Geoffrey Kabat

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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. He was co-author of a discredited BMJ study funded by the tobacco industry, that failed to find an association between secondhand smoke and health problems. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Scientific work

Over a forty-year career, Kabat has studied a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and environmental exposures in relation to cancer and other diseases, and mortality. Major topics of interest include: smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and nutrition, endogenous and exogenous hormones, obesity and height, the metabolic syndrome, physical activity, electromagnetic fields, and sleep. [5]

In 2003, Kabat, who then worked at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, co-authored a study with James Enstrom in 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." [6] [7] The study was funded and heavily publicized by the tobacco industry. [8] [7] [1] The paper was heavily criticized by the scientific community. [9] The American Cancer Society(ACS) whose database Enstrom and Kabat used to compile their data, criticized the paper as "neither reliable nor independent", stating that scientists at the ACS had repeatedly pointed out serious flaws in Enstrom and Kabat's methodology prior to publication. [3] Notably, the study had failed to identify a comparison group of "unexposed" persons. [4] [10] 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, [11] 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." [2] 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. [12] [13] [14]

Books

Kabat is 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. [15] 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...." [16]

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". [17] 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". [18] 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". [19]

Terence Hines wrote that Kabat "more than accomplishes" his goals of discovering how it is that extraordinary progress is made solving some problems but little is made solving others and why instances of progress get little attention while scientifically questionable issues get more attention. Hines said of the chapter reviewing the question of whether cell phones cause cancer, it "alone is worth the price of the book." [20]

Kabat wrote another book building on the themes in Hyping Health Risks that was published in 2016. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco industry</span> Persons and companies that produce tobacco-related products

The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies who are engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any warm, moist environment, which means it can be farmed on all continents except Antarctica.

<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, commonly called 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 diseases caused by active tobacco smoking, although to a lower prevalence due to the reduced concentration of smoke that enters the airway. The health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus, and have been a major motivation for anti-smoking laws in workplaces and indoor venues, including smoke-free restaurants, bars and night clubs, as well as some open public spaces.

<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 proof that tobacco smoking increased the risk of lung cancer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Case–control study</span> Type of observational study comparing two existing groups differing in outcome

A case–control study is a type of observational study in which two existing groups differing in outcome are identified and compared on the basis of some supposed causal attribute. Case–control studies are often used to identify factors that may contribute to a medical condition by comparing subjects who have that condition/disease with patients who do not have the condition/disease but are otherwise similar. They require fewer resources but provide less evidence for causal inference than a randomized controlled trial. A case–control study is often used to produce an odds ratio, which is an inferior measure of strength of association compared to relative risk, but new statistical methods make it possible to use a case-control study to estimate relative risk, risk differences, and other quantities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Doll</span> British physician and epidemiologist (1912–2005)

Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll was a British physician who became an epidemiologist in the mid-20th century and made important contributions to that discipline. He was a pioneer in research linking smoking to health problems. With Ernst Wynder, Bradford Hill and Evarts Graham, he was credited with being the first to prove that smoking increased the risk of lung cancer and heart disease.

<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 negative effects on human health, and concerns about these effects have existed for a long time. Research has focused primarily on cigarette smoking.


Tobacco harm reduction (THR) is a public health strategy to lower the health risks to individuals and wider society associated with using tobacco products. It is an example of the concept of harm reduction, a strategy for dealing with the use of drugs. Tobacco smoking is widely acknowledged as a leading cause of illness and death, and reducing smoking is vital to public health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Devra Davis</span> American epidemiologist and writer

Devra Lee Davis is an American epidemiologist, toxicologist, and author of three books about environmental hazards. She was founding director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and is a former professor of epidemiology at University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. She has served on several governmental and non-governmental organizations, conducting research and advocacy into effects of pesticides, asbestos, and wireless radiation on human health, especially cancers.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Frank Statement</span> Tobacco advertisement

A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers was a historic first advertisement in a campaign run by major American tobacco companies on January 4, 1954, to create doubt by disputing recent scientific studies linking smoking cigarettes to lung cancer and other dangerous health effects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco politics</span> Politics surrounding the use and distribution of tobacco

Tobacco politics refers to the politics surrounding the use and distribution of tobacco.

Jeffrey E. Harris, is an economist and physician who has been on the faculty of the Economics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1977. He received an AB from Harvard University, as well as an MD (1974) and a PhD in Economics (1975) from the University of Pennsylvania. Having trained in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1974-1977), he maintained a medical practice at that institution until 2006. Since then, he has continued to practice as an internist at federally sponsored community health centers in Rhode Island, where the majority of his patients have poverty-level incomes and are not fluent in English.

Occupational cancer is cancer caused by occupational hazards. Several cancers have been directly tied to occupational hazards, including chimney sweeps' carcinoma, mesothelioma, and others.

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.

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.

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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 Kessler 2006 , pp. 1380–3
  3. 1 2 "American Cancer Society Condemns Tobacco Industry Study for Inaccurate Use of Data" (PDF) (Press release). American Cancer Society. 2003-05-13. Retrieved 2007-08-29.
  4. 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.
  5. ↑ Search Results for author Kabat G on PubMed .
  6. ↑ 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.
  7. 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.
  8. ↑ Kessler 2006 , p. 1383
  9. ↑ Kessler 2006 , p. 1412
  10. ↑ Bero, LA; Glantz, S; Hong, MK (April 2005). "The limits of competing interest disclosures". Tobacco Control. 14 (2): 118–26. PMC   1748015 . PMID   15791022.
  11. ↑ Kessler 2006 , p. 1380
  12. ↑ Appeal Ruling, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 22 May 2009
  13. ↑ Altria, Cigarette Makers Lose 'Lights' Ruling Appeal Bloomberg news, 22 May 2009
  14. ↑ U.S. appeals court agrees tobacco companies lied Reuters, 22 May 2009
  15. ↑ Bailey, Ronald (11 August 2008). "Scared Senseless". Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  16. ↑ "New and Notable". Skeptical Inquirer . 41 (2): 60. 2017.
  17. ↑ 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 .
  18. ↑ 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.
  19. ↑ 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 .
  20. ↑ 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.
  21. ↑ 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.

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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