This is the article from the now hidden WHO study that shows that second-hand smoke is NOT dangerous as published by the NewsTelegraph.
followed by this, published the other day
I will admit it may be irritating but as said in the past, there is no link to disease.
Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer - Official
Victoria MacDonald, Health Correspondent
March 8, 1998
The world's leading health organisation has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could even have a protective effect. The astounding results are set to throw wide open the debate on passive smoking health risks.
The World Health Organisation, which commissioned the 12-centre, seven-country European study has failed to make the findings public, and has instead produced only a summary of the results in an internal report. Despite repeated approaches, nobody at the WHO headquarters in Geneva would comment on the findings last week.
The findings are certain to be an embarrassment to the WHO, which has spent years and vast sums on anti-smoking and anti-tobacco campaigns. The study is one of the largest ever to look at the link between passive smoking - inhaling other people's smoke - and lung cancer, and had been eagerly awaited by medical experts and campaigning groups. Yet the scientists have found that there was no statistical evidence that passive smoking caused lung cancer.
The research compared 650 lung cancer patients with 1,542 healthy people. It looked at people who were married to smokers, worked with smokers, both worked and were married to smokers, and those who grew up with smokers. The results are consistent with there being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer.
The summary, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, also states: "There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood." A spokesman for Action on Smoking and Health said the findings "seem rather surprising given the evidence from other major reviews on the subject which have shown a clear association between passive smoking and a number of diseases."
Dr Chris Proctor, head of science for BAT Industries, the tobacco group, said the findings had to be taken seriously. "If this study cannot find any statistically valid risk you have to ask if there can be any risk at all. "It confirms what we and many other scientists have long believed, that while smoking in public may be annoying to some non-smokers, the science does not show that being around a smoker is a lung-cancer risk."
followed by this, published the other day
Second-hand Smoke Study Sparks Controversy
By Mike Wendling CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
May 16, 2003
London (CNSNews.com) - A study about to be published in this week's British Medical Journal indicates that second-hand smoke doesn't increase the risk of heart disease or lung cancer, but the publication and the study's authors have come under attack by anti-smoking groups.
Two American researchers analyzed data from an American Cancer Society survey that followed more than 118,000 Californians from 1960 until 1998.
James E. Enstrom, of the University of California at Los Angeles and Geoffrey C. Kabat of the State University of New York at Stony Brook concluded that "the results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke (second-hand smoke) and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect."
"The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed," the researchers wrote.
The study was roundly condemned by anti-smoking groups including the American Cancer Society and even by the British Medical Journal's parent organization, the British Medical Association. They said the researchers received money from the tobacco industry, a statement that was confirmed by the journal Friday.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) pointed out what it called several flaws in the research. The researchers based their study on a small subset of the original data, the ACS said, and because of the greater prevalence of smokers in the 60s and 70s, "virtually everyone was exposed to environmental tobacco smoke."
Smoking opponents also pointed out in the original study, although the health of the subjects were monitored until 1998, no information on smoking habits was collected after 1972.
"We are appalled that the tobacco industry has succeeded in giving visibility to a study with so many problems," Michael J. Thun, ACS national vice president of epidemiology and surveillance research, said in a statement.
"The American Cancer Society welcomes thoughtful, independent peer review of our data. But this study is neither reliable nor independent," Thun said.
Other studies have indicated that inhaling second-hand smoke on a regular basis increases the risk of heart disease by about 30 percent. But as the researchers pointed out in their BMJ article, exposure to second-hand smoke is difficult to measure and such studies necessarily rely on self-reported data that may or may not be accurate.
Figures are skewed, researchers said, by former smokers who are wrongly classified.
"The relation between tobacco-related diseases and environmental tobacco smoke may be influenced by misclassification of some smokers as never smokers," the researchers wrote.
However, several British groups agreed with the ACS assessment of the study. The British Medical Association said that 1,000 people die every year in the U.K. as a result of passive smoking.
"There is overwhelming evidence, built up over decades, that passive smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease, as well as triggering asthma attacks," said Vivienne Nathanson, BMA's head of science and ethics. "In children, passive smoking increases the risk of pneumonia, bronchitis, and reduces lung growth, as well as both causing and worsening asthma."
A spokesman for Action on Smoking and Health said: "We are utterly surprised as to why the BMJ has published this. It's nothing but a lobbying tool."
"This is just one study," the spokesman said. "It will do nothing to change the massive body of evidence that has built up over the years."
The journal stood by its decision to publish research but editors turned down interview requests Friday. A spokeswoman said decisions on publication were made only after "careful consideration and peer review."
The study, which was available online and will be published in the BMJ on Saturday, was partially funded by money from the tobacco industry, the spokeswoman said, but could not provide further details.
Groups campaigning against further tobacco regulations in Britain welcomed the research. Smokers' lobby group FOREST said the "jury is still out" on the effects of second-hand smoke.
"This is typical of the anti-smoking lobby's bullying tactics," said FOREST director Simon Clark. "They attack not just the authors but the messenger ... the BMJ is one of the most respected journals in the world."
Attacks on the study in the U.K. have been led by proponents of a total ban on smoking in public places like pubs, clubs and restaurants, a position that Clark said was undermined by the study.
"People who want to ban smoking in public places use passive smoking as their number one argument," he said. "That's why this study is so significant."
I will admit it may be irritating but as said in the past, there is no link to disease.
Or, what seems to be the case here, are too stupid to find a place that is smoke-free. 