“Swindon's oldest resident has used her 107th year to improve her health. Purton great-grandmother Mabel Goodings turns 107 tomorrow but has become healthier since her last birthday by giving up smoking.” So, let’s read the base message here: by converting a smoker who has smoked for well over 85 years and demonstrated by her own existence that smoking is harmless to her to the healthist ideology, this very aged senior has suddenly been made “healthier”.
Since we don’t seem to be talking irony here, we’re talking about a pathetic spin! So let’s put it straight. Congratulations to Mabel who, thanks to the protective effects of cigarettes (or their absence of harmfulness) has managed to outlive most of those who pursued a “healthy” non smoking lifestyle. If we were to be really mischievious here, we would predict with confidence that the wrong decision to quit smoking is going to cost her life in the next few years. If we were like the antismoking fraud promoters, in fact, we would not hesitate to say, when Mable does die, her death will definitely be “related” to smoking cessation, and that a healthy lifestyle is one that contemplates moderate smoking.
Not one death can be scientifically demonstrated to be caused by smoking.