Talk:Geoffrey Kabat

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The article “Geoffrey Kabat” is libelous and presents a one-sided and badly-distorted account of the controversy over the 2003 Enstrom and Kabat BMJ paper on passive smoking. Assuming that the editors of this article are open-minded and fair, the problem is that they are repeating the line taken by the American Cancer Society, whose Vice President for Epidemiology at the time, Michael J. Thun, came out and denounced our paper even before the paper was published online. He then orchestrated a campaign to smear the paper and its authors. The campaign had more to do with politics than with science or public health. The political nature of the attack is clear from the numerous references in the article to the District Court ruling by Judge Gladys Kessler citing our paper as an instance of tobacco industry influence — in fact, there was no tobacco industry influence. The American Cancer Society is a charity and an advocacy organization and has its own motivations and conflicts-of-interest. The charge that the paper came from the tobacco industry and was funded by the tobacco industry is false. This charge and other misrepresentations of the paper are addressed below. First, only the last 7 years of Enstrom’s 38-year follow-up of the California portion of the American Cancer Society cohort was funded with monies that originated from the tobacco industry. Funding was in the form of a grant from the Center for Indoor Air Quality (CIAR). This entity was a center for funding research on indoor air pollution (including passive smoking) using monies contributed by the tobacco industry. However, funding decisions were insulated from industry influence. Applications were reviewed by academic scientists and were judged on their scientific merit. The previous 31 years of follow-up had been funded by the State of California. Second, in analyzing and publishing their results, Enstrom and Kabat had no contact with the tobacco industry, which was not informed of the study and did not see the results until they were published. Third, the paper underwent the most stringent review by editors and statisticians at the British Medical Journal who determined that the study presented valuable data that had been carefully analyzed. (The entire publication history of the paper is posted on the BMJ website.) Fourth, in spite of the uproar caused by the American Cancer Society’s attack on the authors and the alleged “errors” in the paper, no one has identified any error that invalidates the results. In a letter to the editor, Enstrom and Kabat explained that some of the criticisms were factually wrong (such as the claim that in the 1950s and 1960s “everyone was exposed to tobacco smoke” and, therefore, there was no non-exposed group, while other criticisms did not invalidate the results (see page 504 below). Five, in spite of calls for the BMJ to retract the paper, the editor-in-chief, Richard Smith, defended publication of the paper, saying that when good work has been done, failure to publish it because the results are unpopular will distort the scientific record. Another editor at the BMJ, Alison Tonks, in a commentary on the letters to the editor pointed out that only 3% of the letters to the editor made any reference to actual data from the paper (see pdf below). Six, in the uproar, few critics took the time to read the 3,000-word paper with 10 tables. The fact that the authors showed that active smokers, even at low smoking levels (1-9 cigarettes per day), had increased risks of lung cancer and coronary heart disease got no attention.

In conclusion, the response to the paper was not about the science. It was about portraying two well-established scientists as shills for the tobacco industry in order to strengthen restrictions on smoking in public and advance the cause of discouraging smoking — something both authors are in favor of.

The controversy over the Enstrom and Kabat paper was more about politics than about science or public health.

Treatment of this controversy on Wikipedia demonstrates how well-intentioned people, who are not conversant with the discipline involved (i.e., epidemiology) can be badly misled by one-sided, bad-faith narratives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gkabat (talk • contribs) 13:51, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

First, thanks for coming to the talk page. I've been meaning to take a second look at this page for awhile, so I'll see if I can look through this at a later date.

The key thing between your comments here and proposed edits below is that biography articles should mostly be focused independent third-party discussion about the subject. I see you're including a lot of your papers below, but the most helpful sources are going to be independent ones not from any advocacy website, but scientific sources or sometimes newspapers (see WP:MEDPOP since that would apply to a lot of your work). Just for general background, your commentary above couldn't be used as a source, but journal editor comments you reference could be potential sources.

In the Scientific Work section of the current article, it does looks like it needs some general cleanup or restructuring. That said, we follow what's called due weight in sources. If The American Cancer Society criticized how one of your papers used their database (though the sourcing on that statement is currently incomplete and to an advocacy website that would need to be fixed), that does appear to be something that would be normally included in an article. However, that inclusion would also be in the context of trying to summarize how WP:MEDRS sources discuss (negatively or positively) that study. That's just to give you a general idea of how things work at Wikipedia without getting into specific edits yet. KoA (talk) 17:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks very much for this initial response. As I tried to convey in my opening block paragraph, and in a different way in my "revision" of the Geoffrey Kabat bio, it is actually tricky to determine what are valid sources to rely on. My main point is that the Wikipedia article selected 1 out of 155 peer-reviewed scientific papers from a 45-year career because it got some adverse publicity. The reason I included the details in both the intro para and the rewrite of the bio is because it is very easy to portray our paper as corrupt and influenced by the tobacco industry if one ignores all the information that is available and that I have packed into my write-up. I will be happy to lay out these points more clearly. But the fact that the journal didn't retract the paper under such tremendous public pressure and defended it in their comments (editor Alison Tonks) and editor-in-chief Richard Smith should be taken into account, no?

Let me point out something that became clear to me. If it weren't for the BMJ affair I believe there would be no Geoffrey Kabat Wikipedia page. This is because the driving reason behind the page is notoriety and the fact the ACS published their condemnation of the paper. It is just not fair or intellectually honest to leave things there and to only give credit to the ACS spokesman and disregard all of the positive evaluations of our work.

The point that became clear to me, as I started to say, is that my colleague epidemiologists -- even one who have published more than me and have made solid contributions to the field -- do NOT have Wikipedia pages. No one is interested in the day-to-day, year-to-year, work that constitutes normal science. So, I believe the only reason that this page was written about me is because of the BMJ brouhaha.

This page has been there since, as best I can tell, 2015, and it is utter slander and a hit-job, whether the person who wrote knows it or not. So, either this should be corrected and the full story laid out, of the page should be taken down.

Again, I really appreciate your looking into this and I will be happy to supply you with any information I can.

Geoffrey Kabat Gkabat (talk) 22:48, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I posted two statements on the “Talk” page for the “Geoffrey Kabat” bio on July 11 and July 12.  I received a preliminary response on July 12.  

Let me recap the situation.

I want to register a complaint regarding the “Geoffrey Kabat” Wikipedia page that appears to date from 24 March 2015. The bio presents a one-sided, distorted, and defamatory account of my 45-year career, and of our British Medical Journal (BMJ) paper in particular. The article relies on a couple of press releases by the American Cancer Society and political attacks by anti-smoking activists. Just because a functionary at a charity/advocacy organization issues a press release alleging certain claims concerning a subtle scientific question, this does not mean that it is a fair and accurate account of incident. By citing this politically-motived press release and ignoring all of the other relevant documented evidence, you present an egregiously distorted picture — one that amounts to defamation.

To date, I have not received any further acknowledgement or follow-up questions about my posts on the “Talk” page from July 11 and July 12.

This defamatory article has been online now for over 9 years. Wikipedia says that it takes seriously harm to the reputation of living people. But, in the present case, because of the involved technical issues (relating to the epidemiology of what is a weak risk factor) and because people assume that motives of functionaries at an organization like the American Cancer Society are decent, this travesty of the truth has been able to stand uncorrected for all these years.

As I wrote ten days ago, this bio would never have been written if it had not been for the controversy and headlines generated by our paper. I my 45-year career, my work has never been challenged on scientific grounds. I have a very good reputation as an epidemiologist, and my publication record puts me in the top 2 percent of scientists.

As I wrote ten days ago, Wikipedia should either take a look at the information and documentation I have provided and REVISE the current Geoffrey Kabat bio, or it should decide to take down any Geoffrey Kabat bio.  

However, I understand that, because there was a controversy, you will want to keep my bio. Therefore, under Wikipedia’s guidelines regarding damage to reputations caused by citing defamatory and distorted allegations, you have an obligation to do a better job of presenting the other side of the story, which is completely lacking.

I’ve tried to present some of the main points that are ignored in the current account. But this is a complicated story, and there is additional information that is relevant to a even-handed and accurate account. 2601:41:4300:F4E0:64F8:A414:1458:E3F7 (talk) 13:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

{{adminhelp}}

In July, I posted three posts on the Geoffrey Kabat “talk” page, on July 12 and July 23, 2024. Except for a preliminary response on July 12, I have heard nothing more.

Wikipedia says that it takes seriously defamatory content that damages the reputation of living people.

The second of the five pillars of Wikipedia states:

“We strive for articles with an impartial tone that document and explain major points of view, giving due weight for their prominence. We avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas there may be just one well-recognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as "the truth" or "the best view". All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy with citations based on reliable sources, especially when the topic is controversial or is about a living person. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong on Wikipedia.”

Since 2015 this Geoffrey Kabat page has been up on the Web with no corrections.

The opening paragraph reads, “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 erroneously said there was no association between secondhand smoke and health problems.”

The next paragraph goes on at length to discuss our BMJ paper.” The bolded sentence above and the entire discussion of this issue present a badly distorted picture based on lies and misstatements of the facts. The “sources” cited in the article are the result of smear campaign by the Michael Thun, the vice president for epidemiology at the American Cancer Society at the time our article was published in 2003.

Just because something is reported as news doesn’t mean that it is true. Ease of reference is not the arbiter of truth.

The exculpatory evidence may not have been published in a mainstream periodical, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

You have an obligation to tell the other, extensive, side of the story that has been left out. Taking into account the references given below would require a total reversal of the claim that our paper was “discredited” and that it was funded by or, in other ways, influenced by the tobacco industry.

If what Thun had said was true, the BMJ would have retracted the paper. But after careful scrutiny, the editors at BMJ refused to retract the paper. In fact, in the 21 years since the paper was published, no one has found serious errors or improprieties in the paper.

Below are several key documents to cite:  

Richard Smith, editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) at the time

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC188406/?ref=quillette.com

Alison Tonks, editor at the BMJ at the time

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC188405/

Geoffrey Kabat

https://quillette.com/2023/09/15/dogmatism-data-and-public-health/ 2601:41:4300:F4E0:B5BA:EA69:992E:5E52 (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

You have stated a lot of things, so here is my attempt to break down everything into discrete elements. Please note that I genuinely want to help you navigate the polices and guidelines and precedents that have been well established for Wikipedia. I also have compassion for someone who feels like their entire life's work has been distilled into a single event. However, this is my attempt to help you navigate the reality of what Wikipedia is and is not, and perhaps in the process you can help provide us information that fits the requirements for inclusion into this article.

1. The article libelous: I can see how it feels this way, however everything in this article is based in well sourced, reliable, third party sources. You may disagree with their findings but Wikipedia represents what is verifiable, not truth.
2. Assuming ... open-minded and fair: I can see how you feel like there are editors in the traditional sense, but most editors are more like curators of verifiable information. The reality is that Wikipedia generally does not permit original synthesis or no original research. Thus there is nothing to be open-minded about, as we are not truth finders. That being said, one principle that is important is balance and weight on an issue, but still that is from the consideration of verifiable information that has been published. Not on the strength of one side's arguments. For example see WP:FRNG as it relates to "an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views" - and I think you can honestly agree that is what you're presenting here (an idea departing from mainstream views) - even if that mainstream view is incorrect or wrong.
3. American Cancer Society...District Court ruling: Again I would defer to verifiable, not truth -- it is not about what you know to be true, but rather what has been independently and reliably reported. The court records are indisputable -- you may disagree with what the courts found, but that doesn't make it untrue.
4. in fact, there was no tobacco industry influence: It would be one thing if the courts found that claim about influce to be false, but they did not. What can you specifically point to that meets the qualifications of WP:VERIFYOR?
5. ACS ... is an advocacy organization: Irrelevant - multiple independent sources have reported, and continue to report on this topic in an unfavorable light.
6. funded by the tobacco industry is false & First...Second...Third...Fourth... As with above, you simply need to prove it through reliable sources, not throughs self assertion. Also see WP:IKNOWITSTRUE.
7. calls for the BMJ to retract the paper while technically this falls under the above, just to mention that there are plenty of documents on the BMJ that have contradictory findings. Furthermore, Editor Smith (in the letter you cited) says specifically that "we are not in the truth business" but rather that they are "in the debate business". As such does not mean that the simple fact of peer reviewed publication fully establish it as wholly true and accurate. Furthermore to quote Smith, "...we are all aware of the extreme deficiencies of peer review". But it's mere continued existence does not mean that BMJ wholly agrees with your finds, nor does it mean they reject the claims against it. Neither Smith nor Tonks statements address the debate of who is ultimate correct on this matter, rather they both squarely sit in the "here is why we let this be published" while clearly demonstrating that it is controversial and that it might not be true.
8. In conclusion...The controversy over the Enstrom and Kabat paper was more about politics than about science yes, it is possible that this was simply a political smear campaign by the anti-tobacco entities -- which if true, they were extremely effective from the cursory look of it. However, Wikipedia is not the venue to correct these alleged wrongs, and I would suggest that if the courts didn't even side with you, there might more going on than what you're presenting here. Furthermore, I would suggest that looking beyond this single publication it does appear that you continue to be thrown in to the "big corporate biased scientist" boat even on more contemporary works. There seems to be enough reliable sources to continue the claims of your bias in more recent events, which might warrant inclusion now that you've brought it up to peoples attention, which I'm sure you really wouldn't like to see happen. This is why an article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing. And since this is not the correct venue to correct your public / professional image, it might be well worth your efforts to correct your professional image outside of Wikipedia, and when there are reliable sources that those might be included in this article in the future.
9. Treatment of this controversy on Wikipedia demonstrates... rather it simply demonstrates that you do not understand what role Wikipedia plays in disseminating reliable information, see WP:ABOUT and what Wikipedia is not. Additionally that you do not understand that this is not the forum for you to change your perception in the professional nor lay community. Don't look to Wikipedia to change your public image, as we will not lead the correction, but rather we follow, letting reliable sources make the novel connections and statements. As you might ask the volunteer editors to read through all of this information, respectfully we ask that you read through the policies and guidelines that have been shared with you already. No it is not a pre-requisite that everyone reads every word (just like you likely did not read the entire lawbooks regarding how to drive on the road, before you first stepped behind the wheel of a car), but it does mean that when problems and contention arise, the arbitor is the existing policies and guidelines which is why they're being represented to you for your review.

TiggerJay (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gkabat: - I recently became aware of this article through your request for assistance over at the helpdesk. Let me review this to see how I can help out. Just as a reminder there is no "corporation" nor "staff" behind Wikipedia per se (technically there is but not as it relates to the problems you're having with this article), but rather a huge number of volunteers who are taking time out of their lives to improve this encyclopedia. And if you are indeed the person this article is about, as you seem to present as, I can completely understand and sympathize with the realization that you're top search results includes this page which feels like it distills your life into primarily this one article from many years ago. Coupled with the fact that as you're trying to present a broader picture of yourself, that goes beyond a single famous or infamous moment, you are getting caught up in what feels like a wall of rules and regulations which do not appear to be working how you expect them to and if feels profoundly unfair. I get it! Let me encourage you that from what I've seen so far, nobody is biased against you, nor taking sides. Rather they are simply trying to follow the various policies and guidelines that have been laid for decades now to ensure the most fair outcomes. Even when it doesn't feel like it. Personal attacks, yelling and legal threats will get you precious little as far as results. Instead of insisting that you're "right" or that you've been "wronged", might I suggest that you take to heart what people are requesting of you and helping them to help your cause. The reality is that most people want to be viewed in a positive light, and even when they make mistakes they want to cover it with rationale or context. I will take some time to review this for you, but if you could also take the time to carefully read and review the following articles in totality, not just for finding how that specific article helps you. WP:NOTFALSE, WP:CRIT, WP:PROOF, WP:PRIMARY, WP:NPOV and of course WP:BLP. You will find very helpful information contained therein. And yes, it will likely feel "not fair" but that is simply because it is likly that well established policies and guidelines simply do not favor you in this specific situation. TiggerJay (talk) 06:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

As the 'first responder' here, I say: yes. It's a shame nobody took this up at BLPN.[1] Although I've gone quiet here I have in fact done some source hunting behind the scenes and the situation seems to be that our hands are tied, simply by what's in the reliable sources Wikipedia is bound to reflect. Bon courage (talk) 06:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Yep I think that is likely the situation -- although I do want to give a more thorough look because I empathize with the individual, but it would seem that the circumstances are likely stacked against them given the parameters required for inclusion. There simply lacks any notable coverage to suggest that Geoffrey is either notable outside of this one instance WP:BLP1E, nor that there is sufficient non-WP:PRIMARY RS regarding the controversy to help right the weight of the article overall. TiggerJay (talk) 06:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh I think there is plenty of secondary sourcing. It just seems that this particular bit of research (over 20 years old now) has become established in the literature as a poster-child for improper industry influence of science. That's not something Wikipedia can fix. Bon courage (talk) 06:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. This page certainly follows the mountain of reliable, verifiable, secondary sources. My reference to secondary souring was regarding if there was enough sources to support his counter-claim against what he is accused of doing (eg his claim of a UNDUE weight), thus somehow adding some more support to his claim, but at cursory glance there appears to be precious little if any. If anything, it looks Kabat's improper industry bias persists in more recent work. TiggerJay (talk) 15:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like there's a bit of unrelated material that's reliably sourced and can be added; for example, here are two positive reviews of his second book. There's a third book in Croatian. It looks like he's been a columnist for the Genetic Literacy Project and Forbes, so maybe add a line about writing for the general public. There's another scientific paper that got some discussion in the Washington Post, and it looks like news sources sometimes turn to him for scientific discussions of cancer. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Corrective to current "Geoffrey Kabat" bio

Collapse WP:MWOT

{{adminhelp}} Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American epidemiologist, cancer researcher, and author. Over a forty-five-year career, Kabat has studied a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and environmental exposures in relation to cancer and other diseases, and mortality. He is most noted for his work characterizing the role of smoking, alcohol consumption, passive smoking, diet, obesity, the metabolic syndrome, and attained height, as well as environmental exposures, including pesticides and electromagnetic fields, in relation to the risk of cancer at different sites. Education After obtaining a doctorate in Slavic Languages and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, he published a book on Dostoevsky’s world view as expressed in his journalism and his fiction. He then switched fields to epidemiology, doing a postdoctoral fellowship and obtaining an M.S. in epidemiology and biostatistics from Columbia University. He has been a researcher at the American Health Foundation, a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, as well as being on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Scientific Work Kabat’s research spans a broad range of topics, and his publications put him in the top 2 percent of scientists (h-Index 68). He has published over 155 peer-reviewed scientific papers.[1] His work with colleagues has investigated a number of novel risk factors and has refined the role of established risk factors for different cancers, as well as the physiologic mechanisms by which they may affect risk. Major focuses include: cigarette smoking (including tar level and mentholated cigarettes) and cancer at different sites[2,3,4,5]; the interaction of smoking and alcohol consumption on oropharyngeal cancer[6]; the role of obesity and the metabolic syndrome in colorectal, breast, and endometrial cancer[7,8,9]; hormones and brain cancer[10,11]; estrogen metabolism and breast cancer [12,13,14]; electromagnetic fields and breast cancer[15,16]; height and cancer at different sites[17,18,19]; meta-analysis of glyphosate exposure and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.[20]   Throughout Kabat’s career, the only work that has sparked controversy is a paper on passive smoking published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 2003.[21] This controversy requires clarification. Starting in 1981, Kabat took an early interest in lung cancer occurring in people who never smoked and, specifically, in the question of passive smoking, emphasizing the need to collect accurate information on lifetime exposure to passive smoking in different settings and at different periods of life in order to accurately characterize exposure.[22,23, 24]Having done extensive work on the effects of cigarette smoking, Kabat emphasized the importance of putting passive smoke exposure in perspective by comparing it to the risk associated with active smoking, rather than focusing on passive smoking in isolation.[25] In the early 1990s, he served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board panel to evaluate the health effects of passive smoking.[26] The 2003 BMJ paper[21], which sparked a controversy, represented a collaboration between Kabat, who was at Stony Brook, and James Enstrom of UCLA. It was an outgrowth of both researchers’ interest in lung cancer occurring in never smokers. Enstrom had done extensive work using data from the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) large prospective study of 1 million Americans.[27] Kabat’s work had involved case-control studies, which are subject to several biases, which prospective studies are not subject to. Therefore, when Enstrom contacted him in the late 1990s to ask if he would be interested in using the ACS dataset to examine the health effects of passive smoking, Kabat was enthusiastic. The resulting paper is one of the most detailed studies of passive smoking and mortality. The authors failed to find an association of spousal smoking with lung cancer or coronary heart disease mortality. Although the paper was attacked by Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society, who attempted to discredit it based on its funding source[28], the attack had more to do with politics than with a serious scientific critique.[29,30,25] The critics ignored the fact that the tobacco industry had no involvement with the research and that the last 7 years of funding for the 38-year follow-up, which came from the tobacco industry, were awarded by an independent clearing-house overseen by respected scientists. The tobacco industry had no involvement in the paper and was unaware of it until it was published. Furthermore, critics also ignored the fact that the paper had undergone rigorous review by editors and statisticians and that, in their paper, Enstrom and Kabat had demonstrated robust associations of active smoking with mortality, even in light smokers. The editor-in-chief of the BMJ defended publication of the paper, stating that, when high-quality work has been done, failure to publish it because the results are not popular is to distort the historical record.[31,32] Another BMJ editor pointed out that only 3 percent of the irate letters to the editor referred to data from the paper.[32] To date, no one has been able to show any error in the paper, and its results are well within the range of results of prospective studies published in the U.S.[28,29,25] Books Kabat is the author of two books that examine a variety of health risks that have received widespread publicity, as well as other risks that, while important, have received less attention. Hyping Health Risks, published in 2008 by Columbia University Press, examines the cancer risk to the public posed by environmental exposures, such as environmental pollution, electromagnetic fields, residential radon, and passive smoking and shows how these risks have been distorted or overstated.[33]  David A. Savitz reviewed the book writing, “This book forcefully examines that question—What goes wrong when the good intentions of scientists and activists are based on weak epidemiologic findings.”[34]In the New England Journal of Medicine, Barbara Gastel wrote “Despite its minor limitations, Hyping Health Risks can interest and aid a variety of readers… for educated general readers, the book can engage and enlighten regarding the complex context in which known and suspected health risks are identified, explored and acted on.”[35] 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".[36] Reviewing Getting Risk Right (2016) in the Skeptical Inquirer, 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."[37] In a review in the Washington Post, Susan Okie wrote, “His vivid description of the political advocacy, dueling media campaigns and rival faction in these areas make it easy to see why so many people remain worried and uncertain. …After considering issues where science hasn’t put controversies to rest, it’s a relief to read about two cases in which persistent investigators and elegant studies unequivocally nailed down an environmental cause of disease.”[38] Writing in the American Journal of Epidemiology, Patricia Hartge stated, “The problems Kabat describes are enormous and not ‘just academic.’ Bad policy is enacted and valuable research energy is wasted because some epidemiologic topics stay active long after they have been settled.”[39](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/186/3/385/3979721 ) Journalistic writings In addition to peer-reviewed scientific papers, Kabat has written articles for the general public explaining what is known about potential health risks that have received a lot of publicity but which are subject to misunderstanding https://www.geoffreykabat.com . These include: electromagnetic fields (EMF) from electric power lines; the chemical bis-phenol A (BPA); cell phones and brain cancer; pesticides and, particularly, the herbicide glyphosate; the use of Chinese herbs as alternative medicine; the health effects of coffee; and the decline in sperm count. The articles have appeared on Forbes, Slate, Quillette, Issues in Science and Technology, and the Genetic Literacy Project websites. References Extended content 1.     Search Results for author Kabat G. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=kabat+g ) on PubMed. 2.     Wynder, Ernst L; Kabat, Geoffrey C. (March 1984). “The effect of low-yield cigarette smoking on lung cancer risk” Cancer. 62 (6):1223-30.  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2842035/ ) = 3.     Wynder, Ernst L; Augustine A.; Kabat G.C.; Hebert J.R. (February 1988).        “Effect of type of cigarette smoked on bladder cancer risk.” Cancer. 61 (3): 622-7.  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3338029/ ) 4.     Augustine, Annamma; Hebert J.R.; Kabat G.C.; Wynder E.L. (August 1988). “Bladder cancer in relation to cigarette smoking.” Cancer Research. 48 (15:4405-8) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3390836/ ) 5.     Kabat, Geoffrey C. (September 2003). “Fifty years' experience of reduced-tar cigarettes: what do we know about their health effects?” Inhalation Toxicology.  15 (11):1059-102. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12955615/ ) 6.     Kabat, Geoffrey C., Chang CJ, Wynder E.L. (December 1994). “The role of tobacco, alcohol use, and body mass index in oral and pharyngeal cancer.” International Journal of Epidemiology. 23 (6):1137-44.  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7721514/ ) 7.     Kabat, Geoffrey C., Kim MY, Stefanick, et al. (August 2018). “Metabolic obesity phenotypes and risk of colorectal cancer among postmenopausal women.” International Journal of Cancer. 143 (3):543-551. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29488210/) 8.     Kabat, Geoffrey C.; Kim M.Y.; Lee, J.S.; et al. (September 2017). “Metabolic obesity phenotypes and risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women.” Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. 26 (12):1730-35. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28939589/) 9.     Arthur RS; Kabat GC; Kim MY; et al. (April 2019). “Metabolic syndrome and risk of endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women.” Cancer Causes and Control. 30 (4):355-363. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30788634/) 10.  Kabat GC, Park Y.; Hollenbeck, A.R.; et al. (February 2011). “Reproductive factors and exogenous hormone use and risk of adult glioma in women in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study.” International Journal of Cancer. 128 (4):944-50. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20473903/) 11.  Kabat, Geoffrey C; Etgen; A.M.; Rohan, T.E. (October 2010). “Do steroid hormones play a role in the etiology of glioma?” Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention 19 (10):2421-7.(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20841389/) 12.  Kabat, Geoffrey C; Chang CJ; Sparano J.A.; et al. (July 1997). “Urinary estrogen metabolites and breast cancer: a case-control study.” Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Prevention; 6 (7):505-9.(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9232337/) 13.  Greenlee H. ; Chen Y ; Kabat GC; et al. (March 2007). «Variants in estrogen metabolism and biosynthesis genes and urinary estrogen metabolism in women with a family history of breast cancer.” Breast Cancer Research and Treatment 102 (1):111-7. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16850246/)   14.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; O’Leary, Erin S.; Gammon, M.D.; et al. (January 2006). “Estrogen metabolism and breast cancer.” Epidemiology. 17 (1):80-8. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16357599/) 15.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; O’Leary, E; Schoenfeld, E.R.; et al. (September 2003). “Electric blanket use and breast cancer on Long Island.” Epidemiology. 14 (5):514-20. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14501265/) 16.  Schoenfeld, E.R.; O'Leary, E.S., Henderson, K.; Grimson, R.; Kabat, G.C.; Ahnn, S.; Kaune, W.T.; Gammon, M.D.; Leske MC; EBCLIS Group. (July 2003).  “Electromagnetic fields and breast cancer on Long Island: a case-control study.” American Journal of Epidemiology. 158 (1):47-58. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12835286/) 17.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; Anderson M.L.; Heo, M.; et al. (August 2013). “Adult stature and risk of cancer at different anatomic sites in a cohort of postmenopausal women.” Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. 22 (8):1353-63.  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23887996/) 18.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; Heo, M.; Kamensky V.; et al. (March 2013). “Adult height in relation to risk of cancer in a cohort of Canadian women.” International Journal of Cancer. 132 (5):1125-32. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22753236/) 19.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; Kim, M.Y.; Hollenbeck, A.R.; Rohan, T.E. (December 2014). “Attained height, sex, and risk of cancer in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study.” Cancer Causes and Control. 25 (12):1697-706. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25307804/) 20.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; Price William J.; Tarone, Robert E. (April 2021). “On recent meta-analyses of exposure to glyphosate and risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” Cancer Causes and Control. 32 (4):409-414. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33447891/) 21.  Enstrom, James E.; Kabat, Geoffrey C. (May 2003). “Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98.” BMJ. 326.1057. (https://www.bmj.com/content/326/7398/1057)  Doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7398.1057 22.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; Wynder, Ernst L. (March 1984). “Lung cancer in nonsmokers.” Cancer 53:1214-1221.(https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/1097-0142%2819840301%2953%3A5%3C1214%3A%3AAID-CNCR2820530532%3E3.0.CO%3B2-8) 23.  Wynder, Ernst L.; Kabat, Geoffrey C. (1990). “Indoor air quality and lung cancer: A critical assessment.” Indoor Air Quality, International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, pp. 5-15,1990, Springer. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-83904-7_2 ) 24.  Kabat, Geoffrey C.; Stellman, Steven D.; Wynder, Ernst L. (July 1995). “Relation between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in lifetime nonsmokers.” American Journal of Epidemiology. 142 (2): 141–148. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7598113/) 25.  Kabat, Geoffrey C. (September 2023). “Dogmatism, data, and public health: A look back on the 2003 BMJ controversy over passive smoking and mortality.” Quillette (https://quillette.com/2023/09/15/dogmatism-data-and-public-health/ 26.  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking.” EPA/600/6-90/006F, December 1992      (https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-09/documents/passive_smoke.pdf) 27.  Enstrom, J.E.; Heath, C.W., Jr. (September 1999). “Smoking cessation and mortality trends among 118,000 Californians, 1960-1997.” Epidemiology 10 (5):500-12. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10468422/) 28.  Thun, Michael J. “More misleading science from the tobacco industry.” (July 2003) BMJ. 327 (7418) E237-E238. doi: 10.1136/bmjusa.03070002 :352  https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7418/E237) 29.  Enstrom, James E.; Kabat, Geoffrey C. (August 2003). “Authors’ reply” BMJ 327:504 ( https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7413/504) 30.  Enstrom, James E.; Kabat, Geoffrey C. (March 2006). “Environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease mortality in the United States — a meta-analysis and critique.” Inhalation Toxicology. 18 (3):199-210. doi: 10.1080/08958370500434255. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16399662/) 31.  Smith, Richard. “Comment from the editor.” (December 2003).  BMJ. 327:505 (Published 18 December 2003) (https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7413/505 ) 32.  Tonks, Alison. “Summary of Rapid Responses.” (December 2003). BMJ. 327:505 (Published 18 December 2003) (10.1136/bmj.327.7413.505)  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15222325/)   33.  Kabat, Geoffrey C. Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks, Columbia University Press, 2016. 34.  Savitz, David A. (3 March 2009). “Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology: By Geoffrey C. Kabat” (https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwp013). American Journal of Epidemiology. 169 (8): 1039-1041. 35.  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. 978-0-231-141-48-2”. New England Journal of Medicine. 36 (5): 548-549. (https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMbkrev0807040) (https://doi.org/10.1056%2FNEJMbrev0807040 36.  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) (https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/38/6/1746/666619) 37.  Hines, Terence (2017). “Why We Often Get Risks Wrong” (https://web.archive.org/web/20180923194141/https://csicop.org/si/show/why_we_often_get_risks_wrong).Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (4):58-60. Archived from the original (https://www.csicop.org/si/show/why_we_often_get_risks_wrong) on 2018-09-23. Retrieved 23 September 2018. 38.  Okie, Susan (December 2016). “Scientist argues vaccines, GMOs and cell phones are not threats to our well-being.” Washington Post. ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/scientist-argues-vaccines-gmos-and-cell-phones-are-not-threats-to-our-well-being/2016/12/16/56a764f2-9af5-11e6-b3c9-f662adaa0048_story.html ) 39.  Hartge, Patricia. (2017). “Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks” (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Faje%2Fkwx148 ) American Journal of Epidemiology. 186(3): 385-386. Doi:10.1093/aje/kwx148 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Faje%2Fkwx148) Gkabat (talk) 14:26, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done. Seems to be a proposed re-write of the article, whitewashing out the tobacco shenanigans. Bon courage (talk) 19:25, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Any suggestions for how to proceed to correct this egregious distortion of the "BMJ affair" and the defamatory attacks on myself and my co-author? 2601:41:4300:F4E0:B5BA:EA69:992E:5E52 (talk) 12:02, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

The terms we use are important. I would not use the word "whitewashing." I would term this a "corrective" - one for which I have given a lot of substantive documentation. Gkabat (talk) 13:01, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Please see WP:COI. From a quick look, the paper in question has a great deal of coverage in sources as a major example of problematic industry/academic activity, so its inclusion is inevitable for encyclopedic completeness. I shall raise a query at WP:BLPN. Bon courage (talk) 13:56, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I have looked at the COI page, but do not see how it is relevant to the facts of the matter. I have tried to lay out some of the background of the paper and the evidence that contradicts the statements that the paper was "discredited" and that it was "supported by the tobacco industry." I have adduced facts, not opinions, not magazine articles. What about giving weight to these facts -- i.e., the statements from ed-in-chief Richard Smith and editor Alison Tonks? Also, our letter published in the BMJ rebutting many of the charges leveled against us? (I can supply this). To me, this is the crux of the matter. You have to give both sides of the story. The way in which the discussion of the article is presented is simply wrong and libelous when you look at all of the facts. I really don't see what is complicated about this. I'm not sure that any of the Wikipedians want to wade into these documents, but if you don't, you are presenting a badly distorted picture. There is no justification for this defamatory treatment to stay up on the Web harming my reputation. Gkabat (talk) 19:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia prizes independent secondary sources, so the view of those involved do not have that much weight except as interpreted by those. Bon courage (talk) 19:22, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. But the two statements from the Editor-in-Chief Richard Smith and the Editor Alison Tonks at the Brit Med Journal ARE NOT PEOPLE WHO ARE "INVOLVED." They are independent arbiters. I really am having trouble seeing why citing them would not carry weight. We are talking about whether our publication has been "discredited" and whether the tobacco industry had any role in our paper, which it did not. I would think the opinion of the Editor-in-Chief of this prestigious journal and the Editor would be relevant. To me, this is not about conflict-of-interest. It is about two sides of the story. The side that got cited by Wikipedia is the work of militant advocates of anti-smoking policies -- which I am in favor of -- but they distort the science on passive smoking. This is what needs to be understood. I have now written about this in a number of different ways, trying to present this issue objectively and from different angles. I have cited accessible sources, which you could link to. It would be gratifying if someone would try to read the posts I have taken a lot of time to write since July 12 and take a second look at this. Thanks again for your efforts. Gkabat (talk) 23:30, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Later sources on the incident such as this[2] write of the major flaws and undeclared interests of the paper. Bon courage (talk) 04:07, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sending this article. This helps me to clarify the point I have been trying to make in the handful of posts I’ve written on the “Talk” page.

Diethelm and McKee start off by citing examples of the denial of well-established scientific findings: HIV and AIDS, smoking and lung cancer, greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, etc.

They are lumping our paper in with the denial of firmly-established scientific findings. But, in order to do this, they have to ignore much of the results presented in our paper, which contained ten tables and was 3,000 words long. Specifically, Table 10 of our paper showed that active smoking is associated with mortality from lung cancer, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive lung disease. The relationship is a graded one – the more a person smoked, the higher the risk. We even showed an effect in the lightest smokers (smoking 1-9 cigarettes per day).

For Diethelm and McKee to single out our passive smoking result and not pay attention to the overall argument, including the detailed results demonstrating the effects of smoking shows that what is at issue for them is not the quality of work — but, rather, whether we obtained the desired result.

Why did we show the detailed results for active smoking? Because it is important to have a firm picture of the effects of active smoking, about which we have firm data. It is also crucial to compare the effect of passive smoking to effect of active smoking. This is fundamental to a scientific approach.

In contrast to smoking, where the smoker is inhaling the smoke directly into his/her lungs, secondhand smoke is much more diffuse because it is dispersed in a much larger space. Two studies (one at Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the other at Covance Labs in UK) have shown that the exposure of a non-smoker living with a smoker is on the order of one-thousandth that of the average smoker of a pack of cigarettes per day. These two studies yielded very similar results. (By the way, these carefully-done studies do not get a lot of attention in discussions of passive smoking, for the same reason that our paper was attacked. Publishing results that are seen as weakening the anti-smoking movement is dealt with harshly).

In epidemiologic studies it is difficult estimate a person’s secondhand smoke exposure, and most studies use as a “proxy variable” whether the spouse smoked and how many cigarettes the spouse smoked. This is very crude exposure data – not at all like that we obtain in studies of smoking, where people can actually give quite a detailed smoking history (because smoking is an additive behavior and a habitual behavior).

So, researchers obtain results for passive smoking that are “soft” and variable. The relative risks are small – in the range of 1.0 (no association) to 2.0. (The relative risk for a smoker is about 10.0 or higher, and for a heavy smoker, it can be as high as 50.0). In this situation, it is only normal for a researcher to select the higher number to report, because every researcher wants positive findings and because journals are less likely to publish “null results.” (We have demonstrated this tendency in the passive smoking/heart disease literature).

All we were doing was reporting the results of our study — one of the most detailed studies on the question and one that had more fine-grained data than most studies. In science, you have to publish the results you obtained in your study, and try to learn from them. We concluded that the effects of passive smoking on mortality may be weaker than has been posited by weak studies in which, often, the highest of the various risk estimates was selected for publication.

In view of the much greater dilution of secondhand smoke, and in view of the two exposure studies referred to above, it is not surprising that a careful epidemiologic study did not detect an association. It is not quite the outrage that Diethelm and McKee want to portray it as.

Diethelm and McKee are on a crusade. They are not interested in these subtle (i.e., scientific) issues. They, and others who attacked our paper, show no evidence of having read the details of our results and the case we make. They are only interested in the headline, not in the considerable work that went into collecting and analyzing the data.

You have to know that much of what gets published is of very poor quality. But if you get the result that people want to hear, the poor quality is often ignored.

In science you have an obligation to publish your findings, whether they are popular or not. This is the only way one makes progress.

For Diethelm and McKee, we have to be shills of the tobacco industry in order to “neutralize” our inconvenient result. But if they had paid closer attention to all of our results, they would have seen the very powerful indictment of the effects of smoking, even at a very low level. Gkabat (talk) 15:43, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Previously, I have tried to explain how the Wikipedia page for Geoffrey Kabat presents a one-sided and distorted picture of the 2003 BMJ paper on secondhand tobacco smoke and mortality. The page violates Wikipedia’s own standards presented in Pillar #2. It relies on press releases and attacks on the paper in the heat of the moment. These attacks were political in nature, since they were intended to discredit a scientific paper which suggested that the health risks of secondhand smoke might be weaker that is generally believed.

I have studied the Wikipedia page on Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#Popular_press

There are few meta-analyses of passive smoking in the United States. Studies conducted in Europe and Asia may not be relevant to the United States, since house size and ventilation are likely to be different. One meta-analysis of studies of secondhand tobacco smoke exposure and coronary heart disease was conducted by James Enstrom and Geoffrey Kabat. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16399662/

Since a key issue here is the comparison of the effects of active smoking with those of the much more diffuse secondhand tobacco smoke, I refer to this comparison in two large studies: 1) Enstrom and Kabat, BMJ 2003; and Islami, Marlow, Thomson, et al. Proportion and number of cancer cases and deaths attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in the United States, 2019. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 2024. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38990124/

Weak association

Secondhand smoke exposure is what is referred to as a “weak association,” i.e., a “relative risk” between 1.0 and 2.0.

https://academic.oup.com/ije/article-abstract/19/Supplement_1/S5/715507?redirectedFrom=fulltext

In contrast, the relative risk of developing lung cancer for a current smoker is on the order of 10.0, compared to a never-smoker, and that for a heavy smoker is 20.0-50.0.

What needs to be understood is that when you are dealing with a weak association, the results are less uncertain than when dealing with a more substantial risk, such as that of smoking. This is due both to small numbers (lung cancer among people who never smoked is very rare) and also to imprecise measurement. Because of the difficulty of measuring a weak association, some studies may find a significant association, while other studies may not. This is to be expected. It is a mistake to think that because a study of secondhand tobacco smoke exposure found a statistically significant association, it is superior to a study that failed to find a statistically significant association. In fact, our BMJ had more detailed information on secondhand smoke exposure than most studies and, therefore, higher-quality exposure information. Everything depends on the quality of the data in a study.

BMJ study 2003

As I explained previously, we went to great lengths to examine the association of active smoking with mortality from lung cancer, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive lung disease mortality. This is important because smokers can tell researchers, with a fair degree of accuracy, how much they smoked, when they started smoking, and whether they have quit. Also, there is a great range of exposure, from smokers who are light smokers to smokers of 3 or more packs per day. We demonstrated dose-related associations of smoking with mortality from all 3 categories. This was true even for “light” smokers, i.e., smokers of 1-9 cigarettes per day. This is important because it showed that we could pick up the relatively subtle effect of light smoking. The fact that we demonstrated a strong association of active smoking with the 3 causes of mortality that increased in a graded fashion with increasing levels of smoking, in both men and women, provides consistent and impressive data for the effects of active smoking. Our results for secondhand smoke exposure need to be seen in this context. Secondhand smoke exposure did not show a significant association with mortality. In contrast to active smoking, which involves inhaling the smoke directly into the lungs, secondhand smoke exposure is difficult to characterize because the smoke is diffused over a wider area.

New American Cancer Society study by Islami et al. (2024)

A recent paper published by the American Cancer Society https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38990124/ reported estimates of the number and proportion of cancers attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in 2014 in the U.S. Risk factors included: cigarette smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, HPV infection, H. pylori infection, low dietary fiber, UV radiation, processed meat, low/fruit/vegetable intake, secondhand smoke, red meat, low dietary calcium, etc. Cigarette smoking was the leading risk factor contributing to cancer cases and deaths (20 percent of all cancers and 30 percent of cancer deaths) (see Figure 4, bottom panel: both sexes combined). The next strongest (but far weaker) risk factor was excess body weight, followed by alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, low fruit/vegetable consumption, UV radiation, HPV infection, processed meat, HCV infection, H. pylori infection, low dietary fiber, and secondhand smoke, which ranked twelfth. The population-attributable fraction (PAF) for secondhand smoke was 0.7 compared to 28.5 for cigarette smoking. But, whereas the estimate for cigarette smoking is highly statistically significant, the estimate for secondhand smoke appears not to be statistically significant (Figure 4). This is clear from the “error bars” for secondhand smoke, which span the entire yellow bar. Note the contrast with “low dietary fiber” and “red meat,” where the lower error bound is clearly visible, indicating that this association is statistically significant. Although the authors discuss the results for most of the risk factors they examined, there is no discussion or comment on the results for secondhand smoke.

This large analysis makes clear just how small and uncertain the association of secondhand smoke exposure with lung cancer is, while underscoring the contrast between the effects of smoking itself and those of secondhand smoke exposure.

Enstrom and Kabat meta-analysis of secondhand smoke and coronary heart disease

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16399662/

Abstract

Several major meta-analyses have concluded that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) increases the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) by about 25% among never smokers. However, these reviews have excluded a large portion of the epidemiologic evidence on questionable grounds and have been inconsistent in the selection of the results that are included. We conducted an updated meta-analysis and critique of the evidence on ETS exposure and its relationship to death from CHD among never smokers. Our focus is on the U.S. cohort studies, which provide the vast majority of the available evidence. ETS exposure is assessed in terms of spousal smoking, self-reported estimates, and personal monitoring. The epidemiologic results are summarized by means of overall relative risks and dose-response relationships. The methodological issues of publication bias, exposure misclassification, and confounding are discussed. Several large studies indicate that spousal smoking history is a valid measure of relative exposure to ETS, particularly for females. Personal monitoring of nonsmokers indicates that their average ETS exposure from a smoking spouse is equivalent in terms of nicotine exposure to smoking less than 0.1 cigarettes per day. When all relevant studies are included in the meta-analysis and results are appropriately combined, current or ever exposure to ETS, as approximated by spousal smoking, is associated with roughly a 5% increased risk of death from CHD in never smokers. Furthermore, there is no dose-response relationship and no elevated risk associated with the highest level of ETS exposure in males or females. An objective assessment of the available epidemiologic evidence indicates that the association of ETS with CHD death in U.S. never smokers is very weak. Previous assessments appear to have overestimated the strength of the association.

Editors at BMJ

Both the editor-in-chief of the BMJ at the time, Richard Smith, and the editor Alison Tonks defended our paper in comments published in the journal. These documents are behind a paywall and not accessible through PubMed. However, I have pdfs of these documents, which I am happy to supply.

If anyone had found evidence of fraud and serious errors in the paper, the paper would have been retracted. In fact, no one found any such fatal errors.

Conclusion

In view of the above, I think it becomes clear that the attack on our paper by Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society and by others who followed suit was political rather than scientific. It was motivated by defending anti-smoking restrictions and weakening the position of tobacco companies — objectives that we support. However, in order to make their case, Thun and others felt it necessary to totally ignore the contrast between cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke exposure and to overstate the effects of secondhand smoke exposure.

All the above evidence indicates that the effect of secondhand smoke exposure is weaker than generally believed. Now, 21 years after publication of our BMJ paper, the American Cancer Society has come out and published a major paper which shows just how much smaller and how much more uncertain the association of secondhand smoke is compared to the association with cigarette smoking itself. Gkabat (talk) 18:41, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I have been trying, repeatedly, since July 12, 2024 to explain on the “Talk page” for Geoffrey Kabat that the current entry is one-sided and defamatory. Wikipedia states that it takes seriously false and defamatory statements about living persons. But I see no response to the specific points I have raised and for which I have provided credible documentation. This post recaps the key points.

The third sentence in the first paragraph states that “He was co-author of a discredited BMJ study funded by the tobacco industry, that erroneously said there was no association between secondhand smoke and health problems.”

The second paragraph goes on to give a fuller — but equally one-sided — account of the paper.

The paper has not been discredited. It has been attacked by tobacco control activists, who make unsupported allegations, which are accepted as the truth. Sometimes the loudest voices are not the most truthful. Furthermore, it is false to say that we “erroneously said there is no association between secondhand smoke and health problems.” We were merely reporting the results of OUR study.

There is another side to the story that Wikipedia editors have avoided paying any attention to:

Fact: Center for Indoor Air Research (CIAR) funding was insulated from tobacco industry influence and grants were reviewed by academic scientists. No scientist funded by CIAR has been criticized for taking “tobacco industry funds” except for Enstrom.

Fact: Our paper has not been discredited. We responded fully to the criticisms in our response in the BMJ. You can’t cite references supporting one side and NOT cite references supporting the other side:

Richard Smith: https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7413/505.2

Alison Tonks   https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7413/505.1

Enstrom and Kabat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC188404/

The letters from Richard Smith and Alison Tonks are partially cut off by the paywall, but I can supply a pdf of both letters. Reference [3] by Thun in the current text is also partially cut off behind the paywall.

Fact: That the editor-in-chief of the BMJ and a second editor defended paper is important. If serious errors or abuse had been found, the paper would have been retracted by the journal. This is implicit in the letters of Richard Smith and Alison Tonks.

Fact: A recent study from the American Cancer Society shows that the risk from passive smoking is extremely weak and negligible when compared to active smoking. https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3322/caac.21858

Fact: In a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of studies of passive smoking and coronary heart disease in the U.S., we showed how risks from studies were selected to obtain a positive association. When the most appropriate risks were used, the association was very weak. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16399662/

You have to cite the other side of this story. Gkabat (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I just want to provide links that work and contain the complete content of the letters from Editor-in-Chief Richard and Editor Alison Tonks, which were cut off and behind a paywall. These are key documents that support the case I am making.

Richard Smith: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC188406/

Alison Tonks: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC188405/ Gkabat (talk) 22:57, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

question re: whether all of the sources are consistent with WP:BLP

Isn't the ACS press release a WP:SPS? WP:BLPSPS says never to use SPS for BLP articles. WP:BLPPRIMARY also says to "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources," and not to use court records, yet the article makes repeated use of Kessler's ruling. Are court rulings distinct from court records when it comes to BLPs? Raising this here before I edit these out of the article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:46, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

A press release from a major organization is not a SPS. Aren't the court document applying to scientific work, not a person? Bon courage (talk) 06:04, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Why isn't a press release from a major organization a SPS? It was written and published by the ACS itself, not by a secondary source, and WP:USESPS explicitly lists press releases as SPS. As for the court ruling, seems to me that it's still material about Kabat; if it weren't about him, it wouldn't be on his page. If we're unable to work this out here, we can ask someone at the WP:BLPN to weigh in. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe the intention behind court records is because it encourages WP:OR, as stated in WP:BLPPRIMARY "... to support assertions". However, I do not believe there is anything against using court records or even rulings as part of further establishing fact, such as specific findings of the court (eg establishing what the court through review of the evidence has established as true or factual).

Regarding WP:SPS, generally I have seen this in regards to establishing self-promotion or notability. Additionally, it says "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" - and I believe that ACS would qualify as such, as clearly someone who has been deeply and specifically involved in smoking and cancer, as well as being often cited and/or published by other generally reliable sources who are independent. TiggerJay (talk) 17:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: court rulings, I went looking in the talk pages for BLP and BLPN to see if this had been discussed, and the most relevant discussion that I found was the following recent summary on a closed discussion that proposed amending WP:BLPPRIMARY to allow court rulings to be used: "There is consensus against amending BLPPRIMARY to explicitly permit citation of published court judgements. While there is limited support for not having a categorical prohibition on citing court documents, most editors believe that judicial documents require interpretation, and the explicit permission of citing court documents would WP:NOR. Whether there should be a explicit prohibition on citing court documents may require additional discussion." I'm inclined to limit the sources on this page to secondary discussions of the court case that explicitly mention the paper.

Re: the press release, the last sentence in that paragraph that you quoted from says "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer." So I think the ACS press release should be excluded. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:10, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd support that too. It doesn't even mention Kabat: [3]. SmartSE (talk) 19:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

RE: court rulings - I agree that the biggest problem with court documents/rulings is the temptation for OR. However, we often see cases listed as reference, especially as supporting documents for objective facts that to not compel SYNTH or OR. That being said, I would agree that most of the references to such should be removed from this article.

RE: press release - I would disagree that ACS is a third-party source as far as this article is concern, in fact according to that link, it most definitely is first party as someone with a vested interest in the contention. However, what SmartSE puts forward appears accurate, while it is likely that the ACS article is in reference to the specific research described in this article, it does not clearly state it, and does not include Kabat's name, so this is probably another good removal from the article itself. TiggerJay (talk) 20:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Given the apparent consensus, I've gone ahead and removed the press release and info cited to it. The content could be replaced if there is a secondary source that repeats their message. SmartSE (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The other primary source that we should be careful about is the 2006 court ruling. It would be far better for us to cite a secondary source which summarises the report, rather than us picking out quotes from a 1600 page document. SmartSE (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Tiggerjay@FactOrOpinion@Smartse

I greatly appreciate this discussion of the BMJ press release and the Kessler ruling. As to the Kessler ruling, to me, this was a show trial, taking a serious scientific publication and holding it up as a prime example of racketeering. One has to understand that there is very aggressive anti-smoking movement that goes under the name of "cancer control" and these people judge everything in the light of whether it advances the cause of discrediting the tobacco industry. I am totally against people smoking and against tobacco companies profiting from people's addiction to nicotine. Our paper was not funded by the tobacco industry. I've tried to explain that CIAR was a middle-man entity that allocated funds from tobacco monies to bonafide researchers doing work on indoor air pollution. The people behind the RICO case were the usual -- Stanton Glanz, Jon Samet, Lisa Bero, and Thun. This was not about whether our study was correct, it was really about our coming out and saying that any relationship was weak. But our study is very anti-smoking!! Focusing on passive smoking actually has the effect of trivializing smoking. If everything is carcinogenic, then nothing is carcinogenic.

I know I am not weighing in on what citations conform to WP usage. However, I will shortly be weighing in on what is now implicit in the current version of the bio -- that is, that the ACS attack on us was political in nature. As a political attack, no one worried about smearing the reputations of two established researchers or adhering to scientific standards of discourse. Next week I will post some additional material, which, I believe, will help clarify the political campaign that I am referring to. Gkabat (talk) 14:28, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay@Smartse

I just noticed that, with the addition of the new material to the bio, which is very well done, three sentences describing my 45-year career in epidemiology got edited out (inadvertently, I assume). After the intro, "Geoffrey C. Kabat is an American epidemiologist, cancer researcher, and author," the omitted material is: "Over a forty-five year career, Kabat has studied a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and environmental exposures in relation to cancer and other diseases, and mortality. He is most noted for his work characterizing the role of smoking, alcohol consumption, passive smoking, diet, obesity, the metabolic syndrome, and attained height, as well as environmental exposures, including pesticides and electromagnetic fields, in relation to the risk of cancer at different sites."

This material could either go at the very beginning, before the mention of "In 2003 he was co-author of a disputed study..." which I think is most logical, or could go right before the "Tobacco study" section, which I think is less logical. Gkabat (talk) 20:22, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done hagiographic self promotion. Theroadislong (talk) 22:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Theroadislong@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay

That is 100 percent description of a career. It is factual. It is backed by PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=kabat+g&sort=date I don't see how one can call it self-promotion. I hope other editors will see that if anything belongs in the bio of scientist this kind of description certainly belongs. I am not referring to the exact wording but the content belongs. Gkabat (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Theroadislong@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay@Smartse

As it stands, after the two brief introductory sentences, the article mentions the "disputed paper" before there is any sketch of the career that the paper came out of. Doesn't this strike anyone as illogical? Gkabat (talk) 22:53, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gkabat, re: content having been removed from the page, no, it was not removed inadvertently. On the article page, you'll see a link towards the top titled "View history." If you click on that, it will take you to a list of all edits that have ever been made to the page, and you can view the individual edits via the "Compare selected revisions" tool. Each edit should have an edit summary, though some editors omit those. You'll see that the edit removing the content you quoted has a summary that says "Delete overview of scientific work that was just someone's attempted summary of a search results page on pubmed." The problem is that the source of the two sentences that were removed -- a collection of PubMed paper titles/links -- isn't an acceptable source for WP content, per this guideline. Do you know of a newspaper that has used you as an expert and said a bit about your background? That would be an acceptable source. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to deal with all of the WP guidelines that result in a page that doesn't capture what a CV would capture. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:18, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion Thanks for this explanation. Yes, it does seem strange that WP requires a description of the highlights of my career from a newspaper. I remember reading bios of colleagues and there was always sentence of this kind summarizing the highlights of the person’s career. I’ll see if there is anything that fills the bill. 73.141.174.25 (talk) 02:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gkabat, it doesn't have to be from a newspaper per se. It has to be written by a third party and appear in what WP considers a reliable source, and I figured that a newspaper article was the most likely place for that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:42, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion@Tiggerjay@Smartse@Theroadislong

The Epidemiology Monitor is the indispensable newsletter in our field of epidemiology. In November, 2009 and, again, in February, 2017, the Epidemiology Monitor devoted featured, front-page, and lengthy interviews with me about my two books: Hyping Health Risks and Getting Risk Right. The interviews are probing and delve into questions about how to assess various health and environmental risks. They provide a valuable discussion of how the results of scientific studies can get sensationalized, prompting public anxiety and confusion, as well as regulatory involvement.

The two interviews should be posted under “Further reading” or “External links”:

https://www.epimonitor.net/Epi-Docs/Archives/EM%20NOV%2009.pdf

https://issuu.com/theepidemiologymonitor/docs/february-2017-the-epidemiology-moni Gkabat (talk) 14:17, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Gkabat Wikipedia has little interest in what interviews say because they are not independent sources. Theroadislong (talk) 15:50, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion @Theroadislong @Smartse

A new article by me has come out in Reason magazine.

https://reason.com/2024/10/16/we-were-wrong-to-panic-about-secondhand-smoke/

It discusses the results of a major new study from the American Cancer Society on prevention of risks/exposures for cancer. It shows that secondhand smoke poses a very small and negligible risk of lung cancer. In contrast, smoking itself is, buy far, the strongest risk factor for cancer. In other words, the results of this study from the American Cancer Society are in complete accord with the results of our British Medical Journal article of 2003. The Geoffrey Kabat page should be updated to refer to this article and the new American Cancer Society study. Gkabat (talk) 13:58, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

If you wrote it, is not an independent source, we would need to wait until a third party reported on the content. Theroadislong (talk) 14:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Theroadislong

I understand. Thank you. Gkabat (talk) 13:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Some sources

Looking for some additional sources, I found:

• A US Right to Know article mostly criticizing him
• This interview by a newsroom apparently run by two people
• [https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/29/case-footnote-wagging-article This "rapid response" to a study by him saying he stopped received funding other than from tobacco sources at the time because of bad scientific practices, which I am not sure if is a reliable sources because I don't know how much responses are reviewed before they are published
• This university interview
• This other university interview

Mrfoogles (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Books

Coming back to this after being away for a bit, and the books section seems to not fit right. At the moment I cannot point to specific policies regarding the problem, but the general sentiment is that the section seems to be preoccupied with hashing out that the subject extends beyond WP:BLP1E but the section itself seems to basically establish the credibility and lack of credibility of the author. The end result of that section "appears" to be the result of extensive editing, without regard to how the results fit into the article itself and WP:WEIGHT. For example the first book "and said that the book contained "several excellent and instructive chapters" but "lacks focus"." -- from reading that and without looking at the edit history it would seem that the COI included the first part, and someone else tagged it with the second part, in somewhat an attempt to discredit the subject. It says "something" and virtually nothing tat the same time. Whereas the following two books seems to have a lot of reference stuffing to add and/or subtract credibility.... In the end the high level view of the books sections to be more about an edit war on trying to stuff into this subject's credibility statements about the subject. And then of course there is the last one, "Slava" which basically adds nothing of value, other than trying to establish further credibility?

I think it would probably be better if the books were simply edited down to a list of books with their broad topic identified, this would also help with the issue of WP:UNDUE. Optionally there could be a section lead paragraph that presents that the books as engaging and instructive, but how the writing lacks balance and focus -- those seems to be common threads of the citations, but (this option) perhaps borderlines on OR/Synth. TiggerJay (talk) 15:40, 5 November 2024 (UTC)