Second-Hand Smoke Proven Harmless -- Again

EIB/RUSH: James Delingpole writing in I don't know what.  I did not print out.  But I've heard the name Delingpole, and I know he's got credibility.  The bottom line is that passive smoking, i.e., for those of you in Rio Linda, secondhand smoke, does not give you lung cancer. 

Now, this is something that I, El Rushbo, have known instinctively my whole life.  Ever since the anti-smoking zealots got geared up, they have tried to pass off this silly idea that secondhand smoke can cause cancer as well, and it's always been laughable. The tiniest bit of common sense will tell you it couldn't.  But there were enough people scared about it, that believed it, but there's a new report publicized by -- are you ready? -- the American Cancer Institute.  (gasping)  Which will come as no surprise to anyone with a shred of integrity, decency, or intelligence, who's looked into the origins of the environmental tobacco smoke crisis. 

"It was a decade ago that the British Medical Journal, published the results of a massive, long-term survey into the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke."  Do you remember we had that survey and it got buried?  We publicized it.  UN, any number, there was no danger whatsoever attached to secondhand smoke.  Might not like it, might make you uncomfortable.  It was not and did not and could not make you sick.  And it got buried. 

"Between 1959 and 1989 two American researchers named James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat surveyed no few than 118,094 Californians. Fierce anti-smoking campaigners themselves, they began the research because they wanted to prove once and for all what a pernicious, socially damaging habit smoking was. Their research was initiated by the American Cancer Society and supported by the anti-smoking Tobacco Related Disease Research Program.

"At least it was at first. But then something rather embarrassing happened. Much to their surprise, Kabat and Enstrom discovered that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (i.e. passive smoking), no matter how intense or prolonged, creates no significantly increased risk of heart disease or lung cancer."

Now, again, it's important to remember that the two guys who started this research were fervent anti-smoking zealots, and they were out to prove that secondhand smoke killed.  It didn't take 'em long to find out that not only did it not kill anybody, it didn't matter.  It didn't make anybody sick.  It didn't matter.  And then similar conclusions were reached by the World Health Organization, which concluded in 1998 after a seven-year study that the correlation between secondhand smoking and lung cancer was not statistically significant. 

That got buried, but we have always kept it available.  We can bring it back to life any time we want at RushLimbaugh.com.  So now we've got three different studies proving that there is no cancer risk, no heart disease risk to secondhand smoke.  Now, you might be saying, "So what, Rush? If people still don't like it, what, are you grassroots to bring back smoking in public?"  No, no. I'm not that unrealistic. 

Again, the lesson here is that you were lied to by a bunch of leftist busybodies. You were lied to in order to be forced to live your life the way they wanted you to.  You were being denied freedom.  You were being lied to and manipulated into believing something that wasn't true so as to impact the way you and everybody else lives, and you were converted into a member of the army of the anti-smoking who would go out and harass anybody else who smoked.  You were lied to, to further the lies of a bunch of zealots. 

That's the important point here, and who are these people?  They're leftists.  I don't care whether you're Phil Robertson or whoever. They will try, they will do whatever, they will lie to you. But their attempt, their effort is to control the way you live and what you think.  Now there's medical news today. I kid you not.  "Apple-a-Day as Effective as Statins" for whatever statins do.  What are statins for, cholesterol? Yeah, an apple.  Medical research.

I got the news. It's a news story.  An apple a day is far more effective than whatever prescription medicine you're taking.  But apples don't come with prescriptions and doctors can't be paid to tell you to eat one.  Well, I guess they could.  But who's gonna do it?  And you can't eat apples 'cause Meryl Streep said they're putting Alar on 'em, which is killing our kids. It was a big story on 60 Minutes. 

This stuff, I don't know, it's a bugaboo with me, folks. Because the left is made up of busybodies, or worse. Do you realize how many people are going through life believing things that aren't true, and it's affecting their enjoyment of life? It's affecting the way they raise their kids. It's affecting the way they live themselves.  It's so unnecessary.  That's what bugs me about it. 

Gotta take a break.  Well, that's for another day. 

I was gonna talk about cigars and cigar smoking, but I'm not gonna make this personal.

Related:

• UK Telegraph: Passive Smoking - Another Of The Nanny State's Big Lies
• RushLimbaugh.com: EIB Excerpt: Passive Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer. UK Telegraph 03.08.1998
• RushLimbaugh.com: In Flip, World Health Organization Claims Secondhand Smoke Kills - 11.29.12

11 Health Myths That May Surprise You

Myths, half-truths and wives’ tales persist in medicine. Sometimes doctors and nurses believe things that aren’t true or at least are unproven. That’s the focus of a new book, “Don't Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health”
by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll and Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman

Two doctors tackle medical myths.

Dr. Carroll and Dr. Vreeman, both from the Indiana University School of Medicine, have written a lot about medical myths and misunderstandings. In December 2007, the pair published an article in the British Medical Journal about seven medical myths even doctors believe. A year later, they identified six medical myths for the holiday season.

Now, “Don’t Swallow Your Gum” offers a fun collection of numerous medical myths that are likely familiar to most of us. The book is organized to focus on various types of myths, including myths about your body (you should poop at least once a day), myths about disease and illness (cold weather makes you sick), myths about sex and pregnancy (twins skip a generation) and myths about what we eat and drink (gum stays in your stomach for seven years.)

It’s a fun read, and chances are you will stumble across several medical myths you’ve always believed. Here are a few medical myths that may surprise you:

1. Cold weather makes you sick. In studies of cold transmission, people who are chilled are no more likely to get sick than those who were not. It may be that cold weather keeps people indoors, where germs are more likely to catch up with you.

2. Green mucus indicates a sinus infection. The importance of mucus color is a medical myth even doctors believe, the authors say. “There is no evidence…that antibiotics shorten the duration of an illness when green snot is a symptom,” they write.

3. You lose most of your body heat through your head. There is nothing special about the head and heat loss. You will lose heat through any uncovered body part.

4. Milk makes you phlegmy. In a study of 330 patients, nearly two out of three believed milk increases phlegm production. But it’s not true. In one experiment, volunteers were infected with the cold virus, and some of them drank a lot of milk as well. The weight of the nasal secretions did not increase in those who drank more milk, nor was it associated with cough or congestion.

5. Cracking your knuckles will cause arthritis. Knuckle-crackers are no more likely to have arthritis than those who don’t make annoying popping sounds with their fingers.

6. Birth control pills don’t work as well with antibiotics. A review of the literature concluded that common antibiotics don’t affect birth control pills. “It is much more important to take your birth control pill every day at the same time than to spend time worrying about your antibiotics,” the authors write.

7. Singles have better sex lives than married people. You may think your bachelor friends are having all the fun, but single people also go through a lot of dry spells when they aren’t dating anyone. The result — married people typically have more sex in a given year than single people. In one survey, 43 percent of married men reported having sex two to three times per week, compared to only 26 percent of single men. The numbers were slightly lower but similar for women. Married people are also more likely to have orgasms and give and receive oral sex.

8. Sugar makes kids hyper. Numerous studies show sugar doesn’t affect behavior, but most parents don’t believe this. In one study, parents were told their kids had sugar and they were more likely to report problem behavior — but in reality, the kids had consumed a sugar-free drink.

9. You should poop at least once a day. A half-truth, say the authors. Regular bowel movements prevent discomfort and constipation, but a perfectly healthy person may not move their bowels every day. Constipation is defined as having fewer than three stools per week.

10. It’s okay to double dip in the chip dip. In one study, scientists took a bite of cracker and then dipped it into salsa, cheese dip, chocolate syrup and water. They did the same test with a fresh, unbitten cracker. Then they measured bacteria in the dips and the volunteers’ mouths. On average, three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the dip. And each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. Salsa picked up the most germs from double dipping.

11. Food quickly picked up from the floor is safe to eat. Scientists have put the commonly-cited five-second rule to the test. They found that food that comes into contact with a tile or wood floor does pick up large amounts of bacteria. Food doesn’t pick up many germs when it hits carpet, but it does pick up carpet fuzz.

By TARA PARKER-POPE – On Health

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth