They lied that "Scientists have long known that diabetes, high blood pressure, tobacco use and a family history of the disease increase a person's odds of artery disease and the risk of a subsequent heart attack or stroke. But those factors account for only about half the incidence of this disease."

In fact, these claims, particularly concerning smoking, must now be re-evaluated, because the old studies did not consider the possibility that infection is the real cause of the supposed risk.

There is really nothing to link smoking with heart disease except statistical associations and tenuous or discredited hypotheses. There are no distinctive pathological signs or clinical tests that implicate smoking.

Also, infections are transmitted in families, so just because something "runs in the family" does not mean that it's genetic.

They also misrepresented the animal evidence implicating CP: "It is possible that the microbe is just an innocent bystander -- a bacterium that feels at home in arteries damaged by years of hamburger consumption and a lack of exercise. But rabbits on fatty diets develop hardening of the arteries much faster when they are infected with C. pneumoniae, suggesting that the microbes actively contribute to the disease."

In fact, rabbits infected with CP and fed on plain rabbit chow, with no additional risk factors, developed atherosclerosis, while uninfected rabbits with the same diet do not. (IW Fong et al. J Clin Microbiol 1997 Jan;35(1): 48-52.)

Also, antibodies combine with chlamydia to form immune complexes that convert "bad" LDL cholesterol to oxidized cholesterol to form plaques in arteries. (T Watanabe et al. Int J Cardiol 1996 Aug:(Suppl):S51-S60. So the blame ought to be assessed the other way around, with fatty diets as only a contributing factor.

And, they raised a red herring that "the prospect of widespread, long- term use of powerful antibiotics carries its own problems, including the possible emergence of drug-resistant `superbugs.'" In fact, the drugs that treat these organisms are not considered "powerful antibiotics," and they don't produce "drug-resistant `superbugs.'"

Carol Thompson 3-3-99
Smokers' Rights Action Group
P.O. Box 259575
Madison, WI 53725-9575
71334.3541@compuserve.com