Friday, October 16, 2009

New York Times Article About Institute of Medicine Report

The link is here. I am quoted as pointing out that the report concludes that anyone exposed briefly to secondhand smoke could suffer a heart attack, while the truth is that this risk only is significant for people with severe pre-existing heart disease. I also challenge the validity of the report's conclusion on the effect of smoking bans, given that the report itself argues that it has no confidence in even estimating the magnitude of effect (and also that the individual studies were severely flawed and the committee failed to review data which showed no effect of smoking bans on heart attacks in three different countries).

No comments: