, Gazdar AF, Sex-related differences in bronchial epithelial changes associated with tobacco smoking, J Natl Cancer Inst 1999 Apr 21;91(8):691-6

9. Ignacio I. Wistuba, MD, Comparison of Molecular Changes in Lung Cancers in HIV-Positive and HIV-Indeterminate Subjects, JAMAVol. 279, pp. 1554-1559, May 20, 1998

10. Kumagai Y, Pi JB, Lee S, Sun GF, Yamanushi T, Sagai M, Shimojo N, Serum antioxidant vitamins and risk of lung and stomach cancers in Shenyang, Cancer Lett 1998 Jul 17;129(2):145-9 China.

11. Nyberg F, et al., Dietary factors and risk of lung cancer in never-smokers, Int J Cancer 1998 Nov 9;78(4):430-6

12. Sinha R, Kulldorff M, Curtin J, Brown CC, Alavanja MC, Swanson CA, "Fried, well-done red meat and risk of lung cancer in women." Cancer Causes Control 1998 Dec;9(6):621-30.

13. Young KJ, Lee PN, Statistics and Computing Ltd, Surrey, UK. Intervention studies on cancer, Eur J Cancer Prev 1999 Apr;8(2):91-103

14. Long-term inhalable particles and other air pollutants related to mortality in nonsmokers.

Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 1999 Feb;159(2):373-82.

15. Blot WJ, Fraumeni JF, Lung Cancer Mortality in the US: Shipyard Correlations Source, Ann N Y Acad Sci; 330:313-315 1979 UI: 80659437

16. Lee IM, Sesso HD, Paffenbarger RS Jr, Physical activity and risk of lung cancer. Int J Epidemiol 1999 Aug;28(4):620-5

17. Kamp DW, Greenberger MJ, Sbalchierro JS, Preusen SE, Weitzman SA, Cigarette smoke augments asbestos-induced alveolar epithelial cell injury: role of free radicals, Free Radic Biol Med 1998 Oct;25(6):728-39

18. The Complete Reference Collection, 1996-9, Compton's.

19. Lee PN, Forey BA, Trends in cigarette consumption cannot fully explain trends in British lung cancer rates, J Epidemiol Community Health; 52(2):82-92 1998

20. Pandey M, Mathew A, Nair MK, Global perspective of tobacco habits and lung cancer: a lesson for third world countries. Eur J Cancer Prev 1999 Aug;8(4):271-9

21. Jahn O, [Passive smoking, a risk factor for lung carcinoma?], Wien Klin Wochenschr; 108(18):570-3 1996

22. Nilsson R, Environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer: a reappraisal, Ecotoxicol Environ Saf; 34(1):2-17 1996

23. Finch GL, Nikula KJ, Belinsky SA, Barr EB, Stoner GD, Lechner JF, Failure of cigarette smoke to induce or promote lung cancer in the A/J mouse, Cancer Lett; 99(2):161-7 1996

The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke

As noted earlier in the chapter on Language, about 90% of secondary smoke is composed of water and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 4% is carbon monoxide, a gas that can act as a poison when in sufficient quantity by reducing the amount of oxygen your red blood cells can carry. The last 6% contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).

Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01).

To refer back to our earlier example of arsenic, a nonsmoker would have to work with a smoker 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, for well over a hundred years to be exposed to a quantity of arsenic equal to one grain of salt. While a lot of waitresses and bartenders may feel as if they’ve worked a hundred years at their jobs, there really aren’t too many who actually have.

And, again as noted earlier, far from all 4,000 of those chemicals are normally labeled as toxic in the first place, with the 1989 Surgeon Generals’ Report only noting that “some” are… without reference to how many or to what amounts would be considered toxic. One of the most basic principles of scientific toxicology is that “The Dose Makes The Poison.”… a fact always ignored by Crusaders.

When speaking of secondary smoke many Antismokers will also refer to the “40 carcinogenic compounds” it supposedly contains. In reality only six of those have in fact been classified as “known human carcinogens” (1989 Report of the Surgeon General. pgs. 86-87). Most of the rest of the 40 compounds have shown insufficient evidence of being human carcinogens and many are commonly found in foods, coffee, and the general environment (Science, 258: 261-265 (1992). The exposure of nonsmokers to the six actual human carcinogens is usually so minuscule as to be almost imaginary in nature and is sometimes far less than other everyday environmental exposures.

Secondary smoke is the mix of all of the smoke that enters the air in a room where someone is smoking, both the smoke exhaled by the smoker and the smoke coming off the tip of the cigarette. You’ve heard the claim that secondary smoke is twice as bad as what the smoker gets? In a way this is true: if you held your nose a quarter inch above the burning end of a cigarette and inhaled a slow deep breath through your nostrils you’d be getting a concentration of smoke and its chemicals twice as great as what the smoker is pulling into his or her mouth.

In the real world no one does that. Even the most hardened of smokers would generally be reduced to paroxysms of coughing from such concentrated inhalation. The secondary smoke that a nonsmoker comes in contact with is usually an extremely diluted mixture of exhaled smoke and the smoke produced directly from the cigarette’s tip.

Something that’s usually forgotten in the rush of concern about the nonsmoker is that the smoker is also breathing all the secondary smoke produced, and, given the closer proximity to the source, the smoker is inhaling it in far greater quantities and concentrations than most nonsmokers ever would! If the concerns about the dangers of secondary smoke were really true it would make perfect sense for a smoker with a smoking guest to insist that the guest go outside to smoke even if they were both smoking at the same time. Indeed, smokers would want to rush outside themselves out of fear of their own secondary smoke!

The exact chemical composition of secondary smoke depends largely upon how many seconds it’s been in the air. Just as happens in the case of most combustion products, the chemicals change and break down very quickly, and some elements will tend to settle toward the floor or deposit themselves on walls or curtains. In pursuit of some arguments Antismokers want to assume from the start that secondary smoke is carcinogenic: this is when they will claim that it’s chemically very similar to mainstream smoke. However, when they want to argue that comparing secondary smoke exposure to “cigarette equivalents” is unfair (This method generally produces very low measures of exposure… sometimes as low as six cigarettes per year even for bartenders), they will claim that it’s chemically very different than mainstream smoke and can’t be compared in that way!

[candyman]

Cigarettes should be outlawed.

Now tobacco itself without any of the additives is fine.

Someday cigarettes as they are produced and distributed will be completely vaporized....

Someday....because I said it should.(lol there goes my humor....bahaha...ok no. <3)

Now growing tobacco, drying and rolling your own ciggys with good paper is just fine....

heh....but of course the all American couch potato prefers driving to go pick up a pack of good ol' cancer sticks.

This is all...again...my bias opinion.

So...no offense to the smoker, only the distributor.

I like to say....

I know its your right to smoke.

It is also my right to breath clean air...

And these tobacco companies enable addiction with their additives...

If they were to produce pure high quality tobacco products...we wouldn't have these problems.

Obamas tobacco tax is the best thing since bubble yum.

No additive causes addiction...those chemicals that do are natural and are not only produced by the tobacco plant, they are also produced by many other plants and are in many of your foods.

Clean air hasn't existed since...well, lets just say a LONG time ago. If you live in a house, or any building for that matter, get out because there is some nasty shit in there. Or are those risks that are fine to take?

[asphyxian_doll]

No additive causes addiction...those chemicals that do are natural and are not only produced by the tobacco plant, they are also produced by many other plants and are in many of your foods.

Clean air hasn't existed since...well, lets just say a LONG time ago. If you live in a house, or any building for that matter, get out because there is some nasty shit in there. Or are those risks that are fine to take?

There are added chemicals that make it far more addictive.

But I'm not going to argue this point....

I still say......ew to cigarettes.

Our opinions are polar....

But again I will state, I am not a right fighter.

You have your right to smoke,

I have my right to breath clean air.

Being a hyper sensitive, I know the difference between how I feel when I breath smoke, and when I breath indoor air.

The difference is vast, and I would much rather breath stuffy air than Cigarette smoke.

Anyways....I'm done on my end of this discussion on CIGARETTES.

Obama...is not apart of any conspiracy....and I don't care to discuss your reasons for smoking, your defenses, or your rights.

I respect you.

-End

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I don't turn off my brain and just do whatever I'm told.

I also don't get bent out of shape and shove a stick up my ass because of everything I don't agree with and expect others to agree with me.

I'm not an armchair crusader either.

I agree with Obama and his tax on Tobacco.

Sorry.

The government has always been imperfect, and since it will NEVER meet your standards...I suggest you let it go and deal with cigarettes being expensive....or stop buying them.

You are so funny.

[asphyxian_doll]

You are so funny.

Its how I do.

chyeaaa

<333333

[Marmee_Noir]

I totally understand where you are coming from. Why would anyone ever want to be exposed to something that might make them question the All Mighty Government? It's so much easyer to turn your brain off and just do what ever we are told.

Rock On........

If only people realized that NOT caring or NOT caring enough about these things does effect their life. May not in the short term but eventually it will bite you in the ass..

Only if people cared more about their government and the events going around outside of their selves they would be able to make life a bit happier for EVERYONE.

[peelingchrome]

I am not sure I buy thier conclusions... and I do beleive the people making this movie are a bit paranoid... some of the things they bring to light are absolutly true while others are completly insane.

I really don't know what Obama's agenda is but I really don't think he has the American Peoples best interests in mind.

I don't like his idea of an armed and military trained civilian force that operates outside the Constitution. It reminds me too much of the USSRs Politicals or the German SS.

I don't like elected officials threatning to take legal action against anyone that dares speak out against Obama.

and much much more about Obama scares the hell out of me.

I'm with you on this 100%. This is not the first conspiracy propaganda movie by this group that I've seen, but it's a bit more believable. Whether or not there's some conspiracy group behind his decisions, he's making a bunch of BAD decisions. I haven't checked all of the "facts" presented in the movie, but I've looked into a few and they pan out.

My questions are these: How many more lies are we going to let him tell? How many more of our rights and civil liberties are we going to let him defile? How much deeper of a hole are we going to let him dig us into? When does it end? What can we do to REALLY be heard?

I want to stop getting the short end of the stick from MY government. I'm a peaceful person. I'm a rational person. I don't see how mailing teabags to congresspeople or standing around holding a sign on April 15th is really going to help the situation.

I'd like to make one thing clear: this movie has not "gotten me all fired up". It has simply brought my frustrations to the front of my thoughts.

What can I do to actually be heard by my government? Which of those things WON'T get me on some list with the government somewhere? Why is it that honest, thinking, peaceful citizens are afraid to speak loud enough to be heard by THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT?

I should stop this here before I get all bent out of shape and say something that I'll regret. Seriously, I'd greatly appreciate anyone with valid answers to the questions I've posted above letting me know. Reply to this post or pm me, or email me at peelingchrome@gmail.com.