IARC - who funds them? If money corrupts then wouldn't there be a corrupting influence on the other side as well? The PC/government/ngo/academic money train is quite a bit larger than the private sector - no? As stated earlier - any of these studies is specifically public policy oriented in the first place , who would convene such study for the pure sake of science?

The quality of science education in the US is abysmal generally. You don't to look for political dragons to slay for the sake of Salon's one accredited agenda item that apparently must be covered by all columnists regardless.

And because of that, I bet 90% of all Americans don't need more than an 8th grade education to make it in this economy anyway. 70% don't need more than a 6th grade education. So what's really the point of science education except to weed out the people who won't go any further with real education. And if you think I'm kidding go to any liberal arts college and take a look at the math requirement. I bet it's just a rehash of high school math and they even call it that. And worse, it's what I learned in middle school in the '70's.

There is a reason that liberal and conservative publications exist; they each publish the truth about the other side's nonsense, scientific, economic or otherwise; so-called 'moderate' publications just stick their heads in the sand.

It's 1998, not 1988, but that may be a typo.

http://www.obscurious.co.uk/componants/smoking1440.pdf

@cestmoi

Where are you coming up with the confidence interval you cite? I went and checked the IARC monograph "Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking" (Vol. 83) and didn't find anything related. Was this from a previous working group? Also, what endpoint are you refering to (e.g., stomach cancer, lung cancer, what specific type)?

Anyway, I was a bit confused as most of the major databases that take into account multiple experimental animal and human epidemiologic studies, like IARC Monographs and EPA's IRIS entries, do not report carcinogenicity results as point estimate risk ratios (w/ 95% CIs), but, rather, as cancer slope factors (as limited as they are). The monographs typically give a weight of evidence assessment if there's not enough epi data to get a nice dose-response curve.

Because science deals with probabilities and undergoes re-evaluation as new data become available there is no shortage of areas where scientific conclusions are tenuous. So why, with a multitude of targets, is there so much interest in evolution, DDT, tobacco etc.? The question answers itself. The phony think tanks and astro-tuff front groups have no legitimate interest in science or accuracy. They are lobbyists and outside the bounds of scientific inquiry. They are not pursuing answers; they start with the desired outcome and work to support it.

How are they funded?

Based on the stats IARC came up with, it cannot be said with 95% certainty that 2nd hand smoke increases lung cancer risk. I agree it very probably does (and, as a non-smoker, I just plain don't like the stuff), but the science (confidence interval at 95% of 0.93-1.44, where 1.0 is risk with no 2nd hand smoke exposure) doesn't allow you to draw that conclusion with a 95% level of confidence.

Gosh, if only Salon weren't so selective in its junk sicence stories. I'd have loved to read more about the massive fraud perpetrated by plaintiffs' lawyers and their experts in the Texas multidistict abestosis and silicosis litigation, exposed through the courage and thoughtfulness of U.S. District Judge Janis Jack and the defense attorneys. Pure junk science, medical edition, was routed.

It's been reported in the Wall Street Journal, but never in Salon. Too bad it runs counter to Salon's politics. It is a great story.

In addition to the junk science front, PR firms are also getting better at managing the blogosphere, i.e. paying people to spread seed it with their "side" of the story.

This is nothing more than the "teach the controversy" ploy. Invent a bogus controversy through junk science and then insist it gets equal time. Only a very thin veneer of credibility is required to make this work.

So Andrew, you shouldn't give too much credence to "readers" who insist on discussing the science, especially when more than one begin their posts with identical paragraphs, as noted in the "Big Tobacco" thread...