Michael, its clear that instead of answering the substantive points I've raised in this debate, you have chosen instead to attempt to quote nonsensical irrelavent "studies" that STILL don't make your point and STILL ignore the actual focus of what I've had to say on the matter.
The Von Burg study you reference is a 1990 work on patients with
pre-existing neurological illness!
I found a cite to it in a few minutes, although I haven't been able to find the entire study itself online. However, the study that referenced it (a work published on 6/15/1990 at the University of Arizona) produced the following quote:
Most of the studies evaluating adverse health effect of carbon monoxide on the central nervous system
have focused on high levels of poisoning (COHb levels of >10%) resulting in symptoms that range from
common flu and cold symptoms (shortness of breath on mild exertion, mild headaches, and nausea.) to
unconsciousness and death. (emphasis mine)
There is minimal information available on the relationship between exposures to low or ambient levels of
carbon monoxide and effects on the central nervous system. A few studies, which date from the 70s and
80s, report an association between exposure to 100 ppm CO and behavioral changes such as decrements
in visual, auditory and cognitive function at COHb levels of 5% (19). Beard and Wertheim (1967)
demonstrated that exposures to 50 ppm CO for 90 minutes caused a progressive deterioration in subjects'
abilities to estimate the passage of time. Horvath et al. (1971) reported that people with COHb levels
between 2-3% are liable to perform routine task in an inefficient manner and at 6.6% (exposure to 111
ppm CO) lost vigilance . Chronic occult CO poisoning is commonly misdiagnosed as an influenza-like
viral illness. Symptoms such as headache; dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, and drowsiness are
frequent with COHb blood levels at 2-5% in both adults and children. (emphasis mine)
This is from a study at the University of Arizona that was published and peer-reviewed, and which cited your "claimed" one.
Note the TWO TO FIVE PERCENT IMPAIRMENT producing physiologically-significant symptoms including nausea and vomiting!
Again, Mike, the issue here is junk science, NOT GUE's position on smoking. It is the
false projection of scientific, published, documented evidence for the claims made, not the positions themself.
I gave GUE the benefit of the doubt with my "8%" cite, in that I searched for the most slanted, biased, anti-smoking citations I could find - not medical journals. THAT is where I got MY numbers - from the MOST advantagous sources to YOUR position.
I was looking for that point of view SPECIFICALLY because I know, from personal experience with my daughter at birth, and also due to an aunt of mine who has been an RN for more than 30 years, that even a 95% O2 saturation reading in a patient - down by as little as 5% from normal - is cause for SERIOUS concern and immediate remedial action. It was that personal knowledge that tripped my "BS" detector when you made your original claim.
Nor is this the
only example. A long debate on the medical forum here a few months ago roundly
debunked the GUE claim that offgassing efficiency was affected in any manner of physiological significance by a horizontal body position, never mind that GUE has long maintained this as "fact" as well. Yet there is
zero scientific, peer-reviewed data to support THAT position, and when the physiologists and physicians weighed in, the bottom line was that the claim was pure bunk.
My issue has all along been the absolute VOID in response, filled by misdirection and complaints about irrelevancies, along with attempted diversions (as with the Von Berg study you claimed to "cite") when the lack of OBJECTIVE evidence is brought to the forefront in these debates related to GUE postulates.
This is not about smoking and diving Mike. It is about GUE's credibility in making claims of scientific fact that appear to this individual to be entirely manufacturered, in that when challenged GUE's response, instead of producing the compendium of scientific, peer-reviewed evidence backing the position, is one of obfuscation, claims that the data is "proprietary", or some other form of misdirection.
This thread here is just ONE example of many. I nailed you and good on Usenet related to the Triox claims you made about CO2 retention and the significance of it, or lack thereof, at 100' on Triox .vs. Nitrox. You claimed that the data was "proprietary" and that you "wouldn't give it away on the Internet". Well, if its unpublished, then its unverified, and is nothing more than a
claim, not a fact. If it IS published, peer reviewed, and verified, then there is nothing to hide.
You ran away from that debate when I called you out on it and you're running away from this one as well.
I believe that as dive training
consumers we have not only a right but an
obligation to call on the carpet ALL agencies who push conjecture, opinion, and innuendo as scientific
fact. After all, its
our butt (and I'm not talking about a cigarette butt either) on the line down there.
I have no problem with GUE presenting an OPINION on smoking and diving, and refusing to train people as a consequence of their views. I have a
major problem with what appears to be intentional misuse of scientific data to support a position via an untenable linkage that appears to be born of a desparate search for support of a position rather than a true scientific inquiry into the truth, while at the same time ignoring other physiological factors that
present at least as much, and possibly much more, physiological risk to participants as that which you rail against. As others have noted, how many GUE-certified cave divers are, by the BMI measurement, either obese or morbidly obese? How did THEY get those cards, if the standards are EVENLY applied?
That is the entire problem with the lack of OBJECTIVE standards, as I have asked for multiple times in this thread.
Despite that remaining my focus, coming back to it on multiple occasions, and despite your repeated attempts to deflect attention from that goal rather than respond to the point, it remains my focus.
You do not answer an objection to a position you've taken by diverging from the point Mike. If you wish to debate a subject, rather than retire and admit that you have no answer to the point raised, thereby conceding it, then you must stay on topic.
Again, one final time, the issue here is the lack of
objective performance criteria for entrance into GUE training at all levels, from DIR-F through full Cave, instead relying on inaccurate and misleading proxies such as prohibitions on "smoking" (while ignoring smokeless tobacco use, which has roughly the same risk profile, physiologically, as consumption of cigars.)
That position makes no more sense than banning the use of crack cocaine while saying that snorting the powder is perfectly fine, simply because you don't like people who smoke things.
As I've pointed out multiple times, setting an actual
and verifyable performance bar for aerobic fitness
makes sense. Doing so would move GUE from the ranks of an agency with what appears to be a personal vendetta against smoking to one that has set a
real and
reasonable physiological bar for physical fitness in relationship to diving.
That would be a true advance in the state of dive training and procedures, which is why I am calling GUE out on this. It would make your organization an agency that would have a strong POSITIVE check-mark in the evaluation criteria that I use when looking at the options for upcoming technical training.
Instead of considering that option and responding with a rational debate on the matter at hand, you (and GUE, by extension) have chosen to simple circle the wagons and attempt to defend the original policy with quotes out of context and science of questionable applicability AT BEST.
By doing so you've gone from seeking a check-mark to tattooing a big red "X" on GUE's forehead - a development I find most unfortunate.
