As a former Board member of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR), I can attest to the fact that as an organization, we used to attack the tobacco companies for cherry-picking studies that supported their claims, hiding key information from the public to make it appear that there was no evidence to show that secondhand smoke is harmful.
For example, the tobacco companies would point to one study which failed to find a connection between secondhand smoke and heart disease, while ignoring all the rest of the studies. Of course, we criticized the industry, arguing that all studies need to be considered and that failure to do so is misleading the public by hiding key scientific information.
Today, I report that Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights is itself engaging in cherry-picking by only sharing one side of the scientific evidence on the relationship between smoking bans and immediate reductions in heart disease.
In this document, ANR purports to share with the public a list of the U.S. studies examining the short-term effects of smoking bans on heart attack rates. Under the category of "United States," ANR lists just one study - a study which concluded that smoking bans do lead to immediate reductions in heart attacks.
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