Friday, October 16, 2009

New York ABC News Story on Institute of Medicine Report

Here is a link to the New York ABC News story on the Institute of Medicine report on smoking bans and heart attacks. After clicking on the link, you need to click on "VIDEO: Impact of Smoking Bans." The story includes a brief comment from me regarding the lack of sufficient evidence to conclude that the observed declines in heart attacks in the studies reviewed by the committee are attributable to the smoking bans.

Remember, however, that the committee only reviewed studies which found evidence to support its conclusion. The committee apparently did not review any of the data which showed that there was no effect of smoking bans, including data from England, Scotland, and Wales. A major reason why I view the report as being biased is specifically because of its failure to consider all of the data. If you only consider data in support of a given conclusion, you are going to end up with a systematically biased review.

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