by smallpoxgirl » Thu 23 Mar 2006, 12:36:11
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'T')he epidemiological evidence seems slim to non-existent.
Correlation is how epidemiology works. You grab all the charts from all the SIDS cases and you go back and look at how many came from households where the parents smoked and how many came from households where the parents didn't smoke. You will find that SIDS babies are much more likely to come from parents that smoke. When it's one study...you say...hmm, interesting. Maybe there's a conection. This is not one study it's hundreds.
Cigarette smoking by parents is definative linked to SIDS, to ear infections in kids, and to worsening childhood respiratory problems. Cigarette smoking is conclusively linked to COPD(emphysema), heart attacks, peripheral vascular disease, and a variety of cancers in the smoker. I couldn't tell you without doing some looking how many of those things have been conclusively linked to second hand smoke.
If you are looking for the mechanistic studies about how nicotine interferes with the acetylcholine receptors in the infant's brain and disrupts their arousal cycle causing SIDS and all the people that are playing with how much nicotine do you have to give to a baby rabbit to reproduce SIDS, then I can post those. Those look more at the why the link exists. I thought you wanted to see evidence that there was a link.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')urthermore, I fail to see how any of these studies can isolate environmental conditions and genetic screening with sufficient accuracy to establish conclusively that these results are anything more than just bad science.
There is an old AA saying. If someone tells you that you have a tail, ignore them. What is this nonesense? Why would you have a tail? If two people tell you that you have a tail, you better look. If three people tell you that you have a tail, you better wag it.
There are hundreds of studies linking second hand smoke to a variety of illnesses. The smoking-doesn't-cause-illness theories rank right up there with creationism and alien abduction in scientific plausability. They just don't begin to hold water for anyone who isn't the CEO of Phillip Morris.
If you want to kill yourself, I figure it's your own business. We're all going to die eventually anyway. If you're the smoking parent of an asthmatic child, it really does border on child abuse.