Smoking ban 'is based on bad science'
By Sam Coates

The Government takes more notice of scare stories than of evidence, a Lords committee has said


THE ban on smoking in pubs was an over-reaction to the threat posed by passive smoking and symptomatic of MPs’ failure to understand the concept of risk, a House of Lords committee has said.
The Lords Economic Affairs Committee accused the Government of kneejerk reactions to scare stories about health, saying it did not weigh the risks. Ministers placed insufficient weight on available scientific evidence and relied instead on “unsubstantiated reports” when formulating policy.



The committee disputed a principle underlying the work of the Health and Safety Executive: that society has a greater aversion to an accident killing ten people than to ten accidents killing one person each, and that safety spending should be allocated accordingly.

The committee cited the smoking ban as an example of a policy based on bad science, it having been sold to the public as necessary because of the apparent dangers of passive smoking.

Committee members questioned whether the Government had a scientific basis for the claim after Caroline Flint, the Health Minister, told the committee: “In relation to deaths from smoking and second-hand smoke, the most serious aspect is smoking in the home. Ninety-five per cent of deaths are related to smoking in the home.”

The committee heard that the “main risk” over passive smoking concerned children who are exposed to cigarette smoke in the home — which the Bill was not designed to address. The report said: “It may be that the unstated objective of policy is to encourage a reduction in active smoking by indirect means. This may well be a desirable policy objective, but if it is the objective it should have been clearly stated.”

The committee also criticised the Government for spending less on road safety than rail safety, when there are far higher number of deaths proportionately on the roads.

Until 2003, the Department for Transport spent three times as much preventing accidents on the railways than on the roads, which the committee called a “potentially serious misallocation of resources”. This gap has subsequently narrowed.

This difference was based on a theory, contained in the Health and Safety Executive’s Principles and Guidance document that: “. . . society has a greater aversion to an accident killing ten people than to ten accidents killing one person each.” The Lords said that three surveys of of public opinion suggested otherwise.

The committee heard how risk-aversion is endemic in the public sector. While the private sector is motivated by profit, there are greater incentives for civil servants to avoid getting things wrong rather than taking reasonable risks.

The inquiry was set up after the Prime Minister said in 2005: “We are in danger of having a disproportionate attitude to the risks we should expect to run as a normal part of life”, adding that this was putting pressure on policymakers “to act to eliminate risk in a way that is out of all proportion to the potential damage”.

The report challenged the idea that Britain is developing compensation culture. While evidence from the Medical Protection Society indicates that the value of claims in the area of clinical negligence has risen, the absolute number has fallen from 10,890 in 2000/01 to 7,196 in 2004/05.

This mirrors a 5 per cent fall in accident compensation claims over five years and evidence from the Better Regulation Task Force which indicates that UK spending on compensation claims is among the lowest in Europe and significantly lower than that in the United States.

Banned in Ireland.
Banned in Scotland.
And it's working.

What ****** me of the most is why I have to wait another year before I can go into a smoke free pub in England.

Can you link to the source of the information rather than cutting and pasting :)

More than 50 studies of passive smoking and lung cancer risk in never smokers have been published over the past 25 years. Most show an increased risk, especially among people with a high level of exposure. Studies of non-smokers exposed to environmental tobacco smoke at work show an increased risk of lung cancer in the order of 16 to 19 per cent.

A major European study of non-smokers’ exposure to Envoronmental Tobacco Smoke also found a small increased risk of lung cancer in non-smokers who work in a smoky environment or live with a spouse who smokes. The study by Boffetta et al was conducted in 12 centres from seven European countries. A total of 650 patients with lung cancer and 1542 control subjects up to 74 years of age were asked about their exposure to ETS during childhood, adulthood, at home, in the workplace, in vehicles and in public places. The study found that exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer: odds ratio (OR) for ever exposure = 0.78 (95% confidence interval: 0.64 - 0.96). The OR for exposure to spousal ETS was 1.16 (95% CI: 0.93 - 1.44). No clear dose response relationship could be demonstrated for cumulative spousal ETS exposure. The OR for workplace exposure was 1.17 (95% CI: 0.94 - 1.45) with possible evidence of increasing risk of duration of exposure. Although the increased risk of lung cancer is small, the findings are within the range of a 10-30% increase in risk found in other major studies of lung cancer and ETS exposure.

Evidence of a link between passive smoking and heart disease began to be established in the mid 1980’s. The first qualitative reviews were included in the Report of the US Surgeon General, 1986 and the report of the US National Research Council, 1986. Both reviews concluded that an association between ETS and coronary heart disease (CHD) was biologically plausible but as of yet unproven. Unlike the risk for lung cancer, where the risk is roughly in proportion to smoke exposure, passive smokers’ risk of heart disease may be as much as half that of someone smoking 20 cigarettes a day even though they only inhale about 1% of the smoke.

Whilst the relative health risks from passive smoking are small in comparison with those from active smoking, because the diseases are common, the overall health impact is large. The British Medical Association has conservatively estimated that secondhand smoke causes at least 1,000 deaths a year in the UK. However, the true figure is likely to be much higher. Professor Konrad Jamrozik of Imperial College London estimates that domestic exposure to secondhand smoke causes at least 3,600 deaths annually from lung cancer, heart disease and stroke combined, while exposure at work leads to approximately 700 deaths from these causes. Jamrozik also estimates 49 deaths – or about 1 a week – from exposure at work in the hospitality trades. In the population aged 65 or older, passive smoking is estimated to account for 16,900 deaths annually. 9,700 are due to stroke, where current evidence of health effects is weakest.

I think we should also consider the beneficial effects the ban will have on helping people give up smoking, how many people do you know who say they find it hardest not to smoke when socialising (ie down the pub)?

I know smokers (some of them now former smokers) from Canada & New York where they have such a ban and they’ve all said that not being able to smoke in bars not only makes it harder for them to have a good time, because they have to keep on nipping outside to get their fix, and thus gives them yet another reason to quit. The lack of smokers in bars also makes it easier to resist the temptation to spark up when they’re in their and their will power has been weakened by a few beers.

Who cares about statistics? I think this is one case where the end results justify the means.

I wanna be able to go to a restaurant and have a meal without breathing in someone else's smoke. Ban it!

Did anyone see Look Leeds last night with their special report how people at a Bradford hostpital have to go out to the roadside to have a fag cos they won't let em smoke inside the hospital grounds? Brilliant!

Well done Bradford hospital!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: