Minor Thoughts from me to you

Over at Reason Magazine, Steve Chapman tackles infant mortality. He says the high U.S. rate is the result of American lifestyles, not of American health care.

No one denies the problem. Our infant mortality rate is double that of Japan or Sweden. But we live different lives, on average, than people in those places. We suffer more obesity (about 10 times as much as the Japanese), and we have more births to teenagers (seven times more than the Swedes). Nearly 40 percent of American babies are born to unwed mothers.

Factors like these are linked to low birth weight in babies, which is a dangerous thing. In a 2007 study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists June O'Neill and Dave O'Neill noted that "a multitude of behaviors unrelated to the health care system such as substance abuse, smoking and obesity" are connected "to the low birth weight and preterm births that underlie the infant death syndrome."

Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, also attributes the gap largely to conduct. Comparing white Americans to Norwegians in his 1995 book, The Tyranny of Numbers, Eberstadt concluded that "white America's higher rates of infant mortality are explained not by poverty (as conventionally construed) or by medical care but rather by the habits, actions, and indeed lifestyles of a critical portion of its parents." Whites are not unique in those types of behavior.

African-American babies are far more likely to die than white ones, which is often taken as evidence that poverty and lack of health insurance are to blame. That's entirely plausible until you notice another racial/ethnic gap: Hispanics of Mexican or Central or South American ancestry not only do consistently better than blacks on infant mortality, they do better than whites. Social disadvantage doesn't explain very much.

The University of Pittsburgh, my alma mater, released an interesting report today. Apparently, smokers aren't just addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes. Smoking creates a link between the pleasurable environment a person is in and the cigarette that they are smoking.

The smoker puffing away in the corner might be hooked on more than just nicotine. A 15-year study by University of Pittsburgh researchers suggests that nicotine also enhances the pleasure smokers get from their surroundings when they smoke and creates a psychological link between that amplified satisfaction and cigarettes.

Without discounting nicotine as a powerful primary reinforcer, Donny said, the Pitt research proposes that nicotine also amplifies the satisfaction smokers get from their environment, from the smell of cigarette smoke to drinking in a favorite bar. This second action of nicotine is known as a reinforcement enhancing effect. Smokers associate the heightened enjoyment with cigarettes and continue smoking to recapture that sensation.

"If people were just after nicotine," Caggiula asked, "why don't they get addicted to it in other ways such as drinking it or shooting it into their arm? But people don't do those things-they smoke cigarettes. There has to be something else at work here other than just an easy way to get nicotine. We're not saying that focusing on the physical addiction to nicotine is worthless, but it's incomplete."

Interesting.

Police officials in North Platte, Nebraska are moving dangerously close to an act of pure insanity:

In response to a recent report from the U.S. Surgeon General about the dangers of second-hand smoke, local police officials report they are preparing to crack down on drivers who expose their children to second-hand smoke.

The report shows second-hand smoke is particularly harmful to young children whose developing bodies are especially vulnerable. Second-hand smoke can cause a number of life-threatening childhood illnesses such as asthma.

"With that in mind, we are researching to determine whether law enforcement has probable cause to arrest anyone exposing children to second-hand smoke inside a vehicle," Gutschenritter said. He added the police department is working with the county attorney to determine if smoking in a vehicle with children present would be considered child abuse.

Child abuse in Nebraska is punishable by a year in jail and / or a $1000 fine. Failing to buckle-up your child is punishable by a $25 fine.

Says Michael Siegel

Do you mean to tell me that to prevent the mere risk of some ear infections and respiratory infections, the Lincoln County Tobacco Coalition is willing to support the imprisonment of parents, removing them from their kids for a period of up to one year? You can't be serious. It is far more devastating, to be sure, for children to have a parent removed from them, than for the child to be at increased potential risk of an ear or upper respiratory infection.

There's no other way to put it. If the North Platte police department goes ahead with this, they will prove themselves to be complete idiots. Second-hand smoke is nowhere near as dangerous as these "experts" make it out to be. I should know. My parents are not smokers, but my aunt is. Some of my fondest childhood memories involving going outside with my aunt, while she smoked. She smoked while driving me around town on many occasions. My lungs have suffered no ill effects. Whatever risk of heart disease I may face is due to my weight -- not to her cigarettes.

It is (or should be) absolutely unbelievable that her behavior is worthy of either an immense fine or jail time. "The land of the free" is being destroyed by these hysterical public health "experts". How else do you describe a country where you have the freedom to do anything except for that which might possibly harm you in some ill-defined manner?