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No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

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Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#961

Post by dionidium »

quantgenius wrote: post #959
dionidium wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, this is a good and fair pushback. But I’d respond that I chose secondhand smoke for a reason. I similarly doubt there’s any measurable impact of being around a smoker every once in a while, but the language around secondhand smoke got more and more hysterical leading up to the widespread implementation of smoking bans, to the point that it’s not uncommon today to hear people complain that walking near a…

Walking near a smoker on a sidewalk outside IS a risk to my health and the health of my children. I have asthma as do my children. Both my children and I have had asthma attacks due to second hand smoke, even limited quantities. As a smoker you may not notice this but the smell from even a whiff of second hand smoke persists for a long time and it's awful. Our family gives smokers on the sidewalk a very wide berth. N…

Well at least now nobody can claim I made up this objection.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#962

Post by haroldp »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #948
haroldp wrote: post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mistaken. Vast numbers of American teens are prescribed amphetamines every day. The main difference between elicit recreational methamphetamine use and medical/psychological amphetamine use is circumstances and dosing. Kids on Ritalin are generally in safe situations where they have consulted a psychologist with the involvement of their parents, and are given a pure, unadulterated, small, carefully dosed amou…

No babies are prescribed amphetamines.

This conversation is like telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#963

Post by dionidium »

dahart wrote: post #886
lmm wrote: post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even urban outdoor second hand smoke really is a higher risk than air travel radiation. Isn't this exactly what's in dispute? What's the evidence that this is true?

Not really. The actual topic of conversation underneath the smoke is the political neutrality of the CDC, and public mistrust of science and government funded sources of information. If you are really curious about the evidence, follow the thread up and click the links. I already posted links that have some stats and links to studies on the harms of second-hand smoke, and so did @dionidium too. :)

To be clear, I don't think the CDC is full of political operatives intent on fighting a culture war. What I think is that almost nobody at the CDC smokes, that they don't know many smokers, that they (correctly, more or less) perceive smoking to be a lower-class-coded activity, that there is probably near-universal agreement within the CDC that smoking is an undesirable (maybe even "gross") activity (associated with low levels of educational attainment).

On the other hand, they all fly in airplanes. They attach little or no moral weight to flying. Everybody they know flies on airplanes. Etc, etc.

I think it's unlikely that this isn't influencing their language. The risk of smoking, in their view, isn't something to be managed or weighed or compared; rather, smoking is an abhorrent activity that should be stamped out of existence.

How could that possibly not influence how they write about it?

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#964

Post by N1H1L »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #861
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great comment. Way too much of HN is invested in "nanny state bad and corrupt" justified with FUD-like narratives. There's always this low-simmering culture war here. And really, air travel radiation is the hill these types of people want to die on? The problem with conservative forums like HN is eventually you get on this treadmill of "and so and so isn't so bad" be it alcohol, smoking, Hitler, etc that's a mix of i…

> The problem with conservative forums like HN Not terribly on topic, but I've been lurking here for more than a decade, and today I learned that it's a conservative forum. And on top of that, it has the same problems inherent to conservative forums (fora?). Weird.

> Not terribly on topic, but I've been lurking here for more than a decade, and today I learned that it's a conservative forum

Me too.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#965

Post by boomboomsubban »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #949
boomboomsubban wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that the consensus is that it did cause a small amount of harm and there likely are horror stories you never heard, that's why the practice stopped, but giving children meth is called adderal. Children also had regular access to small amounts of coke and heroin probably in your grandparents or great grandparents life, remember Coca Cola and laudanum was used for teething. You've never heard of harm from tha…

Babies are not given adderal.

Are pregnant mothers?

No babies are given alcohol either anymore so you'll accept that heroin and cocaine should be legal based on your bullshit test?

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#966

Post by dahart »

dionidium wrote: post #963
dahart wrote: post #886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The actual topic of conversation underneath the smoke is the political neutrality of the CDC, and public mistrust of science and government funded sources of information. If you are really curious about the evidence, follow the thread up and click the links. I already posted links that have some stats and links to studies on the harms of second-hand smoke, and so did @dionidium too. :)

To be clear, I don't think the CDC is full of political operatives intent on fighting a culture war. What I think is that almost nobody at the CDC smokes, that they don't know many smokers, that they (correctly, more or less) perceive smoking to be a lower-class-coded activity, that there is probably near-universal agreement within the CDC that smoking is an undesirable (maybe even "gross") activity (associated with…

That’s extremely heavy and unfounded speculation on your part. How do you know who flies, or what their morals are, or who they know?? You’re now attempting to move the goal posts to a different playing field entirely. Your beef was over radiation, which has extremely low levels of risk compared to air pollution, not the morals of flying. The questions about the environmental impacts of flying is certainly getting enormous amounts of exposure currently, why do you think people at the CDC are any different from the rest of us in that respect?

You’re still trying to paint a picture of hypocrisy where none exists. The CDC is presenting facts on risks, not moral judgements. The fact is that the risks of smoking are large, it kills many times more people than all causes of flying related mortality combined, and that is the reason there is a lot of information decided to educating people about those risks. Smoking is also one of the easiest things to change, it’s a choice, and it’s a luxury, not necessary for anyone to do. Why not try to reduce it? They’re not judging people who smoke as low class, they’re pointing out correctly that smoking is something that statistically harms people of low SES disproportionately, not just health wise, but financially. The whole idea is to try to help those people escape. It seems strange to me to spend any energy complaining about the CDC’s language of smoking, while ignoring the vast amounts of social damage left in the wake of Big Tobacco.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#967

Post by pvarangot »

josephcsible wrote: post #835
pvarangot wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends on how much you smoke and how much you travel. Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works. And of course it's to protect something like only 35% of the human population that will get addicted to it. I stopped smoking…

> Well, it depends on how much you smoke and how much you travel. I find it hard to believe that smoking could be less dangerous than flying even for people who work as airline pilots or flight attendants.

Smoking every day? Sure it's more dangerous. Vaping at a party once per month? I don't think so.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#968

Post by pvarangot »

HWR_14 wrote: post #806
pvarangot wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends on how much you smoke and how much you travel. Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works. And of course it's to protect something like only 35% of the human population that will get addicted to it. I stopped smoking…

> Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works. Really? Where do you live? Because I'm not aware of any country that does this (other than with sin taxes on tobacco).

I live in the US and the 600 extra are binary, the question is "have you used any tobacco products in the past three months?" and a yes means an extra 600 per year. It's not that unusual if you get health insurance through your employer because it drives the cost down for everyone else, and of course scamming money off smokers even if they just casually do it a couple of times every three months is socially accepted.

Also except executives no one is above 60, which is where one would argue that if you are a smoker you may actually needing to tap heavy into health insurance money for smoking related conditions. There's even research that if you quit before 40 your smoking related cancer risks go down 90% https://www.healio.com/news/hematology-oncology/20211228/qui...

Of course I can drink a bottle of wine per day, not exercise, eat processed meat and not consume a gram of fiber and I don't have to pay extra health insurance. It doesn't make any sense.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#969

Post by dionidium »

dahart wrote: post #966
dionidium wrote: post #963

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I don't think the CDC is full of political operatives intent on fighting a culture war. What I think is that almost nobody at the CDC smokes, that they don't know many smokers, that they (correctly, more or less) perceive smoking to be a lower-class-coded activity, that there is probably near-universal agreement within the CDC that smoking is an undesirable (maybe even "gross") activity (associated with…

That’s extremely heavy and unfounded speculation on your part. How do you know who flies, or what their morals are, or who they know?? You’re now attempting to move the goal posts to a different playing field entirely. Your beef was over radiation, which has extremely low levels of risk compared to air pollution, not the morals of flying. The questions about the environmental impacts of flying is certainly getting en…

I don't care about the morality of flying and I'm not suggesting they should, either. That's the whole point. Of course they use stronger language wrt activities they look down upon than for activities they don't.

And maybe that's as it should be! Again, I am asking people to notice when this happens.

The CDC hasn’t been “politicized,” in other words; their project is intrinsically political.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#970

Post by avar »

HWR_14 wrote: post #958
avar wrote: post #955

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health insurance in various places goes up if you consume tobacco products, and doesn't take the amount consumed into account: https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-a...

That's what I figured he was referring to, but you (and he, if that's what he meant) are just wrong. Your source points out that the amount consumed is taken into account: https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-a... Now, it is binary. But US federal law puts "an afterdinner cigarette once every four months" very much in the "nonsmoker" category.

Where does it say that the amount consumed is taken into account? That guideline is referring to the number of consumption occurrences per-week, not the amount used.

Which is the tobacco equivalent of classifying someone as a heavy drinker because they're using red wine as a trace ingredient in cooking several times a week, and considering that the same as consuming 4 vodka bottles over a span of 4 evenings every week.

Or, to bring this back to the example that started this thread, and which you seem to be thoroughly missing, to regulate numbers of radiation exposures per week. Without taking into account whether that's from standing outside in the sun for 10 minutes, eating a banana, or standing next to an unshielded nuclear reactor.

It's not some pedantic theoretical concern. There's an astronomical difference in the health risks between smoking a pack of cigarettes 4 times a week, using E-cigarettes 4 times a week, or applying a nicotine patch 4 times a week.

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