According to a new report by the US Surgeon General, smoking just one cigarette can trigger a heart attack.\u00c2\u00a0 Dr. Regina Benjamin also claims that even brief exposure to second hand smoke can have the same effect.\u00c2\u00a0 She backs up this claim with a list of hundreds of people who have had myocardial infarctions after one smoke or one whiff of SHS.<\/p>\n
I know, I know, I’m being silly.\u00c2\u00a0 She doesn’t have hundreds of examples.\u00c2\u00a0 Or dozens.\u00c2\u00a0 Or one<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s simply continuing the long and time-honored Surgeon General’s\u00c2\u00a0 tradition of Making Up Shit.<\/p>\n For decades we’ve been told tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals.\u00c2\u00a0 Now\u00c2\u00a0 that number has magically jumped to 7,000.\u00c2\u00a0 Not for any reason, it just has, because she said so.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t that sound scary?\u00c2\u00a0 Of course,\u00c2\u00a0 there are nearly 3,000 chemicals in a cup of coffee and over 10,000 chemicals in most meals.*<\/p>\n And once again we’re warned there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke.\u00c2\u00a0 There are safe levels of exposure to arsenic, cyanide, strychnine, hell, everything except tobacco smoke.<\/p>\n Imagine the reaction if she claimed there was no safe level of exposure to campfire smoke.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d be laughed out of the office.<\/p>\n I know, I’m being silly again.\u00c2\u00a0 In reality it would result in\u00c2\u00a0 comprehensive bans on campfires.\u00c2\u00a0 For the childreeeeen, of course.<\/p>\n