A landmark study released last week by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) confirms what we’ve known for years – that secondhand smoke exposure causes heart attacks and smoke-free laws reduce heart attacks. The study couldn’t be clearer – adopting strong smoke-free laws provide immediate health improvements. The report truly leaves us no more excuses for leaving workers behind. All workers deserve protection – EVEN those in bars and casinos.
In our region, we’ve seen our elected leaders drag their feet and wring their hands at the task of passing a comprehensive law that protects those who need it most. Politics, not public health, has been the guiding light in St. Louis. Statements such as “it’s what we can get passed” or “it’s better than nothing” have been used to describe recent activity. Examples from around the country have shown it’s very difficult to ‘go back and fix’ a watered down ordinance once it has been passed. Partial measures work for politicians but not for health, communities or businesses. It makes no sense to recognize the serious health impact caused by secondhand smoke but then fail to protect or delay protecting the most exposed group of workers. In essence, we’re telling some workers they warrant legislative protection while telling others they’re not worth it.
Increasingly, the public’s expectations are for 100% smoke-free public places. In fact, a 2008 poll showed 61% of St. Louisans wanted a smoke-free law that included bars, restaurants and casinos. And as we’ve heard in recent months, people have been asking for a comprehensive law via testimonies, letters, emails and phone calls to our elected leaders. Instead constituents’ requests have been met with half measures filled with delays and exemptions.
This Friday, the St. Louis City Board of Aldermen will once again debate the issue. Now is the time for action. Please continue to make your voice heard for a comprehensive measure. Speak up for those who can’t. Fight for smoke-free air. Exercise your democratic right to make your leaders represent YOU. After all the motto of Missouri is, “the will of the people shall reign supreme.”
While there is much work to do, we continue to look forward to the day when our entire region is smoke-free. Now is the time to start making positive changes in our communities. As the IOM report confirms, eliminating smoking indoors is an effective, cost-free way to improve our community’s health in a tangible and measurable way. There are no excuses.
Only 24.5 percent of City residents favor a ban on smoking in bars and cocktail lounges. Landmark study? No, it’s garbage. It was blasted in the Chicago Sun-Times today:
The largest study of this issue, which used nationwide data instead of looking at cherry-picked communities, concluded that smoking bans in the U.S. “are not associated with statistically significant short-term declines in mortality or hospital admissions for myocardial infarction.” It also found that “large short-term increases in myocardial infarction incidence following a workplace ban are as common as the large decreases reported in the published literature.”
That study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in March, suggests that publication bias — the tendency to report positive findings and ignore negative ones — explains the “consistent” results highlighted by the institute’s committee. But even though the panelists say they tried to compensate for publication bias by looking for relevant data that did not appear in medical journals, they ignored the national bureau’s paper, along with analyses that found no declines in heart attacks following smoking bans in California, Florida, New York, Oregon, England, Wales and Scotland.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1836271,CST-EDT-sullum21.article#
Um, Jacob Sullum wrote that EDITORIAL in the Sun Times and is is one of the most vociferous defenders of the tobacco industry in print today…
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jacob_Sullum
Dr. Michael Siegel has a lot to say about the report today:
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/
The plain fact is,,, if bans cut heart attacks that much,, it would have been noticed by 1993, when los angles banned smoking.
about half of all ER admissions are due to heart attacks. bans would have cut hospital revenue so much, if it were true, that even the hospital accountants and billing staff would have reported a significant decline in revenue decades before all this BS appeared.
ER workers sitting around with nothing much to do, would have noticed too.
If it’s legal to serve alcoholic beverages, and serve unhealthy food, it should be legal to let smokers smoke too. IF consumers are allowed to make the choice to drink and eat unhealthy, they should also be allowed to make the choice to smoke or be exposed to smoke too.