Related Evidence on HD Studies widen role of germs in disease Scientists prove link in studies Infection may lead to heart disease More on heart disease - I More on heart disease - II

The idea that bacteria and viruses are the real cause of "lifestyle" diseases seems to have caught on with the media themselves. Last Friday, NPR's Talk of the Nation aired a program on the subject. (Unfortunately I missed it, so I don't know how much bs there may have been.) The same day, radio doctor Gabe Mirkin said, "Shame on the president of the American Heart Association!" - (the author of that recent antibiotics vs. heart attacks study in JAMA) - for saying that it was too early to recommend using antibiotics to prevent heart disease. Monday, there was a Washington Post story that made the Miami Herald. ABC radio news had a little blurb on the subject Monday night. And Mirkin said there's an article in the latest issue of Science that "closes the loop" on how infections cause heart attacks, which I will hope to get if it's on their site.

We smokers can only take advantage of these things if we open our mouths and spread the word that "The anti-smokers blamed smoking for heart disease caused by infections!" They really have nothing but statistical associations and tenuous hypotheses to link smoking to heart disease, so we know that they must have blamed smoking for illness that was really caused by CP (Chlamydia pneumoniae) and other infections.

We know that smokers are more likely to be working class than nonsmokers, and that working class nonsmokers are more likely to have heart disease than upper class nonsmokers, so there is confounding by social class. Watch out for studies that "adjust for social class," because this will obscure the true relationship considering the high probability that differing rates of infection are the root cause of those class differences. And, of course, this would be the root cause of the anti-smokers' ETS heart disease claims as well.

We also know that nearly all aortic aneurisms are CP positive (the anti- smokers claim a 4.5 OR for smoking for this). And, we know that "only 60% of the autopsy sera obtained from persons with atherosclerotic lesions positive for C pneumoniae contained demonstrable antibodies to C pneumoniae." (Juvonen J et al. J Vasc Surg 1997 Mar;25(3):499-505.) This means that the ORs for CP and heart disease that are based on serum antibodies actually underestimate the true odds ratio.

Don't bother worrying about trying to set up our own massive apparatus to spread the word. Just start speaking out, now. The media seem willing to prepare the public's minds for our message (at last).

Carol Thompson