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Si Young Kim
Professor Kyongson Park
English 106
18 November 2013
An Annotated Bibliography on the Truth about Secondhand Smoke
Arnett, Jerome. “The Emperor Has No Clothes: The Truth about Secondhand Smoke.” The
Heartland Institute. n.p., 02 Aug. 2008. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Jerome Arnett Jr., a pulmonologist in Elkins, a member of the American College of Chest
Physicians, and a scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health, informs the
people in the world that their belief about the harmfulness of the secondhand smoke is totally
wrong. He claims that the reports published by the federal government about how involuntary
smoking causes lung cancer are fallacious by offering weak epidemiological evidence. One of
the reasons that the author gives to support his claim is that the research done by the federal
government is full of flawed assumptions. For example, the agency made an assumption that
because there is an association between active smoking and lung cancer, there also should be an
association between secondhand smoking and lung cancer, which later proven to be incorrect by
a statistic.
My Assessment: The article offers lists of other helpful reasons to support the claim that
secondhand smoke is not as fatal as what many people normally think. The federal government’s
false reports brainwash people to believe that secondhand smoking is fatal that there is nothing
more harmful. When you actually look closely at the articles or the reports about the harmfulness
of passive smoking, the statistically or scientifically proven evidence is hardly found but they
keep insisting that secondhand smoke causes cancer and many other diseases. His arguments are
useful to prove that people’s false assumption about harmfulness of passive smoking is incorrect.
An Annotated Bibliography on Passive Smoking
Luckhurst, Tim. “Passive Smoking: Is there convincing evidence that it’s harmful?.” The
Independent. n.p., 02 May 2006. Web. 16 Nov. 2013.
Tim Luckhurst, a British journalist and the Professor of Journalism at the University of Kent who
is the founding head of the university’s center for journalism, emphasizes the fact that there is no
convincing evidence that passive smoking is harmful. He claims that there is no proof that
secondhand smoke kills people, and many researches and reports, which claiming that passive
smoking causes lung cancer, don’t prove the association between exposure to secondhand smoke
and risk for lung cancer. He states that out of 23 studies have been published on secondhand
smoke, only one has statistical evidence on relation between chance of getting lung cancer and
exposure to secondhand smoke at the workplace. He also states that campaigners are pretending
that there is proof that secondhand smoke kills people
My Assessment: This article gives firm evidence that there is no association between
passive smoking and lung cancer. All the articles claiming the harmfulness of second smoking
never give a single scientifically proven evidence that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer.
People who claim that cigarette smoke is fatal to non-smokers are making a false assumption. I
totally agree with him because I meet many people who claim that secondhand smoke is bad for
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their health without any logic or evidence. He provides logical evidence which can alter people’s
thought about secondhand smoking.
Simpson, Terry. “The Myth of Second Hand Smoke.” Your Doctor’s Orders. n.p., 27 Jan. 2009.
Web. 16 Nov. 2013.
Szabo, Liz. “Second hand smoke kills 600,000 a year worldwide.” USA Today. USA Today., 26
Nov. 2010. Web. 16 Nov. 2013.
Rabin, Roni. “A New Cigarette Hazard: ‘Third-Hand Smoke.” The New York Times. The New
York Times., 02 Jan. 2009. Web. 16 Nov. 2013.