Here is the latest "revelation" about smoking. After baldness and criminal offspring, deafness and cataracts, genital warts and ulcers, penis-shrinking and baby hyperactivity, it is now official: SMOKING CAUSES IMPOTENCE!  Goodness, it's a wonder any of us are alive today!  And we do wonder why these problems were not apparent when the rates of smoking were MUCH higher?  

 "Doctors believe smoking causes impotence by reducing the flow of blood needed for an erection," reports the Canadian Globe & Mail on November 6th, 1998.
 
  Note that we're not told anything about the quality of the evidence, or anything about proof -- we're just told what "doctors believe." Doctors also believed that smoking caused ulcers until it was proven that ulcers are caused by bacteria.

 "If you smoke ... you're twice as likely to have erectile dysfunction or impotence," says John McKynlay of the New England Research Institute.

Thank you, Mr. McKynlay. Twice as likely as what, please? From 1 to 2 in five possibilities, or from 1 to 2 in one million possibilities? Are we commoners not entitled to share your exclusive knowledge and wisdom? Are we supposed to believe you blindly, just because you are the Medicine Man? Or is it because if the whole figure were told, people would realize that there is more risk in being struck by lightening?

 The Drudge Report adds: "I feel confident that smoking does and can cause impotence," AMA Chairman Randolf Smoak tells Wallace. "...Now we know so much more about it -- this type of problem of impotence associated with tobacco."

Thank you Mr. Charlatan, but we would like to see some sort of real proof, rather than your confidence as an anti-tobacco lobbyist!

Is it true that smoking causes impotence? No, but it may actually contribute to it. Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor and, especially when in combination with other vasoconstrictors, or during periods of physical debilitation it may lightly contribute to difficulties in erection.

But of course, irresponsible media such as CBS's "60 Minutes" (read: Mike Wallace, a well-known promoter of the anti-tobacco movement) could not miss the opportunity to raise some sensationalism and divulge exaggerated "information." CBS is a rabid enemy of the tobacco industry and smokers, to the point that it has been rightfully threatened with a huge law suit by the tobacco industry. 

Of course, the clear message is that smokers should quit immediately, otherwise no sex -- perhaps by buying (and getting hooked on?) ineffective smoking cessation products marketed by the pharmaceutical industry, loaded with nicotine pumped into the body at a constantly high rate. 

Smoking alone does not cause impotence, and at any rate, its contribution to impotence is so negligible, it's not worth mentioning. This information is not new.  The tiny contribution of nicotine to impotence has been known since time immemorial. 

If it is sad enough that US television has long turned itself into an anti-smoking buffoon, it is even sadder that countries such as Thailand don't even care to verify the foundations of US's-financed junk science, and steam ahead by mandating a "warning" on cigarette packages: "Smoking CAUSES Impotence".

Unfortunately for science and professional integrity, the USA has done a great job of portraying itself to the world as "the leading nation" in many fields (can we add junk science and intolerance to the list?) -- such a good job, Americans have even convinced themselves. The sad result is that other countries sometimes take the US junk science at face value.

FORCES will soon publish bibliographies on nicotine and male impotence to demolish yet another half-truth.

In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, remember that a mild sleep inducement pill available over the counter affects your sexual performance FAR more than months worth of smoking.