Geoffrey Kabat

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Geoffrey Kabat
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Website geoffreykabat.com

Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American epidemiologist, cancer researcher, and author. He has been on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and State University of New York, Stony Brook. In 2003, he was co-author of a disputed BMJ study funded by the tobacco industry that found secondhand smoke did not affect mortality. [1] [2] Along with his scientific publications, Kabat has written four books and many articles for general audiences. As of 2019, he was a member of the board of directors of the Science Literacy Project and the board of scientific advisors of the American Council on Science and Health. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Kabat graduated from Haverford College in 1967, majoring in French, and then acquired a PHD in Slavic Languages and Literature from Columbia University. [4] He has stated he got into epidemiology "by chance", partially because health research was much more valued and better funded than research in Russian literature in the mid-1970s. [4]

Tobacco study

In 2003, Kabat, who then worked at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, co-authored a study with James Enstrom in The BMJ examining the association between passive smoking and tobacco-related mortality. The study concluded that its results "do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect." [5] [6] The study was funded and heavily publicized by the tobacco industry. [7] [6] [1] The paper was heavily criticized by the scientific community. [8] Of the many letters to The BMJ in response to the article, few provided "a dispassionate appraisal" of the work, [9] [10] and the editor of The BMJ stood by its decision to print the paper, assessing it "a useful contribution to an important debate." [11] In 2023, Kabat reflected on the paper's origin and responses to it, defending the paper and saying that many of the critics had focused on its conclusion without engaging with the paper's methods and analysis. [12] One criticism was that the study had failed to identify a comparison group of "unexposed" persons due to the pervasive exposure to secondhand smoke in the 1950s. [2] [13] In a US racketeering lawsuit against tobacco companies, the Enstrom and Kabat paper was cited by the US District Court as "a prime example of how nine tobacco companies engaged in criminal racketeering and fraud to hide the dangers of tobacco smoke." [1] The Court found that the study had been funded and managed by the Center for Indoor Air Research, [14] a tobacco industry front group tasked with "offsetting" damaging studies on passive smoking, as well as by Philip Morris who stated that Enstrom's work was "clearly litigation-oriented." [15] On May 22, 2009, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court's 2006 ruling. [16] [17] [18]

Books and articles

Kabat has written a number of science articles for general audiences, including articles for Forbes, the Genetic Literacy Project, Quillette, and Slate. [19] [20] [21] [22] He has also written several books.

Books

Ideology and Imagination

Kabat's first book, Ideology and Imagination: The Image of Society in Dostoevsky, was published in 1978. In a review, David Matual described the book as exploring "the complex interrelationship between the imaginative work of a great writer and the social and historical milieu of his creations", and said that the book contained "several excellent and instructive chapters" but "lacks focus". [23]

Hyping Health Risks

Kabat is also the author of the book Hyping Health Risks, published in 2008 by Columbia University Press. The book examines several alleged environmental health risks, such as the proposed link between artificial chemicals and cancer, and concludes that these risks have been distorted. [24] A 2017 Skeptical Inquirer review says that "Kabat ... helps readers understand relative versus absolute risk, medical research, [and] how pseudoscientific and questionable claims get [mis]reported by news media and activists...." [25]

David A. Savitz reviewed the book and wrote "For the most part, the story of truth and misrepresentation of evidence on health risks [in the book] was engaging". [26] It was also reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine , where Barbara Gastel wrote that "Kabat is at his best in the chapters in which he presents the case studies," but she criticized the book's first chapter, entitled "Introduction: Toward a Sociology of Health Hazards in Daily Life". [27] Neil Pearce wrote in the International Journal of Epidemiology that he "became more frustrated and less impressed as [he] worked [his] way through the book" and criticized the book for its "lack of balance". [28]

Getting Risk Right

Kabat's third book, Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks, was published in 2016 and builds on the themes in Hyping Health Risks. [29] In his review of Getting Risk Right, Terence Hines wrote that Kabat "more than accomplishes" his goals of understanding how we can make great scientific progress solving some problems while making little headway with others, and why there is often much greater public attention to scientifically questionable claims than to actual scientific progress. Hines said of the chapter reviewing the question of whether cell phones cause cancer, it "alone is worth the price of the book." [30]

Anne Fairbrother's review in Issues in Science and Technology said that although the book's "writing is uneven", it "presents important topics for consideration and four fascinating and well-documented epidemiological case studies". [31] Rick Mathis wrote in Health Affairs that it's an "important book" with an "engaging discussion of the use and misuse of information on health risks", though "at times too technical for the general reader". [32] Both Fairbrother and Mathis highlighted the book's discussion of the important difference between hazard (the potential for harm) and risk (the actual probability of the hazard causing harm in a given situation). In his review for the American Council on Science and Health, Josh Bloom called it "a compelling read", and complimented Kabat's ability "to take complex issues and make them both understandable, easily readable and interesting". [33]

Slava

His fourth book, Slava: The Life and Words of a Croatian Jew, was published in Croatia. [34] [35]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco smoking</span> Practice of burning tobacco and breathing the resulting smoke

Tobacco smoking is the practice of burning tobacco and ingesting the resulting smoke. The smoke may be inhaled, as is done with cigarettes, or simply released from the mouth, as is generally done with pipes and cigars. The practice is believed to have begun as early as 5000–3000 BC in Mesoamerica and South America. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 17th century by European colonists, where it followed common trade routes. The practice encountered criticism from its first import into the Western world onwards but embedded itself in certain strata of a number of societies before becoming widespread upon the introduction of automated cigarette-rolling apparatus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoking ban</span> Law prohibiting tobacco smoking in a given space

Smoking bans, or smoke-free laws, are public policies, including criminal laws and occupational safety and health regulations, that prohibit tobacco smoking in certain spaces. The spaces most commonly affected by smoking bans are indoor workplaces and buildings open to the public such as restaurants, bars, office buildings, schools, retail stores, hospitals, libraries, transport facilities, and government buildings, in addition to public transport vehicles such as aircraft, buses, watercraft, and trains. However, laws may also prohibit smoking in outdoor areas such as parks, beaches, pedestrian plazas, college and hospital campuses, and within a certain distance from the entrance to a building, and in some cases, private vehicles and multi-unit residences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Passive smoking</span> Inhalation of tobacco smoke by persons other than the intended active smoker

Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called passive smoke, secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by individuals other than the active smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke diffuses into the surrounding atmosphere as an aerosol pollutant, which leads to its inhalation by nearby bystanders within the same environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes many of the same health effects caused by active smoking, although at a lower prevalence due to the reduced concentration of smoke that enters the airway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Doctors Study</span> Study (1951 to 2001) into smoking and lung cancer

The British Doctors' Study was a prospective cohort study which ran from 1951 to 2001, and in 1956 provided convincing statistical evidence that tobacco smoking increases risk of lung cancer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cotinine</span> Alkaloid found in tobacco

Cotinine is an alkaloid found in tobacco and is also the predominant metabolite of nicotine, typically used as a biomarker for exposure to tobacco smoke. Cotinine is currently being studied as a treatment for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Cotinine was developed as an antidepressant as a fumaric acid salt, cotinine fumarate, to be sold under the brand name Scotine, but it was never marketed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health effects of tobacco</span> Circumstances, mechanisms, and factors of tobacco consumption on human health

Tobacco products, especially when smoked or used orally, have serious negative effects on human health. Smoking and smokeless tobacco use are the single greatest causes of preventable death globally. Half of tobacco users die from complications related to such use. Current smokers are estimated to die an average of 10 years earlier than non-smokers. The World Health Organization estimates that, in total, about 8 million people die from tobacco-related causes, including 1.3 million non-smokers due to secondhand smoke. It is further estimated to have caused 100 million deaths in the 20th century.

Third-hand smoke is contamination by tobacco smoke that lingers following the extinguishing of a cigarette, cigar, or other combustible tobacco product. First-hand smoke refers to what is inhaled into the smoker's own lungs, while second-hand smoke is a mixture of exhaled smoke and other substances leaving the smoldering end of the cigarette that enters the atmosphere and can be inhaled by others. Third-hand smoke or "THS" is a neologism coined by a research team from the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, where "third-hand" is a reference to the smoking residue on surfaces after "second-hand smoke" has cleared out.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoking</span> Practice of inhaling a burnt substance for psychoactive effects

Smoking is a practice in which a substance is combusted and the resulting smoke is typically inhaled to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream of a person. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have been rolled with a small rectangle of paper into an elongated cylinder called a cigarette. Other forms of smoking include the use of a smoking pipe or a bong.

Gio Batta Gori is an epidemiologist and fellow with the Health Policy Center in Bethesda, Maryland which he established in 1997 and where he specializes in risk assessment and scientific research. He was deputy director of the United States' National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, where he directed the Smoking and Health Program and the Diet and Cancer Program.

Stanton Arnold Glantz is an American professor, author, and tobacco control activist. Glantz is a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, where he is a Professor of Medicine (retired) in the Division of Cardiology, the American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tobacco Control, and former director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. Glantz's research focused on the health effects of tobacco smoking.

Tobacco smoking during pregnancy causes many detrimental effects on health and reproduction, in addition to the general health effects of tobacco. A number of studies have shown that tobacco use is a significant factor in miscarriages among pregnant smokers, and that it contributes to a number of other threats to the health of the foetus.

Smoking in South Korea has decreased overall for both men and women in the past decades. However, a high prevalence of tobacco use is still observed, especially with the rise of novel tobacco products such as e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn tobacco products. There are socioeconomic inequalities in smoking prevalence according to gender, income, education, and occupational class. Advocates call for measures to reduce the smoking rates and address smoking inequalities using a combination of monitoring and tobacco control policies. These measures include significant price hikes, mandatory warning photos on cigarette packs, advertising bans, financial incentives, medical help for quitting, and complete smoking bans in public places.

James Eugene Enstrom is an American epidemiologist who has worked at the University of California, Los Angeles since 1976, where he is currently a retired researcher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Takeshi Hirayama</span> Japanese epidemiologist (1923–1995)

Takeshi Hirayama was a Japanese cancer epidemiologist and anti-tobacco activist who served as the chief of the epidemiology division at the National Cancer Center in Tokyo from 1965 until 1985. He has been credited with publishing the first study linking passive smoking to lung cancer, and also conducted research on the relationship between certain dietary factors and cancer.

The Center for Indoor Air Research was a tobacco industry front group established by three American tobacco companies—Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and Lorillard—in Linthicum, Maryland, in 1988. The organization funded research on indoor air pollution, some of which pertained to passive smoking and some of which did not. It also funded research pertaining to causes of lung cancer other than passive smoking, such as diet. The organization disbanded in 1998 as a result of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

Adoniram Judson Wells, Jr. was an American chemist who worked for DuPont Company for much of his career. After he retired in 1989, he began working in the field of epidemiology, and went on to publish 12 papers on the health effects of tobacco smoke, particularly passive smoking.

Elizabeth Terrell Hobgood "Terry" Fontham is an American cancer epidemiologist, public health researcher, and founding dean of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco-free college campuses</span>

Tobacco-free college campuses are institutions that have enacted comprehensive policies banning the use of tobacco products across all indoor and outdoor areas of their grounds. These policies stem from the well-documented health risks associated with tobacco, not only for users but also for those exposed to secondhand smoke, as well as the environmental damage caused by tobacco waste. In response to these concerns, colleges and universities have increasingly adopted tobacco-free policies to enhance public health, create a more pleasant campus atmosphere, and mitigate the environmental impact of tobacco use.

Linda Chih-ling Koo, is a Chinese cancer epidemiologist and former lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. She is known for her studies on the relationship between indoor pollution, dietary factors, and lung cancer in China.

Sally Katharine Hammond is a Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Her research considers the impact of pollution and passive smoking on public health. It resulted in the Federal Aviation Administration issuing a ban on smoking on aeroplanes. Hammond serves on the World Health Organization study group on Tobacco Product Regulation.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dalton R (March 2007). "Passive-smoking study faces review". Nature. 446 (7133): 242. Bibcode:2007Natur.446..242D. doi: 10.1038/446242a . PMID   17361147. S2CID   27691890.
  2. 1 2 Thun, Michael J (4 October 2003). "More misleading science from the tobacco industry". BMJ. 327 (7418): E237–E238. doi:10.1136/bmjusa.03070002. S2CID   74351979.
  3. ↑ Malkan, Stacy (2019-03-08). "Geoffrey Kabat's ties to tobacco and chemical industry groups". U.S. Right to Know. Retrieved 2024-09-21.
  4. 1 2 "Q&A with Geoffrey Kabat '67". www.haverford.edu. 2009-07-12. Retrieved 2024-09-21.
  5. ↑ Enstrom, James E; Kabat, Geoffrey C (15 May 2003). "Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960–98". BMJ. 326 (7398): 1057. doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7398.1057. PMC   155687 . PMID   12750205.
  6. 1 2 Tong, E. K.; Glantz, S. A. (16 October 2007). "Tobacco Industry Efforts Undermining Evidence Linking Secondhand Smoke With Cardiovascular Disease". Circulation. 116 (16): 1845–1854. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.715888 . PMID   17938301.
  7. ↑ Kessler 2006 , p. 1383
  8. ↑ Kessler 2006 , p. 1412
  9. ↑ Tonks, Alison (2003-08-30). "Passive smoking". British Medical Journal. 327 (7413): 505. doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7413.505. ISSN   0959-8138. PMC   188405 . PMID   15222325.
  10. ↑ Ungar, Sheldon; Bray, Dennis (2005). "Silencing science: partisanship and the career of a publication disputing the dangers of secondhand smoke" (PDF). Public Understanding of Science. 14 (1): 5–23. doi:10.1177/0963662505048515.
  11. ↑ Smith, Richard (2003-08-30). "Passive smoking". British Medical Journal. 327 (7413): 505. doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7413.505-a. ISSN   0959-8138. PMC   188406 . PMID   12946985.
  12. ↑ Kabat, Geoffrey C. (2023-09-15). "Dogmatism, Data, and Public Health". Quillette. Retrieved 2024-09-18.
  13. ↑ Bero, LA; Glantz, S; Hong, MK (April 2005). "The limits of competing interest disclosures". Tobacco Control. 14 (2): 118–26. PMC   1748015 . PMID   15791022.
  14. ↑ Kessler 2006 , p. 1380
  15. ↑ Kessler 2006 , pp. 1380–3
  16. ↑ Appeal Ruling, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 22 May 2009
  17. ↑ Altria, Cigarette Makers Lose 'Lights' Ruling Appeal Bloomberg news, 22 May 2009
  18. ↑ U.S. appeals court agrees tobacco companies lied Reuters, 22 May 2009
  19. ↑ "Geoffrey Kabat - RISK-OMICS". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  20. ↑ "Geoffrey Kabat Archives". Genetic Literacy Project. 2024-07-12. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  21. ↑ "Geoffrey C. Kabat". Quillette. 2024-01-12. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  22. ↑ "Geoffrey Kabat". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  23. ↑ Matual, David (1980). "Geoffrey C. Kabat, Ideology and Imagination: The Image of Society in Dostoevsky". International Fiction Review. 7 (1): 64. ISSN   1911-186X.
  24. ↑ Bailey, Ronald (11 August 2008). "Scared Senseless". Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  25. ↑ "New and Notable". Skeptical Inquirer . 41 (2): 60. 2017.
  26. ↑ Savitz, D. A. (3 March 2009). "Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology: By Geoffrey C. Kabat". American Journal of Epidemiology. 169 (8): 1039–1041. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwp013 .
  27. ↑ Gastel, Barbara (29 January 2009). "Book Review Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology By Geoffrey C. Kabat. 250 pp. New York, Columbia University Press, 2008. $27.95. 978-0-231-14148-2". New England Journal of Medicine. 360 (5): 548–549. doi:10.1056/NEJMbkrev0807040.
  28. ↑ Pearce, N. (18 September 2008). "Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology. Kabat GC". International Journal of Epidemiology. 38 (6): 1746–1748. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyn198 .
  29. ↑ Hartge, Patricia (2017). "Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks". American Journal of Epidemiology. 186 (3): 385–386. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwx148 . ISSN   0002-9262.
  30. ↑ Hines, Terence (2017). "Why We Often Get Risks Wrong". Skeptical Inquirer . 41 (4): 58–60. Archived from the original on 2018-09-23. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  31. ↑ Fairbrother, Anne (Spring 2018). "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff". Issues in Science and Technology, 34(3). pp. 90–92. Retrieved 2024-09-17.
  32. ↑ Mathis, Rick (December 2017). "Understanding Risks". Health Affairs. 36 (12): 2210. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2017.1365. ISSN   0278-2715.
  33. ↑ Bloom, Josh (December 19, 2016). "Review: 'Getting Risk Right,' by Dr. Geoffrey Kabat". American Council on Science and Health. Retrieved 2024-09-17.
  34. ↑ Kabat, Geoffrey C. (2022-04-06). "Remembering the Jewish Yugoslavia that the Nazis Destroyed". Quillette. Retrieved 2024-09-18.
  35. ↑ Vlahović, Darko. "Slava Flesch - Život i riječi jedne hrvatske Židovke". express.24sata.hr (in Croatian). Retrieved 2024-09-18.

Further reading

Kessler, Gladys (August 17, 2006). "United States of America v. Philip Morris et al.: Final Opinion of Judge Gladys Kessler" (PDF). United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

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