Project Coordinators:
Gilbert L. Ross, M.D.
Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H., M.S.
Executive Summary
Harm Reduction
New York, NY -- December 2004. Many women rely on magazines for information about health yet surveys show that popular women's magazines feature little or no coverage of the serious health consequences of smoking, the leading preventable cause of death, even while other health topics, serious and trivial, are covered at great length.
A November 13, 2004 Star Tribune article, "Summary of Vice President Dick Cheney's Heart Problems" recently reported that Cheney suffered four heart attacks in 1978, 1984, 1988, and 2000 -- with a history of heart surgery and treatment since the last heart attack. Just this month Cheney was admitted to the hospital because of concerns about his heart due to shortness of breath.
This alone documents an evidently long history of heart and related health problems. But the most startling revelation of the article was a paragraph that noted Mr. Cheney did not quit smoking until the year 2000 -- twenty-two years after suffering his first heart attack!
To the Editor: Your editorial ("The Merck Case" Nov. 15th) correctly deplores the tactics of tort lawyers in their quest to dismember Merck and get a piece of the billions likely to be re-distributed subsequent to the Vioxx withdrawal. But you are wrong to conflate the needless and unjust assaults on the pharmaceutical industry with the well-justified litigation against the tobacco industry. The cigarette companies are still flourishing, despite having rightfully been in the "sights" of the lawyers for over a decade. Their intention is not to heal, but to harm--well, their intention is to sell cigarettes, but they are indifferent to the horrific toll of disease and death caused by their products, which amounts to the same thing.
Dr. Siegel has given permission for us to reprint this important letter he posted to the Tp-Talk discussion group about tensions within the anti-smoking movement and apparent tensions among the stated goals of the American Legacy Foundation, which was created with money from the Master Settlement Agreement between government and tobacco companies, to educate the public about the dangers of cigarettes:
I had thought this problem had been taken care of, but according to a press release put out by the American Legacy Foundation today and a quote from Attorney General Sorrell (who I believe is a Legacy Foundation Board member), the Legacy Foundation is apparently still seeking tobacco industry funding to continue its "truth" campaign:
Shaun of the Dead, the funniest movie of the year so far (since the momentous marionette parody Team America has not yet opened), depicts a boring, underachieving British man named Shaun going on with his humdrum life, oblivious to the monstrous army of the walking dead that is taking over the world all around him. The juxtapositions as he walks to the local store, mere inches from grasping zombie arms, or smokes and drinks at the local pub, overlooking news reports about the end of the world, are chilling and hilarious.
And I can't help thinking it's a lot like most people's attitude toward cigarettes.
The credibility of the peer review process has come under vehement attack.
Scientists who receive no-strings-attached financial support for their research from demonized industries -- tobacco, pharmaceuticals, and food, among others -- are no longer deemed trustworthy.
Apparently, the rigors of the peer review process -- even in the world's best science and medical journals -- in addition to full disclosure requirements, isn't enough to prevent "biased" studies from being published. Activists -- displeased with results that undermine their agenda -- cry bias, and prestigious science and health organizations cave, preferring to appease the advocates, rather than allow the scientific method to weed out bad science.
I should be receiving a massive salary from Greenpeace and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. But let me explain.
Volokh.com notes that the American Cancer Society accuses a Cato Institute expert of opposing tobacco regulation in part because he has received money from the tobacco company Altria (Philip Morris) but the American Cancer Society overlooks the fact that Altria vocally favors FDA regulations, since they make Altria the de facto industry standard for cigarettes, making it harder for Altria's competitors to comply with regulations.
There is never a bad time to quit, no matter how hard it is, considering the deleterious effects smoking has on the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and reproductive systems but some effects of smoking are permanent. Does quitting substantially decrease the damaging, continuing effects that years of smoking have on the body?
Earlier this week, the New York Times editorial page opined about the effectiveness of banning smoking in public places as a means of cutting down heart disease risk. Citing a very small, six-month study of heart attack admissions to a hospital in Helena, Montana, the Times editors concluded that "a six-month ban on smoking in public places...appears to have sharply reduced the number of heart attacks."
The Times editorial is an example of dozens of news stories and editorials in recent months that uncritically accept the findings that a reduction of heart attack admissions from 40 to 24 in a six-month period was sufficient justification for banning smoking in public places.
The Times should know better.
This week marks the fortieth anniversary of the first time the U.S. government declared smoking a serious danger to health, the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, published January 11, 1964. With evidence of over 7,000 biomedical research articles on the topic, the committee of the Surgeon General declared, "Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action."