KTKA

harleyrider1978 (anonymous) says...

Aletter from a doctor on second hand smoke

I’m Robert E. Madden MD, FACS. I am also a non-smoker. HOWEVER I am a passionate opponent smoking bans. Most of the opposition to the smoking bans has been based upon economic factors such as loss of business revenue, even closings. My opposition is due to loss of individual freedom and abuse of scientific fact.

I am a practicing chest surgeon, a teacher and a former cancer researcher. I am also past president of the NY Cancer Society. I will not tell you that smoking is harmless and without risk, in fact one in eight hundred smokers will develop lung cancer. Asthmatics should avoid tobacco smoke. What I will say is: 1) it’s a personal choice and 2) so called second smoke (ETS) is virtually harmless. One may not like the smell but it has not been shown to cause cancer, even in bartenders. If people do not like the odor then they may go elsewhere. Those who support the ban have no right to deny 24% of the adult population their enjoyment of a popular product based on dislike, possibly hatred of smoking. This attitude is that of a bigot, akin to anti-Semitism or racism.

To me the most offensive element of the smoking bans is the resort to science as “proving that environmental smoke, second hand smoke, causes lung cancer”. Not only is this unproven but there is abundant and substantial evidence to the contrary. It is frustrating, even insulting, for a scientist like myself to hear the bloated statistics put out by the American Cancer Society (of which I am a member) and the American Lung Association used to justify what is best described as a political agenda. Smokers enjoy smoking. Most non-smokers are neutral. Anti-smokers hate smoking. It is this last group that drives the engine of smoking bans. Smoking sections in restaurants, ventilated bars and the like have been satisfactory and used for years. To those who choose to smoke they do so at their own risk. To those eschew smoking let them patronize establishments whose owners prohibit smoking. To impose a city wide or a state wide ban is to deny people of their rights.

Respectfully,
Robert E. Madden, M.D

March 15, 2010 at 7:45 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Wicca (anonymous) says...

look divide the damn bar in half or restaurant one side them other those lol I swear one day the country will be at war with its self over ignorant things like this , cigarettes are legal so how can they be illegal to use ? I understand people don't like smoke in their face or kids and that's great ... so divide the damn place !! let it be up to the owners what they want to do and up to you where you want to go well it use to be ! it don't cost that much to build a wall in between make that the law also create jobs too, thought that's why thousands of great American died for : FREEDOM " remember that ? its a dieing thing now in the land of the free .

March 15, 2010 at 8:47 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

geneb (anonymous) says...

Looks like “harleyrider” has found a site to spam his BS boilerplate onto. He's been banned from most other sites. KTKA is still getting spammed.

There’s a tiny band of 6 or 7 pro-tobacco fanatics who spend their days and nights swarming every article on smoking, trying to minimize the ravages of tobacco use and the need for regulation. Every smoking report gets the same denials from the same spammers. They deluge message boards, trying to drown out dissent. Harley's been the worst--till sites got fed up and 86'd him.

(Wikipedia does a good job documenting harley’s PR in “Industry-funded Studies and Critiques”: http://tinyurl.com/yhrmxub)

March 16, 2010 at 12:58 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )