Germans fight back against anti-smoking campaigns

[pcgeek11]

They should be able to, right up until the moment that they hire an employee.

At that point, they have to give them a safe working environment.

The employee has a choice too...

 

[actuarial]

The employee has a choice too...

So then the employer should be able to run a business that:
- pays $2 / hour
- has a mandatory 72 hour work week (no overtime pay)
- does not provide any breaks/lunch time (paid or unpaid)
- does not provide any safety equipment
- does not provide statutory holidays (or any overtime on holidays)

The employee can choose not to work there, right?

 

[zsdersw]

So then the employer should be able to run a business that:
- pays $2 / hour
- has a mandatory 72 hour work week (no overtime pay)
- does not provide any breaks/lunch time (paid or unpaid)
- does not provide any safety equipment
- does not provide statutory holidays (or any overtime on holidays)

The employee can choose not to work there, right?

Yes.

If you think any of those things will actually happen even if an employer were free to do so, you're not paying attention.

 

[p0nd]

Who determines what "adequate" is? "Experts"? Whose payroll are these "experts" on and what possible motives could they have?

You may put a lot of faith and gravitas in wholly inconclusive and arbitrary determinations of what "adequate ventilation" means made by various "experts"... but I don't and neither should anyone else.

Whenever anyone tells me an exact amount of something is dangerous to my health or a specific amount of something is needed to ensure it I am always skeptical. How was this exact amount determined? Upon what sample size is their data and conclusions based? Who sponsors the research? These are all questions we should ask before blindly believing things we're told by "experts".

Do you have any knowledge about how things like LD50 and toxicity are determined, or is this just a bunch of rhetorical questions? I don't mean this in a rude way, because it's not always common knowledge.

Most toxicology studies are done by universities and are funded by grants. There are a lot of guidelines that acute/chronic toxicity studies must follow, here's an example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567743/
http://law.justia.com/cfr/title16/16-2.0.1.3.53.0.1.44.html

You can see from the first link that there are several different standard study designs used. The benefits of using a standard protocol are obvious, especially since in a toxicity study we want the results to be reliable. The second link is a lot about the regulatory aspect of it, for example how the FDA or EPA or whoever decides to set some limit for some chemical in food, water, or whatever.

After the toxic dose is determined in animal studies, the determined "safe limit" for humans is set to be 100x smaller by the regulatory agency to account for difference in the species biology and interpersonal differences in sensitivity to the chemical. That may seem extreme but as the saying goes, err on the side of caution.

You're right that it matters who funds the study. As an example cig companies have funded lots of independent, non-uni studies to produce the result that secondhand smoke isn't harmful, which is contrary to the conclusions reached by other studies. Or a professor might have an agenda that s/he hides.

re: your last sentence, There are a lot of problems with journalism reporting science, which leads to public confusion about the matter in the article and of science itself. Though I do think it is improving, slowly.
1. the reporter may not understand the science or the experiment, leading to misquotes and bad conclusions, poor explanations of the experimental design, etc.
2. words like "experts" are used, when an expert could be some guy who has a conflict of interest, someone in a different field, and so on. This goes along with a general simplification of many terms/ideas in the article, to make it more "accessible."
3. the scientific studies/journal articles in question are not linked (and if they are they are often behind a paywall which is another problem), so the reader loses a lot of information there.

 

[zsdersw]

Do you have any knowledge about how things like LD50 and toxicity are determined, or is this just a bunch of rhetorical questions? I don't mean this in a rude way, because it's not always common knowledge.

Most toxicology studies are done by universities and are funded by grants. There are a lot of guidelines that acute/chronic toxicity studies must follow, here's an example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567743/
http://law.justia.com/cfr/title16/16-2.0.1.3.53.0.1.44.html

You can see from the first link that there are several different standard study designs used. The benefits of using a standard protocol are obvious, especially since in a toxicity study we want the results to be reliable. The second link is a lot about the regulatory aspect of it, for example how the FDA or EPA or whoever decides to set some limit for some chemical in food, water, or whatever.

It's rhetorical, but I also knew that universities do a lot of studies funded by grants. That doesn't mean I place a lot of faith in their results.

 

[Yreka]

Meaning the slippery slope could be the govt bans the consumption of a pull pork sandwich.

Ill give you my sammich when you take it from my cold dead hands!

 

[p0nd]

It's rhetorical, but I also knew that universities do a lot of studies funded by grants. That doesn't mean I place a lot of faith in their results.

Why not? They are subject to peer review before any sort of resorts are published.

Or are you distrustful of all scientific studies?

 

[theeedude]

How about you libertarians lecturing Germany pay attention to what it has actually accomplished. Germans get 5 weeks paid vacation, we get zero. Germany has had universal health care for over 100 years, we are still spending almost twice as much while having tens of millions uninsured, and a lower life expectancy. Of course you'd say, that's socialism, that's bad for business, they must be uncompetitive. Wrong, as usual. Germany has a huge trade surplus with 6% unemployment, while "good for business" US has a huge trade deficit with 9% unemployment. So before lecturing Germany on health and labor policies, how about we learn from them and fix our own mess first?

 

[hal2kilo]

Ill give you my sammich when you take it from my cold dead hands!

Mmmmm pullllllllled pork ahhhhhhhahhhahhh

 

[Eos]

Ill give you my sammich when you take it from my cold dead hands!

The pulled pork looks delicious, but the turtle dick I could do without...

 

[Schadenfroh]

Germans get 5 weeks paid vacation, we get zero.

That depends entirely on your job. My parents get that amount of (paid) time off (my mother even more), I will start out with 2 weeks (plus standard holidays) when my career begins in the coming months, but it will rise with the seniority I gain.

Germany has had universal health care for over 100 years

Yet they do not have a single-payer system, the dream of half this forum.

lower life expectancy

Our lower life expectancy is largely self-inflicted by our terrible diet and lack of exercise. Modern medicine can only help so much when it comes to people not taking care of their bodies.

 

[zsdersw]

Why not? They are subject to peer review before any sort of resorts are published.

Or are you distrustful of all scientific studies?

I'm skeptical of all scientific studies.

 

[zsdersw]

How about you libertarians lecturing Germany pay attention to what it has actually accomplished. Germans get 5 weeks paid vacation, we get zero. Germany has had universal health care for over 100 years, we are still spending almost twice as much while having tens of millions uninsured, and a lower life expectancy. Of course you'd say, that's socialism, that's bad for business, they must be uncompetitive. Wrong, as usual. Germany has a huge trade surplus with 6% unemployment, while "good for business" US has a huge trade deficit with 9% unemployment. So before lecturing Germany on health and labor policies, how about we learn from them and fix our own mess first?

Show me who exactly is lecturing Germany in this thread and how, specifically, they're doing it.

 

[theeedude]

That depends entirely on your job. My parents get that amount of (paid) time off (my mother even more), I will start out with 2 weeks (plus standard holidays) when my career begins in the coming months, but it will rise with the seniority I gain.

And Germans get 5 weeks from day one, guaranteed. Not anecdotal cases, not hopefully sometime in the future, everyone, now. And for all these rigthwing scare tactics that if we did this in the US, that would be socialism and the economy would melt, Germany is outcompeting US on exports.

Yet they do not have a single-payer system, the dream of half this forum.

Right, they have an insurance mandate + subsidies, like Obamacare.

Our lower life expectancy is largely self-inflicted by our terrible diet and lack of exercise. Modern medicine can only help so much when it comes to people not taking care of their bodies.

It is self inflicted, and Germans would rather not self inflict this on themselves. Maybe we should learn from that instead of lecturing them.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Germany has had universal health care for over 100 years, we are still spending almost twice as much while having tens of millions uninsured, and a lower life expectancy.

Wait, they're inundated with second-hand smoke everywhere they go and they still have a higher life expectancy than us? Maybe we're wrong about just how harmful it is then...

</devil's advocate>

 

[pcgeek11]

So then the employer should be able to run a business that:
- pays $2 / hour

Yes.

- has a mandatory 72 hour work week (no overtime pay)

Yes if people are willing to work for that. Some salaried people do this every week.

- does not provide any breaks/lunch time (paid or unpaid)

Yes if people are willing. Unrealistic at best.

- does not provide any safety equipment

No, OSHA prevents this already.

- does not provide statutory holidays (or any overtime on holidays)

Yes. There is no requirement to provide holidays or OT for holidays.

The employee can choose not to work there, right?

Yes they can choose not to work there or work there.