Say Anything Blog

I saw this headline and was floored.  A smoking ban causing a dramatic decline in heart disease in just three years?  Was second hand smoke really that responsible for heart disease?  I clicked through and read paragraph after paragraph quoting data which suggested that this was true, along with quotes from nanny-staters and big government types slapping themselves on the back for a job well done.

But then I got to the very last paragraph of the article, which made these revelations:

The study assumed declines in the amount of secondhand smoke in Pueblo buildings after the ban, but did not try to measure that. The researchers also did not sort out which heart attack patients were smokers and which were not, so it’s unclear how much of the decline can be attributed to reduced secondhand smoke.

So we have no idea if the people of Pueblo are being exposed to more or less second smoke, or the same amount as before.  We also don’t know whether or not the people who were still diagnosed with heart disease were around second hand smoke (or were smokers themselves).

Which would seem to make this study all but worthless, no?

And then there’s the question of whether or not heart disease rates are any of the government’s business.  I mean, we could probably stop all car accident fatalities by banning cars.  We could probably bring heart disease (and a myriad of other health problems) down if we put the government in charge of all of our diets and exercise and health habits.  But is that really what we want?

I think the goal of public health initiatives should be to inform the public of health risks and no more.  If the public knows that smoking is bad for them, if they know that it causes problems like heart disease, and they continue to smoke or choose to be around smoking anyway what business is that of the government’s?

We are, after all, still a free country aren’t we?