There were plenty of headlines in today's papers reporting a huge fall in the number of hospital admissions for heart attacks in England, which they claim is a direct result of the smoking ban. In order to see whether this is actually plausible, I've collated a few facts and figures to put it in perspective.
1. From The Times 15 June 2008:
Rates of heart disease were falling before smoking in public was banned in European countries, and various factors, including mild weather, can contribute to a fall. Nevertheless, the health benefits of stopping smoking are well established. A year after a person quits smoking, the risk of a heart attack falls to half that of a smoker.
2. From The Daily Mail 4 July 2008:
Smoking ban cuts the number of heart attacks by more than 40 per cent at some hospitals
More than half of hospital trusts are treating fewer heart attacks since the ban on smoking in public places came in last year. As its first anniversary approaches on July 1, nearly six in ten NHS trusts are reporting a dramatic fall in the number of heart attack patients being admitted to emergency wards... There were 1,384 fewer heart attacks across England in the nine months after the legislation was introduced compared to the same period a year earlier. That means rates have fallen by 3 per cent across the country since the ban.
3. From The Telegraph 22 January 2009:
Official figures show just 21 per cent of adults now light up cigarettes, down from 22 per cent the year before...
4. From The Times 13 September 2009:
Heart attacks plummet after smoking ban
THE ban on public smoking has caused a fall in heart attack rates of about 10%, a study has found. Researchers commissioned by the Department of Health have found a far sharper fall than they had expected in the number of heart attacks in England in the year after the ban was imposed in July 2007...
The early results of the study of England will increase calls for an extension of the ban. Ministers have already commissioned research into the possibility of banning smoking in cars, where children are at their most exposed. There have also been suggestions that parents could be banned from smoking at home in front of children...
Right, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that the number of smokers went down from 23% to 22% in the first year of the ban and from 22% to 21% in the second year (from excerpt 3), i.e. the number of smokers went down by just under five per cent each year.
Let's make a heroic assumption that smoking is the only cause of heart attacks (which is what excerpts 2 and 4 are trying to imply). (This is clearly untrue, as excerpt 1 says "A year after a person quits smoking, the risk of a heart attack falls to half that of a smoker." If it were true then the risk would fall to zero, and not just by half, but then we'd have to factor in, and factor out again, the myth that passive-smoking can cause heart-attacks.)
If the risk of heart attacks goes down by half after a year's abstinence (from excerpt 1) and the number of smokers went down by five per cent on the first day of the ban, we'd expect the number of heart attacks to go down by about two-and-a-half per cent, which just about ties in with the reported fall of three per cent in the first year of the ban (from excerpt 2), so that statistic is just about plausible (subject to heroic assumptions).
But the statement that a slightly-less-than ten per cent fall in the number of smokers can lead to ten per cent fall in heart attacks after two years is complete nonsense, even after making the heroic assumption that all heart attacks are caused by smoking. But they need this sort of propaganda to support their calls for smoking to be banned in cars and homes as well (from excerpt 4).
Just sayin', is all.
Nothing
4 hours ago
12 comments:
The bansturbators' additional premise is that passive smoking causes heart attacks in non-smokers, which makes the modelling a bit more complex...
Now smokers have to slide off the barstool and shuffle outside (into the "fresh" air) to enjoy a puff, they're getting plenty more exercise than before.
Shortly to be joined by drinkers and eaters of fatty foods.
These people will also be banned to cold draughty corners so that the healthy can eat their lettuce without the smell of alcohol and burnt fat offending their nostrils.
Passive drinking anyone?
JB, I did make the heroic assumption that all heart attacks were caused buy smoking (whether in smokers or non-smokers) so the maths is the same.
Bruce, sure, so the number of smokers getting colds and 'flu must have shot up.
EV, I covered 'passive drinking' in my next post.
This hype is leading up to stage two of the ban frenzy. They are now following page seven of the tobacco control handbook instructions to ban patio smoking AFTER business owners spent thousands of dollars to build them for their smoking customers. This clearly shows that these people have ABSOLUTLY NO CONCERN for local businesses. It's the "inside-out" provision on page seven. Once these people find gullible lawmakers and get a foot in the door, there;'s no stopping them.
http://www.no-smoke.org/pdf/CIA_Fundamentals.pdf
Notice that there's no mention of patios in the model "smoking ban for dummies" on page eight. They didn't want that to be seen when the bans were first brought up.
http://www.no-smoke.org/document.php?id=229
@Mark, the maths isn't quite the same, because the exposure of non-smokers to smoke has fallen by much more than the number of smokers.
The model to use is one where 2% of the population see their exposure to smoke fall from HIGH to LOW, 20% of the population see their exposure to smoke stay at HIGH, and 78% see their exposure fall from MEDIUM to LOW. That could account for a much greater fall than your model.
(obviously this only works if passive smoking causes heart attacks, which it probably doesn't, but that's not the point...)
My mother's fatal heart attack was brought on by a coughing fit; she'd been coughing a lot more than usual because she'd given up smoking.
It's a pity the government wades in and uses stats in this creative way, to support further curtailment on freedom.
My father chain-smoked and probably gave my mother and I lung problems and yet I'm against banning it. Once you start down that path, it's the thin edge.
Ah. The old 'heart attack miracle' again. It's a common anti-tobacco trick. Always debunked by proper stats, but still used as journos are easily taken in and it's a great way of getting a cast-iron lie out into the press.
This particular nonsense is comprehensively debunked (along with the explanation of how they go about it), as is always the case with these stories, by Chris Snowdon here, and here.
I was about to point to Chris Snowdon's blog Dick but you beat me to it.
'But they need this sort of propaganda to support their calls for smoking to be banned in cars and homes as well'
Spot on. They are sooo predictable
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