Second-Hand Smoke May Or May Not Be A Risk

Regulation Policy

Second-Hand Smoke May Or May Not Be A Risk

Reports of a World Health Organization (WHO) study on were headlined "Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer," and "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer." Both of these contradictory pronouncements go beyond the evidence, says columnist Jacob Sullum.

"Using the crude tools of epidemiology" we may never be able to verify or rule out an effect of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) says Sullum, because any lung cancer risk is likely to be minuscule.

The WHO study, the second largest of its kind, included 650 nonsmokers with lung cancer and 1,542 control subjects.

WHO says researchers found "there was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood."

But they calculated subjects married to smokers were 1.16 times as likely to have lung cancer as those married to nonsmokers.

The risk was slightly higher -- a ratio of 1.17 to 1.0 -- for subjects who worked with smokers.

But for subjects both married to and working with smokers, WHO researchers found the risk was slightly lower, at 1.14.

Actually, given the statistical margins of error, these three risk ratios are indistinguishable from one another, and no different from a ratio 1.0 -- meaning no added risk.

These findings are consistent with earlier research, says Sullum: the risk, if any, from ETS is too small to measure. But insisting that there is a risk allows anti-smoking activists to claim second-hand smoke is a public health issue.

Source: Jacob Sullum, "Passive Smoking is Either Deadly or Harmless," Conservative Chronicle, April 1, 1998.

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