Re: Tobacco, Radiation, & Government Regulation

[epirad@mchsi.com]

Jerry,



I would be interested in hearing what evidence you 

weighed to make your determination that environmental 

tobacco smoke (ETS) does not cause lung cancer?  Did you 

also perform a risk evaluation concerning whether or not 

ETS may be responsible for other adverse health outcomes 

other than lung cancer?



Bill Field 

College of Public Health

University of Iowa

mailto:bill-fild@uiowa.edu

>     In following the "Radon Field Day" string, I think this discussion is very 

> appropriate for  radsafe. In years past I had occasion to review the "evidence" 

> on harmful effects of second-hand smoke and found it to be about as convincing 

> as that for harmful effects of low-dose radiation. While there is little doubt 

> that high doses of tobacco smoke  received from primary smoking is  dangerous, 

> as is the case with high doses of radiation, the results of studies on second 

> hand smoke appear to have been contrived to achieve the desired result - in this 

> case to restrict the use of tobacco (maybe that's also the case with radiation). 

> This sort of thing gives the government  a license to "control" the hazard and 

> to tax it as a relatively easy source of revenue.

>     Since second-hand smoke is irritating and offensive to many people 

> (including me), the public readily accepts implementation of these controls and 

> taxes since to many people, there is little distinction between what is harmful > and what is unpleasant. Similarly, the idea of being exposed to radiation 

> (regardless of dose level) conjures visions of Hiroshima and Chernobyl to a 

> large segment of the public. Tobacco smoke and low-dose radiation are both easy 

> targets for government regulation. Whether or not the public receives any real 

> benefit from such government controls is another question.

> 

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