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From: olsen@ll-xn.ARPA (Jim Olsen)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci,net.bio
Subject: Re: Plutonium (and second-hand smoke)
Message-ID: <343@ll-xn.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 22-May-86 15:36:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: ll-xn.343
Posted: Thu May 22 15:36:19 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 07:06:54 EDT
References: <645@bu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA
Lines: 19
Xref: watmath net.politics:16311 net.sci:926 net.bio:518
Summary: A double standard exists

> Just to nitpick, I don't think there has ever been a study that showed
> that there is any demonstrable cancer risk from second-hand smoke...
>
> I think it should be weak comfort to point and say: See, it's the smokers,
> so forget the radioactive materials we are dumping into our environment.
> 	-Barry Shein, Boston University  [bzs@bu-cs.UUCP]

It seems to me that Barry reveals an often-used double standard.  Both
tobacco smoke and ionizing radiation are known carcinogens at high levels
of exposure.  Barry (and others) will quite willingly extrapolate from this
to conclude that low-level radiation is a carcinogen.  However, Barry
refuses to accept the same extrapolation for second-hand tobacco smoke.

I think current medical theory says that if a substance is a carcinogen at
high levels of exposure, it will be a carcinogen at any level of exposure.
Why doesn't this apply to tobacco smoke?

-- 
Jim Olsen   ARPA:olsen@ll-xn   UUCP:{decvax,lll-crg,seismo}!ll-xn!olsen