Tired of seeing Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore on television? Well don't hold your breath that he's going away anytime soon. I've found a new crusade for him when he's through with the tobacco settlement!
While perusing the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, I came across an article titled "Social Ties and the Common Cold" [JAMA 1997;277:1940-1944].
According to the abstract, 276 healthy volunteers were quarantined and infected with rhinoviruses (i.e., the "common cold"). The researches observed that volunteers with the fewest social ties (i.e., spouse, parents, friends, workmates, social groups) were 4 times more susceptible to the common cold than those with the most social ties. They concluded that "more diverse social networks were associated with greater resistance to upper respiratory illness."
I was intrigued because: (1) other studies have reported higher mortality in less social people; (2) mortality is the primary health concern in EPA's proposed changes to the current air quality standards for particulate matter; and (3) social ties were not considered in either epidemiologic study relied on by EPA to support its claim that particulate matter was associated with mortality.
So I started reading the article but I didn't get very far before coming upon the following quote:
The hypothesis that multiple ties to friends, family, work and community are beneficial in terms of physical health has gained substantial support over the last decade. Particularly provocative is epidemiologic evidence that those who participate in more diversified social networks — for example, are married, interact with family members, friends, neighbors, and fellow workers, and belong to social and religious groups — live longer than their counterparts with fewer types of social relationships [footnotes omitted]. This association has been reported in multiple prospective studies [footnotes omitted], and the relative risk for mortality among those with less diverse networks is comparable in magnitude to the relation between smoking and mortality from all causes[ footnotes omitted]...
So let's see if I've got this straight. Loners and smokers have the same risk of dying from all causes?
Does that mean that states are picking up health care costs for loners at the same clip they claim to be for smokers? If so, who will Mike Moore and the other pompous state attorneys general sue to recover health care costs when they are through with the tobacco companies? How about headphone manufacturers, cable television operators, book publishers and other promoters of unsocial activities?
What will the Food and Drug Administration regulate? Individual servings of frozen dinners? Will the Federal Communications Commission ban the television show "The Single Guy"? Will the Federal Trade Commission go after television commercials featuring the lonely Maytag repairman?
Remember how Tipper Gore went after rock-and-roll lyrics? What about Bobby Vinton's 1962 hit "Mr. Lonely"? Or Gilbert O'Sullivan's 1971 hit "Alone Again (Naturally)"?
Aaahhh... so much to ban... so little time.
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