{"id":5120,"date":"2009-11-22T22:19:55","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T04:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=5120"},"modified":"2009-11-22T22:19:55","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T04:19:55","slug":"news-flash-scientists-find-that-cigarettes-may-be-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/news-flash-scientists-find-that-cigarettes-may-be-dangerous\/","title":{"rendered":"News Flash! Scientists Find that Cigarettes May Be Dangerous!"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>[social_buttons]<\/p>\n A team of American and French scientists have just documented the fact<\/a> that there are a lot of bacteria in\u00a0cigarettes\u00a0and that the bacterial\u00a0population\u00a0includes some human pathogens. \u00a0They don’t actually know if this leads to human disease- after all, these things are BURNED!. \u00a0Still it raises interesting issues. But at least the tobacco is not GMO!<\/p>\n OK, I am indulging in some irony here. \u00a0If you have shared my experience of having a wonderful dinner in Paris\u00a0compromised\u00a0by smoking neighbors at the closely-spaced tables you can relate. \u00a0European colonizers might have devastated native American peoples through disease and guns 500 years ago, but the original “Americans” got a little pay-back by introducing the Europeans to an addictive and carcinogenic<\/a> product they had never known.<\/p>\n I have always found it fascinating that Europeans have mainly avoided GMO crops based on fears of theoretical problems that have not materialized over more than a decade of GMO commercialization, all the while allowing an extremely well-documented<\/a> source of health problems to be widely used and imposed on non-smokers. \u00a0The “precautionary principle” that prevails in Europe does not seem to protect them from “documented risks”, only from “imagined risks”. \u00a0This new data on\u00a0cigarettes should trigger precautionary responses that would say that all tobacco products should be banned until this bacterial risk can be assessed. I’m guessing that won’t happen. \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is not clear that pathogenic bacteria on the tobacco in cigarettes actually causes disease, but if they did there would be a “solution.” \u00a0The tobacco could be irradiated<\/a> the way that we irradiate outdoor dried spices that go into processed foods (think about it, you don’t want spices dried outside and exposed to bacteria inoculating your potato salad or pate…). \u00a0That is not likely to happen either.<\/p>\n Well, in any case, if this new finding gets more Europeans to stop smoking, all the better. \u00a0Their societies are now so far below the reproductive “replacement rate<\/a>” they certainly don’t need any additional force for population reduction.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n You are welcome to comment on this site and\/or to email me a feedback.sdsavage@gmail.com\u00a0<\/p>\n