A trial lawyer’s dream — oil and tobacco company defendants.
“Heart attacks are usually most common on weekdays and mornings, especially Mondays, but the pattern reversed in New Orleans after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, according to a U.S. study.
“The fact that it’s such a polar opposite shift is really surprising,” said lead author Matthew Peters at Tulane University in New Orleans.
After the 2005 storm, the overall number of attacks tripled, likely due to an increased number of smokers. Attacks were more likely on weekday evenings and weekends, according to data published in the American Journal of Cardiology.” [Reuters]
DBaker, you ask whether doctors would see through this sort of thing and I’m afraid the answer is probably not. :/ I think that most doctors, once something is outside their specialty, pick up most of their medical news/opinions the same way most of the rest of us do: from Fox ‘n Friends and Oprah and the Daily News and occasionally from a serious newscast, newspaper, or (horrors!) even a medical journal editorial.
When it comes to something like smoking and secondhand smoke, I’d guess that 98% of them immediately just skip over anything at all that questions the “prevailing medical consensus” simply because they don’t have time to examine the issue carefully and decide what the facts are. They know they “can’t be blamed” for telling their patients bad things about smoking, so they just go with it. As a result you end up with millions of people out there who believe they’re being killed by the smallest wisps of smoke “because my doctor told me so!”
:/
MJM
Finally. I have a legitimate excuse for smoking.
Talk about stupid. Could it possibly related to the well known phenomena of heart attacks short after snowstorms caused by guys shovelling snow when they are in no shape to do it? After all, they will come home and do the physical labor of clean up on the weekends, so Monday at work will actually be less physically stressful. I could see this possibility after a 30 second look, what about the doctors?
Bob – I had a history teacher a couple years ago, and he is a “true believer” because it’s “academics” pushing the theory of catastrophic Global Warming. He said straight up – if you want a grant, study global warming! Not that it influences the results, mind you….
So, its global warming. And here I always thought it was because nicotine was addictive. More funding if you use “global warming” in the paper?
“The fact that it’s such a polar opposite shift is really surprising,” says the lead author.
Really? Even the Reuters article touches on some of the obvious possibilities for contributors to a change to the point that one should have been surprised had there had been NO change. Good grief. Is this an example of the kind of researchers we have today – either buffoons or completely corrupted/dazzled by public exposure?
Oh, yes, of course. It *had* to be the smoking. After all, things like stress, fears, worries, sleeplessness, overexertion, infections, hunger, hopelessness, bereavement, traumatic physical injuries, disruption of medications,.. hey, none of those sorts of things have any effect on heart attacks, right? It *had* to be the smoking!
This study should go down in history with the one done after World War II, when many smoking soldiers came home from the battlefields and started exposing their wives to secondhand smoke. We all know what THAT caused, right?
The BABY BOOM! Secondhand smoke causes pregnancy! The scientific explanation is still somewhat vague, but it’s now thought that one of the 427,623 elements in Lucky Strike cigarette smoke is … SPERM! Yes! Living, breathing, wriggling, and overwhelmingly fecund sperm, just itching to float around in the air and sneak up dresses and git dem po’ innercint gals all preggers (Ed. Note: Can I say “preggers” here? If not, please substitute the technical term, “in a motherly way.” Thank you.)
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains” (It’s unfortunate, but the one element in all the secondhand smoke that Antismokers are forced to inhale every day does *not* seem to be brains.)