Friday, May 07, 2004
Ignoring the truth about tobacco
["Second-Hand Lies About Tobacco," Daily Policy Digest, NCPA, 7 May 2004.]
In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Sally Satel of the American Enterprise Institute takes an interesting view of anti-tobacco zeal, and how ignoring the relative safety of smokeless tobacco may be endangering the lives of Americans for the sake of an ideal:
While ignoring substantial evidence that the risks of tobacco product use can be cut drastically by switching from cigarettes to smokeless tobacco, public health officials are quick to embrace spurious research that supports their unsubstantiated claim that second-hand tobacco smoke is a major carcinogen.
[R]eplicated, large-scale studies show that switching to smokeless tobacco can dramatically reduce the health risks to smokers. In Sweden, for example:
- Although 40 percent of men use tobacco products, Swedes have the lowest rate of lung cancer in the European Union. This is largely because moist snuff represents half of all the tobacco that Swedish men use. (The other half smoke.)
- Risks of mouth cancer, depending on the smokeless product used, range from negligible for snuff to half the risk associated with smoking, for products like chewing-tobacco.
Despite the evidence, the U.S. surgeon general told Congress that "there is no significant scientific evidence that suggests smokeless tobacco is a safer alternative to cigarettes."
[See also, Jabob Sullum, "Snuff Treatment," Reason, 26 December 2003.]
["Second-Hand Lies About Tobacco," Daily Policy Digest, NCPA, 7 May 2004.]
In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Sally Satel of the American Enterprise Institute takes an interesting view of anti-tobacco zeal, and how ignoring the relative safety of smokeless tobacco may be endangering the lives of Americans for the sake of an ideal:
While ignoring substantial evidence that the risks of tobacco product use can be cut drastically by switching from cigarettes to smokeless tobacco, public health officials are quick to embrace spurious research that supports their unsubstantiated claim that second-hand tobacco smoke is a major carcinogen.
[R]eplicated, large-scale studies show that switching to smokeless tobacco can dramatically reduce the health risks to smokers. In Sweden, for example:
- Although 40 percent of men use tobacco products, Swedes have the lowest rate of lung cancer in the European Union. This is largely because moist snuff represents half of all the tobacco that Swedish men use. (The other half smoke.)
- Risks of mouth cancer, depending on the smokeless product used, range from negligible for snuff to half the risk associated with smoking, for products like chewing-tobacco.
Despite the evidence, the U.S. surgeon general told Congress that "there is no significant scientific evidence that suggests smokeless tobacco is a safer alternative to cigarettes."
[See also, Jabob Sullum, "Snuff Treatment," Reason, 26 December 2003.]
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