|
medpundit |
||
 |
 |
|
Friday, May 16, 2003Most epidemiological studies have found that environmental tobacco smoke has a positive but not statistically significant relation to coronary heart disease and lung cancer. Meta-analyses have combined these inconclusive results to produce statistically significant summary relative risks. However, there are problems inherent in using meta-analysis to establish a causal relation. The epidemiological data are subject to the limitations described above. They have not been collected in a standardised way, and some relative risks have been inappropriately combined. Because it is more likely that positive associations get published, unpublished negative results could reduce the summary relative risks. Also, the meta-analyses of coronary heart disease omitted the published negative results from the large American Cancer Society cancer prevention study (CPS I). We have extended the follow up for the California participants in this cohort, analysed the relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related diseases, and addressed concerns about this study. Translation: The other studies that purport to show a link between second hand smoke and traditional diseases of smokers (heart disease and lung cancer) were studies that combined a bunch of data from other studies. All of the individual studies’ results weren’t statistically significant, which means that the findings were just as likely to be due to chance than to an actual cause and effect. And studies that showed no connection between second hand smoke and heart disease or cancer were not included. It would seem to be shaky ground for public policy. This study followed 120,000 people over forty years and found no increase in smoking-related deaths in non-smoking spouses of smokers. In fact, the only trend they detected was that more non-smokers married to smokers out-survived their spouses: However, widowhood (widowed as of 1999) increased substantially with the level of smoking in the spouse. The study is sure to meet with controversy. It runs counter to the current accepted thinking on second-hand smoke among public health policy experts. And it was funded by the tobacco industry: The British Medical Journal said that Mr Enstrom had received funds from the tobacco industry for research because it was impossible to get the money from other sources. Now what does that say about the state of medical grants when someone can’t get funding for a study that sets out to investigate the conventional wisdom? posted by Sydney on 5/16/2003 06:57:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|
