Thanks, John in Kansas. There a lot of things going on in public health besides smoking bans which are responsible for falling heart attack rates. For one thing, many patients are being diagnosed and treated with blood thinners, blockers, etc. before they ever suffer one event, much less the repeated sequence of events many people had in past years.   

Some claim the widespread use of statins plays a huge part, though I'm not on board with that. And though many people aren't doing much to help themselves with diet and exercise, some people are, and their avoidance of heart attacks may be reflected in the overall rate.

I'm sick of 'studies' which correlate one phenomenon with another and claim causation. And they are a favorite tool of social engineers, so much more effective than old-timey propaganda screeds. Unfortunately when it comes to medicine, they can send us down the wrong road for many years doing exactly the wrong thing for our health. The most obvious example was the 'fact' that ulcers were caused by stress and spicy food when in actual fact they were caused by bacteria. How many people suffered for years because somebody jumped to comclusions and it became holy writ.

And tobacco-thumpers, no I am not pro-smoking, I just am sick of our society being whipsawed around by bad science.