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MARTHA PERSKE
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The WHO's Secondhand Smoke
Spin
Date of original release: 2/3/99 |
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Did anyone notice that the long-awaited World Health Organization (WHO) study on
environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) got published? No surprise if you didn't.
The media was unusually quiet about it, a sure sign that it wasn't good news for
anti-smokers. Nevertheless, it's there in the Oct. 7, 1998, issue of the Journal of
the National Cancer Institute.
Results from this large multi-country study were leaked to the press in March 1998,
sending anti-smoking activists into a not-too-happy tizzy. And understandably so.
"A ten-year study carried out for the World Health Organisation has failed to
find a clear link between passive smoking and lung cancer," wrote Nigel Hawkes, the
science editor of The (London) Times in a March 9, 1998 article.
Not true, responded WHO, which promptly issued a press release (March 9, 1998)
headlined, "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer, Do Not Let Them Fool You."
Well, we've now had a chance to read the study, which was carried out by WHO's
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and, sure enough, it's not good news
for the anti-smoking brigade. The WHO study found no statistically significant
increased risk for lung cancer from exposure to ETS in the home, at work, in vehicles or
in indoor public settings such as restaurants. It even found a decreased risk from
childhood exposure to ETS, which, taken literally, would suggest that exposure to
secondhand smoke during childhood had a protective effect against lung cancer.
(Apparently stunned by their own finding, the study's authors downplayed the
decreased risk by referring to it as "no increased risk.")
One would think that such a report would warrant headlines such as "No Significant
Risk from Secondhand Smoke" or "Down with Smoking Bans." Instead, the
Oct. 7, 1998, Washington Post headline read "Slightly Higher Cancer Risk for Passive
Smokers Found." Other U.S. headlines - what few there were - carried the same
message. No mention by The Washington Post or other U.S. news reports that the
"slightly higher cancer risk" was not statistically significant.
Nevertheless, "slight" and "non-significant" is exactly what the IARC
researchers found. So slight and so non-significant that if it pertained to anything
but tobacco, it wouldn't warrant mention, let alone scary headlines.
For example, the researchers reported a non-significant odds ratio of 1.16 (a 16 percent
increased risk) from exposure to ETS in the home from a smoking spouse. For the
workplace, it was a non-significant 1.17 (a 17 percent increased risk). Such weak
findings are, according to an earlier IARC publication, not to be trusted because anything
less than 2.0 "may readily reflect some unperceived bias or confounding factor."
For whatever reason, the IARC researchers did not caution about this in their ETS
study, even though the odds ratios are well below 2.0.
You don't have to be a genius to figure out why the anti-smokers are trying in vain to
make the WHO study into something it isn't. After all, if ETS isn't the monster the
anti-smoking activists portray it to be, there is no scientific justification for smoking
bans. And smoking bans are crucial to their goal of attaining a smoke-free society.
(Translation: Prohibition.)
The anti-smoking brigade will rant on, but the WHO/IARC study remains published for all to
see. Robert Matthews, science correspondent for The (London) Sunday Telegraph, said
it all in one statement, "… WHO had failed to find any convincing evidence that
passive smoking causes lung cancer."
Did anyone notice that the long-awaited World Health Organization (WHO) study on
environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) got published? No surprise if you didn't.
The media was unusually quiet about it, a sure sign that it wasn't good news for
anti-smokers. Nevertheless, it's there in the Oct. 7, 1998, issue of the Journal of
the National Cancer Institute.
Results from this large multi-country study were leaked to the press in March 1998,
sending anti-smoking activists into a not-too-happy tizzy. And understandably so.
"A ten-year study carried out for the World Health Organisation has failed to
find a clear link between passive smoking and lung cancer," wrote Nigel Hawkes, the
science editor of The (London) Times in a March 9, 1998 article.
Not true, responded WHO, which promptly issued a press release (March 9, 1998)
headlined, "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer, Do Not Let Them Fool You."
Well, we've now had a chance to read the study, which was carried out by WHO's
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and, sure enough, it's not good news
for the anti-smoking brigade. The WHO study found no statistically significant
increased risk for lung cancer from exposure to ETS in the home, at work, in vehicles or
in indoor public settings such as restaurants. It even found a decreased risk from
childhood exposure to ETS, which, taken literally, would suggest that exposure to
secondhand smoke during childhood had a protective effect against lung cancer.
(Apparently stunned by their own finding, the study's authors downplayed the
decreased risk by referring to it as "no increased risk.")
One would think that such a report would warrant headlines such as "No Significant
Risk from Secondhand Smoke" or "Down with Smoking Bans." Instead, the
Oct. 7, 1998, Washington Post headline read "Slightly Higher Cancer Risk for Passive
Smokers Found." Other U.S. headlines - what few there were - carried the same
message. No mention by The Washington Post or other U.S. news reports that the
"slightly higher cancer risk" was not statistically significant.
Nevertheless, "slight" and "non-significant" is exactly what the IARC
researchers found. So slight and so non-significant that if it pertained to anything
but tobacco, it wouldn't warrant mention, let alone scary headlines.
For example, the researchers reported a non-significant odds ratio of 1.16 (a 16 percent
increased risk) from exposure to ETS in the home from a smoking spouse. For the
workplace, it was a non-significant 1.17 (a 17 percent increased risk). Such weak
findings are, according to an earlier IARC publication, not to be trusted because anything
less than 2.0 "may readily reflect some unperceived bias or confounding factor."
For whatever reason, the IARC researchers did not caution about this in their ETS
study, even though the odds ratios are well below 2.0.
You don't have to be a genius to figure out why the anti-smokers are trying in vain to
make the WHO study into something it isn't. After all, if ETS isn't the monster the
anti-smoking activists portray it to be, there is no scientific justification for smoking
bans. And smoking bans are crucial to their goal of attaining a smoke-free society.
(Translation: Prohibition.)
The anti-smoking brigade will rant on, but the WHO/IARC study remains published for all to
see. Robert Matthews, science correspondent for The (London) Sunday Telegraph, said
it all in one statement, "… WHO had failed to find any convincing evidence that
passive smoking causes lung cancer."
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