I write this after learning from friends that a debate over the possible health hazards of “poppers” is still going on. I hadn’t considered “poppers” for years, until my friends – remembering my early involvement in the government’s investigation into the “poppers” industry -- reminded me about them, and directed me to the “Poppers Myth” website today.
Very early during the eight years I was honored to serve as a member of the United States Congress from Maryland, I learned that a member, however fierce the disagreement, must never impugn the motives of another member during debate. To do so is to risk immediate censure from the presiding officer, a command to apologize and withdraw the offending words, and possible silencing and expulsion from debate for the rest of the day.
Similar rules apply in private life, and I chose not to personally attack those who are obviously perpetrating falsehoods on the internet about “poppers” – for what may be personal reasons, or to advance some personal agenda.
The "issue" of nitrite room odorants, or “poppers”, a product many people have safely used to augment sexual pleasure in America, and around the world, for many decades, is a long misunderstood, but easily understood phenomenon. There are those who have taken upon themselves the multiple and contradictory roles of research scientist, expert witness, judge and jury -- all with a pre-determined verdict of guilt about the safety of “poppers”.
With respect to the issue of the safety of these products, as a member of Congress I was often called upon to vote on issues which turned on scientific evidence. Many of my decisions directly affected the people I represented, so I never took my scientific inquiry lightly. Because of the brief scare in the early 1980's, alleging "poppers" were somehow the cause of AIDS (or GRID as it was then called), I looked into the possible danger of misuse of these products as inhalants. I came away satisfied that not only was this not the cause of AIDS, but that such use in moderation, absent any proof of specific harm to individual users, was a matter of personal choice which government had no right to dictate or infringe. In the nearly 25 years since, I have seen no proof of harm from these products when used in moderation -- including AIDS or any of it's opportunistic infections. On the contrary, every U.S. government study, including those done by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, (on which my former wife served for six years), have come to virtually the same conclusion.
But then I am a gay libertarian conservative (and a Republican) who believes in an absolute minimum of government control and interference in our lives and liberty.
It seems to me that the charges made by the anti-popper zealots are, at the charitable least, based on what ABC television reporter John Stossel has called "junk science." In a timely, special one-hour ABC show a few years ago, and in an Op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal, Stossel described his 20-year conversion from a scare-a-day "consumer affairs" reporter, to an intelligent skeptic appalled at the cavalier, even dangerous way in which politicians, the news media and irresponsible individuals use "junk science" to advance their own personal agendas.
Stossel eloquently summed up the problem suffered by charlatans like the anti-popper zealots this way: "Too often, we seize the first plausible explanation that appears to cut through the confusion of life. Once we have formed a belief, we're inclined to dismiss contrary evidence. We like to tell ourselves that we are superior to the people who burned witches centuries ago. People were often killed for no better reason than a neighbor experiencing crop failure or impotence. But we're still prone to the same basic mental errors that killed 'witches': seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, and turning scanty evidence into wide spread panic."
Which brings me back to my starting point: motives.
The late American financier, J.P. Morgan, drawing on his historic business acumen, once said: "A man always has two reasons for doing anything - a 'good reason' and the 'real reason."
Think about that common sense wisdom as it applies to the “poppers” debate. What is the ‘real reason’ the anti-popper zealots continue their relentless barrage? Perhaps some day they may achieve some measure of peace, and accept the common understanding that “poppers” are not inherently harmful.
Robert Bauman
