Wiel Maessen's comment was actually a fairly decent appraisal of this
study. Basically the investigators discovered two things:
1) When you ban smoking in a place there's not as much smoke in the
air so people in that place don't breathe in as much smoke. Somehow, even
without a grant to do a study, I think I could conjecture that people
standing on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific ocean would
generally have less car exhaust to breathe in than people in midtown
Manhattan.
and
2) If you remove smoke from the air, the kinds of irritations that
people complain about in smoky places are reduced, particularly if the
people questioned about it may have been more self selected than the
average of the whole pool toward favorable ban feelings.
The study says nothing about long term health, and says nothing about
whether levels of nicotine, cotinine, or other substances were harmful in
any way past immediate symptomologies of irritation. Additionally the
study pool was quite likely to be biased in favor of bar staff without
hostility toward the smoking ban, and indeed in favor of bar staff who
were sympathetic to it and far more likely to report symptomatic
improvements than the average.
There have now been several studies carried out similar to this, all
to the best of my knowledge sharing roughly the same defect of self-
selection and likely bias in reporting of symptomology and all carried out
with the researchers probably knowing fairly well beforehand what results
to expect. The value of the studies seems far more political than
medical. I realize this sounds like a very harsh assessment and that
researchers must take grant money where they can find it, but the
continued production of studies like this ilustrates the problem that
occurs when special interest groups have disproportionate influence in
controlling the funding and thereby the direction and determination of
what counts as important in medical research.
Michael J. McFadden,
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains", www.Antibrains.com
Competing interests:
I do not now, nor have I ever, had any financial connections to or interest in the tobacco industry other than as a customer. I am the author of a book titled "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" and am active in a number of Free-Choice groups although I have no financial connections to any of them other than as an occasional contributor.
Rapid Response:
A Study of Substance?
Wiel Maessen's comment was actually a fairly decent appraisal of this
study. Basically the investigators discovered two things:
1) When you ban smoking in a place there's not as much smoke in the
air so people in that place don't breathe in as much smoke. Somehow, even
without a grant to do a study, I think I could conjecture that people
standing on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific ocean would
generally have less car exhaust to breathe in than people in midtown
Manhattan.
and
2) If you remove smoke from the air, the kinds of irritations that
people complain about in smoky places are reduced, particularly if the
people questioned about it may have been more self selected than the
average of the whole pool toward favorable ban feelings.
The study says nothing about long term health, and says nothing about
whether levels of nicotine, cotinine, or other substances were harmful in
any way past immediate symptomologies of irritation. Additionally the
study pool was quite likely to be biased in favor of bar staff without
hostility toward the smoking ban, and indeed in favor of bar staff who
were sympathetic to it and far more likely to report symptomatic
improvements than the average.
There have now been several studies carried out similar to this, all
to the best of my knowledge sharing roughly the same defect of self-
selection and likely bias in reporting of symptomology and all carried out
with the researchers probably knowing fairly well beforehand what results
to expect. The value of the studies seems far more political than
medical. I realize this sounds like a very harsh assessment and that
researchers must take grant money where they can find it, but the
continued production of studies like this ilustrates the problem that
occurs when special interest groups have disproportionate influence in
controlling the funding and thereby the direction and determination of
what counts as important in medical research.
Michael J. McFadden,
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains",
www.Antibrains.com
Competing interests:
I do not now, nor have I ever, had any financial connections to or interest in the tobacco industry other than as a customer. I am the author of a book titled "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" and am active in a number of Free-Choice groups although I have no financial connections to any of them other than as an occasional contributor.
Competing interests: No competing interests