Hell Freezes Over! -Flash-

[Lord Jim]

Whinging about small adjustments such as adding the drunk driving deaths which adds 10,000 to 88,000 and makes the comparison 480,000 vs 98,000 or eliminating the contribution from second-hand smoke (42,000 ) does nothing to move the numbers far enough to matter. The numbers are then 438,000 smoking deaths and 98,000 alcohol-related deaths

By all measurements smoking is far more dangerous.

438,000 / 42,100,000 = 0.0104 Smoking risk factor
98,000 / 167,500,000 = 0.0006 Drinking risk factor

Which is still a difference of 18 TIMES. You've done basically nothing to move the dial.

Even if I arbitrarily add 50% more deaths from alcohol the difference is still 12 TIMES as dangerous.

You have done exactly nothing to show that alcohol is even close to as dangerous as tobacco or that the ratio is even significantly different than the first-pass estimate.

Absolutely staggering stupidity.





yrs,
rubato

Wow, he finally got it..

I had given up all hope...(and I'm a pretty optimistic guy...)

The "staggering stupidity" involved here rube, is that it you're such a thickie that it took you multiple posts, (proving yourself over and over again to be an obstinate moron who can't grasp even the most fundamental basics of statistics) before the realization finally dawned even in your pea sized brain that you could re-calculate the numbers legitimately, and still have a significant multiple difference for making your case...

I recognized that immediately when I read your first post, rube...

I considered pointing that out to you at the outset, but I was curious to see how long it would take, (even after having it laid out for you over and over, in the simplest terms) for a "scientist" and "inventor" of your, uh, "capabilities", to finally manage to sort it out on your own...

And the answer to that question turned out to be, "quite a long time..."

[Lord Jim]

Think for a moment rube, how differently the course of this thread would have gone, had you when I first pointed out the flaw in your calculation said something like:

"Okay, point taken. But even after removing the "second hand smoke" number, we're still talking about a difference that is 18 times greater"....

What could I possibly have said then, other than to concede the point?

But instead, you chose a different course...(The course you invariably, and with absolute predictability, always choose)

Idiotically trying to insist over and over, and over again that your calculation was completely legitimate, making yourself look like a bigger and bigger fool, and digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole...

Why you always choose this course (when far better options are available) is one of the things I find really interesting about you rube...

Putting on my amateur psychologist hat again, I think the reason you do this is an equal mix of intellectual insecurity, (well founded) added to the fact that you're just not particularly bright...

[Joe Guy]

The original disagreement in this thread is based on this quote from the linked article:

CVS, one of the nation’s largest drugstore chains, said Wednesday that it will stop selling cigarettes at its 7,600 locations in an expensive but calculated bid to boost its image as a full-fledged health-care provider rather than a simple purveyor of greeting cards and shampoo.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain how CVS can expect to be perceived as a Health care provider if the store continues to sell alcoholic beverages and other unhealthy products.

[Lord Jim]

The original disagreement in this thread is based on this quote from the linked article:

CVS, one of the nation’s largest drugstore chains, said Wednesday that it will stop selling cigarettes at its 7,600 locations in an expensive but calculated bid to boost its image as a full-fledged health-care provider rather than a simple purveyor of greeting cards and shampoo.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain how CVS can expect to be perceived as a Health care provider if the store continues to sell alcoholic beverages and other unhealthy products.

Good luck waiting for that...

For my part, I totally agree with what this incredibly bright and insightful guy said when you first posed the question:

This has absolutely positively nothing to do with concern for anyone's health...

This is all about getting some free publicity, and winning approval from the pc seals, (the seals of approval, as it were) who mindlessly bark and slap their flippers together every time something is done to punish or make the lives of those who engage in an activity that they don't approve of more difficult....

Nothing makes that crowd happier than a swift kick to the balls being delivered to anyone who chooses to engage in any behavior or make any choice they don't approve of...

They are the flip side of the coin with the right wingers who wanted to dictate what people can do in their bedrooms, or whether or not contraception should be available. Their ideologies and agendas maybe different, but their control freak sense of entitlement to dictate how others should live mindsets are identical. They simply cannot resist the impulse to meddle. They have way more in common with each other then either would care to admit...

Wow, what a sharp dude...

[Jarlaxle]

I did read the opening post.
I was commenting on your previous post where you quoted

Noting that pharmacies in other developed countries do not sell cigarettes, the authors maintain that if drugstores don’t make this effort voluntarily, federal or state regulatory action would be appropriate.

And this

Some cities have already banned tobacco sales in pharmacies, including San Francisco and Boston.

I maintain that the store owners shoudl be able to sell what they want (as long as it's legal and they have whatever license they need to sell it). Here the gov decided. IMO that is wrong.

The way the law in Boston is written, it's not just pharmacies...offhand, SUPERMARKETS that fill prescriptions (which most do) cannot sell cigarettes.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I maintain that the store owners shoudl be able to sell what they want (as long as it's legal and they have whatever license they need to sell it). Here the gov decided. IMO that is wrong.

oldr, government makes the laws. How can a thing be 'legal' if the government passes a law making it "illegal"?

[oldr_n_wsr]

I meant the "substance" being sold is legal. Cigarettes are legal to sell, heroin is not.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain how CVS can expect to be perceived as a Health care provider if the store continues to sell alcoholic beverages and other unhealthy products.

No can do, but I understand the business model. I woudl guess their margin on prescriptions is not that great, so they need to supplement with other items. Alcohol and foodstuffs will be bought by those that came to get their prescriptions rather than make another stop.

Kind of like gas stations having a convinience store. I don't see any gas stations just selling gas, or even doing car repairs in addition to selling gas. All of them have a store attached and all those stores sell beer/malt liquor. "Fill'er up" takes on a new meaning.

[MajGenl.Meade]

OK oldr but cigarettes are not "legal" to sell if the government passes a LAW to say they are illegal to sell. Heroin is also only illegal to sell because the government says it is illegal. A few months ago, marijuana was "illegal to sell" in some US states where it is now "legal" - because government decreeed it so.

Government never bans a "legal" thing. It was legal before they ban it but as soon as they ban it is legal no more. Except in Virginia.

[dgs49]

CVS doesn't sell recreational alcohol in Pennsylvania.

The Sane State.

[dgs49]

On a related note to the dialog between the LJ and the rubato-person - on the topic of the presumed dangers of "second-hand smoke":

In a sane world, the dangers of second-hand smoke would be evaluated as follows:

Find a population of respondents with the following characteristics: (a) One or more heavy smokers in the household; (b) one or more NON-smokers in the household, (c) many years living together.

Then they would statistically analyze the incidence of cancers and other smoking-related diseases AMONG THE NON-SMOKING household members, and compare those percentages with comparable populations of demographically similar people in non-smoking households. Do they have greater incidence of lung cancer, emphezema (sp?), and other smoking-related diseases, and is the difference statistically significant?

I have only seen one such study in my life. I believe it was conducted in Sweden, and covered - basically - married couples over a period of several decades. That study concluded that there was no statistically significant difference in the disease rate of the non-smokers. In commentary at the end of the study they basically said that the difference between puffing on a cigarette, year after year, for decades, and having to smell second-hand cigarette smoke for an hour or two every day was so great that second-hand smoke as a carcinogen could be discounted entirely.

Since then, I have seen numerous studies that were seriously compromised by obviously-flawed methods (I refuse to use the non-word, "methodology"), and obviously intended to come to a pre-determined conclusion, to wit that "second hand smoke kills." The U.S. Government (from what I've read) has done no significant research on its own, but has basically promulgated its policies based on the fact that they identified hundreds of (flawed) studies that all came to the same conclusion - one that they liked - namely, that "second-hand smoke kills."

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but it is my pretty firm belief that so-called "second-hand smoke" is even less of a danger than global cooling.

[Scooter]

A study in Shanghai of 72,000 non-smoking women found that exposure to their husbands' smoking increased their risks of dying from lung cancer and heart disease by almost 40 percent. The women also had a nearly 50 percent higher risk of stroke.

link

When we had this discussion years ago on the CSB, I was able to find a link to the actual journal article about this study, which showed that the risk of smoking-related diseases was dose dependent i.e. the more the husbands smoked, the higher the incidence of disease among their non-smoking wives. That is about as solid a proof of causation of disease as you are going to be able to achieve in any scientific study.

At the time, those results were dismissed with the claim that Chinese women are somehow innately incapable of knowing how much their husbands smoke.

It takes a special kind of moron to assert that having someone blowing a cocktail of known toxins in one's face day after day is not going to have any harmful effects.

[Big RR]

Scooter--I recall the criticism about that (or a similar) study, and it basically said that those who suffered ill health effects normally associated with cigarette smoking were more likely to inflate the amount their spouse smoked than those who did not. This could be due both to an enhanced concern about the smoke when they developed their illnesses, as well as the fact that many people who develop respiratory diseases are much more likely to be bothered by the smoke before their illness manifests itself (things like sore throats, coughs, etc.) than those who are not. Just as a chain smoker cannot be relied on to determine how much he or she smoked (I had a roommate who would swear (and believe he was quite truthful) that he only smoked one or two when he smoked seven or eight), someone who is bothered by the smoke may well claim someone has smoked far more than they actually have.

Does this throw out the conclusion that those in households with smokers will have an enhanced chance of developing smoking related illnesses? No; but it does cast some doubt on the dose dependence.

[Scooter]

those who suffered ill health effects normally associated with cigarette smoking were more likely to inflate the amount their spouse smoked than those who did not

That might well have been a speculation made to discount the study results, but how could it have been a conclusion drawn from the study? By asking the husbands how much they smoked and comparing it with what their wives said? I could just as easily claim that the husbands whose wives got sick would understate the amount they smoked in order assuage their own guilt at having caused their wives' disease.

[Big RR]

Conclusion? By no means was this concluded from the study; it was only raised as a question as to the validity of the dose effects conclusions. The study was not conducted to study this, nor was any of the possible variances in reporting (for whatever reasons) taken into account. However, the critics di not say, as you stated "Chinese women are somehow innately incapable of knowing how much their husbands smoke"; they raised much more serious issues with the conclusions.

[Scooter]

Oh, ok, so they offered nothing but unsubstantiated speculation to attempt to discount a study whose results they didn't like. Thanks for the correction.

That's something it takes little effort and even less intellect to do, just as referring to a study that one made up one's own head to support one's predetermined opinion (although setting it in Sweden was a nice touch).

[Big RR]

The same sort of unsubstantiated speculation as the study's authors did in forming their conclusions. Pointing out errors inherent on the methodology and asking how those were dealt with by the authors is part of the scrutiny scientific studies are exposed to (or at least should be). Again, you tried to pooh pooh the criticism by stating it in a very silly way; I think the criticism was valid, at least as to the conclusion of dose dependence. Once a valid issue has been raised, it is up to the originals authors of the study to deal with it, not those raising the concern. That you still think the conclusions of the authors are valid in light of the criticism is your prerogative, but I think it raises issues serious enough to doubt that any dose dependence was conclusively proven (it may or may not exist, but the study does not prove it).

[Scooter]

Was there any evidence presented to support the existence of such a bias in reporting? Any at all? Any evidence presented to suggest that the study's authors did not address any or all sources of potential bias? Any at all? Then the criticism amounted to nothing more than sour grapes, in effect, the study methodology must be flawed because of disagreement with the conclusions reached.

[Big RR]

Well Scooter, believe what you want. There's no sense discussing it further when you've made up your mind.

[Scooter]

If that's how you see it then at worst that makes me no different than those who dismissed the evidence I brought to the table without proffering anything but their own preconceptions in return. Unlike those who are clearly trying to justify their own addictions, I don't have any dog in this fight.

[Joe Guy]

Does anyone know the criteria used to determine death from smoking cigarettes?

I ask because my mother was a smoker and died at age 85 from emphysema. They also saw the beginning stages of cancer in one of her lungs soon before she died.

Is she recorded as someone who died from lung cancer and/or emphysema because she smoked cigarettes?

What is the average age of people who die from lung cancer / emphysema?

Is there a statistically adept scientist in the house?