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PACT Deaths
The Pennsylvania Alliance to Control Tobacco reports that "nearly 1,800 nonsmoking Pennsylvania casino employees will die from lung cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses caused by secondhand smoke" during the next 40 years. Or is it 300? The latter figure is cited in a press release dated October 18, while the former is from a statement (PDF) issued three days before that. At this rate, the 40-year death toll should be down to less than a quarter of a person by now, all without the need for a government-imposed smoking ban.
[Thanks to Bill Hannegan for the tip.]
Abdul|10.31.07 @ 1:22PM|#
So, if smoking is banned in the casinos, will the employees live
forever?
How do I get me one of them jobs?
|10.31.07 @ 1:24PM|#
Casino employees are little Eichmanns anyway. Good
riddance.
(Sorry, but the GF lost a crapload of money at the boat last night.
Not to worry, I punished her suitably)
Ska|10.31.07 @ 1:35PM|#
Because, you know, Pennsylvanians are otherwise immune to lung cancer and heart disease. 2nd hand smoke must be the culprit.
dbust1|10.31.07 @ 1:35PM|#
I can only assume that these facts come on the heels of the recent announcements about a new casino in Pittsburgh. How ironic that a city that once had the dirtiest air in the nation (black skies at noon) should be concerned with the "dangers" of second hand smoke.
|10.31.07 @ 1:53PM|#
LOL, JBinMo. I'm sure the employees care as much as the Londoner I saw in Sainsbury's the other week buying several cartons of cigarettes boldly emblazoned "Smoking Kills."
Paul|10.31.07 @ 2:06PM|#
Oh hey, you know those people that go around with real human lungs and show you a smoker's lung, then compare it to the non-smoker's lung? The non-smoker's lung was presumably exposed to a lifetime of second-hand smoke, so why doesn't it look at least half as bad?
|10.31.07 @ 2:07PM|#
Does anyone who writes for this blog or who posts here believe in anything but constant negativity?!
|10.31.07 @ 2:07PM|#
Give them a break, Jacob. If you were just pulling numbers out
of your ass for a living, you'd have a hard time keeping your story
straight too.
;-)
New World Dan|10.31.07 @ 2:09PM|#
While I oppose smoking bans on principle, I gotta admit that it's a hell of a lot nicer going to the bars now that MN has the statewide smoking ban in place.
Ska|10.31.07 @ 2:14PM|#
The Ridler | October 31, 2007, 2:07pm | #
Does anyone who writes for this blog or who posts here believe in
anything but constant negativity?!
Only when I'm high or getting head. Or both.
|10.31.07 @ 2:16PM|#
1,800 nonsmoking Pennsylvania casino employees will die from
lung cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses
Am I the only one who has never met a non-smoker with
emphesyma?
Paul|10.31.07 @ 2:24PM|#
While I oppose smoking bans on principle, I gotta admit that
it's a hell of a lot nicer going to the bars now that MN has the
statewide smoking ban in place.
While I oppose limits to the free speech, It sure has been a hell
of a lot nicer now that I don't have to hear shit I disagree
with.
Paul|10.31.07 @ 2:26PM|#
Am I the only one who has never met a non-smoker with
emphesyma
You are not, sir. I too have never met a non-smoker with emphysema.
Or a non-smoker with one of those voice box thingies and a hole in
their throat from...second hand smoke. I almost doubled over in
laughter when I wrote that, but it's true.
Juanita|10.31.07 @ 2:32PM|#
Your right to smoke ends where my personal air begins, and secondhand smoke kills children. Why do you people hate children?
|10.31.07 @ 2:36PM|#
I like this quote from the press release
""Twenty times OSHA's Significant Risk Level will eventually kill
44 casino workers every year. This is comparable to the total
number of deaths from coal mine disasters in 2006 - and we all
appreciate that coal mining can be a dangerous job," Repace said.
"Working in a casino should be a safe way to make a living - except
that secondhand smoke makes it a hazardous occupation.""
So the coal miners are just SOL in his opinion?
antagonist|10.31.07 @ 2:38PM|#
Juaniat,
I don't hate children. i think they taste good. Especially when
smoked.
Ryan|10.31.07 @ 2:54PM|#
While I oppose limits to the free speech, It sure has been a
hell of a lot nicer now that I don't have to hear shit I disagree
with.
What, is McCain-Feingold stricter where you live? I thought free
speech was alive and well until 60 days prior to an election.
Paul|10.31.07 @ 3:00PM|#
I thought free speech was alive and well until 60 days prior
to an election.
I'm assuming you're being ironic here. Because if you are, it's
golden.
BTW: besides the chattering classes, who pays attention to
elections more than 60 days prior to?
VM|10.31.07 @ 3:02PM|#
Juanita | October 31, 2007, 2:32pm | #
Your right to smoke ends where my personal air begins, and secondhand smoke kills children. Why do you people hate children?
cuz they grow up into big, card-carrying Juanitas!
hugs and kisses,
Evelyn
|10.31.07 @ 3:02PM|#
Why do you people hate children?
Juanita, It's because they won't get real jobs, and I'm not allowed
to have sex with them.
R C Dean|10.31.07 @ 3:26PM|#
I thought free speech was alive and well until 60 days prior
to an election.
Don't forget, that's sixty days prior to both the primary and the
general.
In a Presidential election, that essentially means no free speech
during the preceding calendar year.
|10.31.07 @ 4:00PM|#
J sub, a NAMBLA membership may be in your future.
I just ate. Therefore I'm terrified to click on that link.
|10.31.07 @ 4:04PM|#
Ok I screwed up my courage, threw a disgust filter in, here goes
...
Whew! It's a Wiki article, not a site for those perverts. Paul,
your consideration for others is noted and appreciated.
Rhywun|10.31.07 @ 4:25PM|#
While I oppose limits to the free speech, It sure has been a
hell of a lot nicer now that I don't have to hear shit I disagree
with.
While I oppose limits to property rights, it sure has been a hell
of a lot nicer now that I don't have to live next door to
those--
|10.31.07 @ 4:28PM|#
Repace is an internationally renowned secondhand smoke
"scientist"? He is a fucking parasite. As for his claim that smoke
is 20 times the OSHA, where did that come from? Oh yeah, his
ass.
OSHA has measured ETS and results can be seen here
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html.
Lets try 25,000 safer than OSHA PELs.
|10.31.07 @ 7:05PM|#
People please think clearly about this. How did Repace and crew
carry a toaster size machine, about the size of a bomb, past casino
security and then carry it around for hours taking measurements,
not gambling, and escape the notice of casino security cameras?
Pennsylvania casino officials aren't buying it. They call their
camera surveillance systems "comprehensive" and don't believe
Repace could have pulled off these tests.
Pennsylvania antismoking activist Bill Godshall claims he took
Repace aside and told him the 1771 figure was too high to be
plausible. Godshall claims Repace recalculated, found he had made
an error, and thus had new numbers for PACT to push at the
Pennsylvania Senate and a new press release.
LightningBoy|10.31.07 @ 7:35PM|#
Juanita; "Your right to smoke ends where my personal air begins,
and secondhand smoke kills children. Why do you people hate
children?"
That crap goes both ways.
Your "personal air" (you know,...that air with your name on each
molecule) stops at the front door of my restaurant business. Once
inside, your breathing MY air, and I prefer it with the scent of
stale Marlboro and fresh brewed coffee. Your personal preference
for a smoke free environment is irrelevant if you make a bad
decision for yourself and enter private property where smoking is
permitted.
Try exercising your brain by making a wise choice for yourself, and
don't go there. See it's easy, and no one who doesn't specifically
want to be, is ever hurt.
It's called CHOICE, try thinking for yourself instead of relying on
the government to do it for you.
|10.31.07 @ 8:13PM|#
LightningBoy, I'm sure that the staff, especially ones who develop respiratory problems really enjoy your second hand crap.
|11.1.07 @ 1:06AM|#
If Repace believed his own tripe, it would be hard to escape
being noticed with his respirator suit.
So much for the deadly effects, he is soo scared, he can't resist
visiting every venue a wisp of second hand smoke can be
found.
I really hope he is working hard to protect his own employees from
the "deadly effects".
One also has to wonder if his employees have been properly informed
and if they actually made a conscious decision to work in such a
hazardous environment without proper safety gear. Repace of all
people should know what he subjects his workers to. Should the
labor board be advised and hopefully an investigation launched?
|11.1.07 @ 1:38AM|#
Pete--
I'm pretty certain that LightningBoy's staff are indentured
servants, shanghaied somewhere on the high seas and forced to work
there. Also pretty certain that if they'd never worked there they'd
none of them have ever caught so much as a cold. In fact, they'd
never have caught chicken pox or measles in the 2nd and 4th grade
since exposure to secondhand smoke is retroactive. Repace and his
team snuck into the time machine and measured the air, proving that
smoke from the 20th century traveled back in time and caused
Biblical plagues. Banzhaf is representing Job in his lawsuit
against Phillip Morris.
|11.1.07 @ 1:55AM|#
I do so love to hear the parroted prose spewing from those who
believe mimicking others makes them seem intelligent.
Has anyone heard this little tune before?
"Your right to smoke ends where my personal air begins, and
secondhand smoke kills children."
First unless you hold tittle to it, you have no claim on the air or
do you have any legal right to tell others what they may or may not
do with their own bodies, For reference see Roe VS Wade. You don't
like the smoke in the bars? Get off your ass and leave, they don't
make a lot selling prune juice anyway.
Second; primary smoking takes 30 years for the effects to be seen
in statistics among smokers who are usually adults by that
time.
If second hand smoke is now believed to be more deadly than
smoking, perhaps you should consider starting smoking to protect
yourself, but only if you are submissive to the fears promoted by
the lunatics of science.
Second hand smoke kills no one, just ask Sir Richard Doll. Oh Yea,
he avoided smoking and died anyway, so much for benefits.
Statistics promote virtual fears by the most crude methods of so
called "science" we know. Epidemiology was meant to find direction
never could it create a scientific fact Because if it ever did we
could guarantee that fact was a methodological error. The
epidemiology process has to; by statistical probability produce
just as many positives as negative findings. The lack of negative
findings should indicate to anyone with a shred of intelligence and
the fortitude to investigate the research, a substantial level of
deception is afoot. Ecological Fallacy absolutely destroys the
insignificant proof they tell us is irrefutable[look it up]. We are
being taken to the cleaners by a hail of ad agency spin, promoting;
cessation devices, Insurance premiums and any other product which
will increase sales and profits through a joint effort.
What is really scary in all this is the promotion of Public Health
as the reinvention of Eugenics is the big winner in the paternalist
marketplace, where fear rules all intelligence.
Untermensch|11.1.07 @ 8:12AM|#
Am I the only one who had trouble parsing Kevin's incoherent ramblings and punctuation to figure out what in the world he was trying to say (or not figure it out, in my case)?
|11.2.07 @ 11:59PM|#
You know, when you go away for a few days, it's really striking how shallow some of the commentary on this site is.
|11.4.07 @ 8:12PM|#
"Am I the only one who had trouble parsing Kevin's incoherent
ramblings and punctuation to figure out what in the world he was
trying to say (or not figure it out, in my case)?"
I totally agree. You apparently are not able to understand and you
are by the look of it; alone.
Try the narration and lower your stress level;
[http://www.regent.edu/acad/schedu/uselesseaters/]
Although Public Health supports targeting individuals, we all know
it to be a reprehensible act. Smoking and obesity are obvious
visual characteristics, Hitler started there first as well. The
only non normal individuals are those who promote hatred in
targeting innocent individuals. It is not a careless rant calling
Public Health authorities Fascists, it is now an entirely valid
observation, which needs to be exposed, before they do any more
damage.
|11.8.07 @ 4:40AM|#
Mussolini defined fascism as an industrial socialism. Few today
ever considered who are the largest promoters of political
correctness or the large scale health care promotions, targeting
individuals directly that smoke or are overweight.
For the same reason I would not trust a tobacco company to provide
health reliant information Neither should I be forced to rely on
other conflicted industries for the information which forms the
basis of my choices.
At the moment the Tobacco industries from a high road perspective,
are dispensing much more accurate and informative advice to the
public than the total of the major medical institutions, which in
retrospect is an entirely unsettling state of affairs. Scientific
research should never be utilized directly to play an advocacy
role, its very credibility is sustained in absolute unbiased non
participation. Much as we should be able trust the news media
groups to report the news as opposed to creating it. Those who do
participate abandon the role of scientist to become politicians. A
role which they can never reverse, at least not within the confines
of credibility. A Government which is dedicated to protect its
population from imposing harm on themselves, is the opposite of one
which respects their rights of autonomy.
Practitioners who utilize scientific information and take an active
role in treating patients or protecting the public from
environmental concerns can no longer be confident the information
at their disposal is sound or scientific which places us all at
increased risk.
At the World Health Organization the process of HIA health
intervention promotes exactly those twisted demands of political
science in place of what is required. A process which teaches how
to connect all human activity to health effects.
The call to stakeholder partners, who will profit from a campaign
of fear, is unconscionable and well below what we expect from
Health care professionals. The promotions of Smoking alternatives,
Charity Foundations and Big Pharma are obvious as are the
deliberate actions obscuring the secondary supporting benefactors
of fear promotions such as Insurance companies, Banks, Investment
houses and Government taxation which causes large poverty increases
and invokes directly an entirely preventable higher health risk to
society, by its secondary effects such as smoking and
obesity.
Medicine and science is loosing credibility in an age of
information where too much is laid bare for all to see. It is
becoming common knowledge, little we hear from these so called
unbiased sources, can be trusted, leaving us what to form our
opinions?
Back to the old superstitions and alternate sources of snake oils
and potions which are rebounding as a direct result of that loss of
faith.
How much early mortality will result from medical grandstanding and
paternalist politicians dispensing medical advice to their
populace? Populations consisting entirely of protected children?
Children in turn controlled by the fear death, as opposed to
accepting its inevitability.
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