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| Forces International | OTHER ASSORTED EVIDENCE |
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"People," OSHA reported in the Federal register, were contributing "many millions of particles to the air... through the shedding of skin scales." Think of it! The skin scales lodging within your lungs-- a kind of dermatological diesel fuel eating away at your life and leaving your glottis reeking of Brut. Why it's enough to call for a law -- a law to make the skin-shedders do their shedding outside and at a decent pace from The Children. But wait! Hold the door! Because suddenly "studies show" that if we let them shed on the sidewalk, they'll be melting the polar ice cap and ending the civilized world. Clearly, we now have to ban human beings -- or shunt them to a "separately ventilated" planet.
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Australian lung specialist Judy Morton addressed the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand recently. She stressed the need to encourage smokers to volunteer as lung donors. She says it's not a practical concern if donors have smoked at a typical level, up to a pack a day, even if they've done so habitually for a couple of decades. Many lung recipients have received smokers' lungs, with no clinical difference in the outcome, Doctor Morton explains. How then do we explain the extreme alarmism of anti-smoking rhetoric? A dual diagnosis is appropriate. In fact the medical community is better described as a medico-political entity today. In medical terms, their anti-smoking babbling is psychotic, while in political terms, it is demagogic. It's hard for a sane soul, within or without the community, to understand such capacity for nonsense-making. For the majority of today's technocrats, however, nonsense is revered, and self-refutation is ignored, as naturally as breathing in and breathing out. |
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Now that the pharmaceutical industry is in a marketing war with the cigarette manufacturers, the studies are coming fast and furious about how wonderful nicotine is. Wonderful, that is, if consumed in nicotine gum, slurped up in nicotine drinks, inhaled from nicotine inhalers or oozed into the blood stream with patches. The easiest, cheapest and most enjoyable method to take nicotine into the body, of course, is smoking. The researchers face a tough sell whenever they report the marvels of nicotine while simultaneously telling people not to smoke. The Native Americans who smoked tobacco for thousands of years were no dummies. |
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Since 1995, 10 studies have reported on whether lower sodium diets produce health benefits. All 10 studies indicate that, among the general population, lower sodium diets don’t produce health benefits. In fact, not a single study has ever shown improved health outcomes for broad populations on reduced sodium diets. Observers of the junk science phenomenon remember that salt consumption is one of the controversies that have arisen over the past several decades. At one point the alarm bells were ringing and the "experts" were directing people to cut down on salt. Years later the word came out that salt consumptions, more most people, doesn't have much effect on health. Now we have a government agency recommending a drastic reduction of salt consumptions. Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com places the salt controversy in perspective and exposes the reason the "experts" can't make up their minds on salt: The U.S. health establishment’s official position, as espoused for the last 30 years by the National Institutes of Health, is that everyone should restrict their salt intake. Regardless of the science, the NIH is not about to admit it’s been wrong ― even to the extent of refusing to make publicly available all the data on which the current dietary salt recommendation is based. Fortunately for the NIH, the IOM panel [which urges the public to reduce salt intake by nearly one third] was well stacked with sycophants that could be relied on not to bite the hand that feeds them. A majority of the IOM panel, including chairman Lawrence Appel, all receive research grants from the NIH. Beyond not wanting to admit to making a mistake, the NIH is filled with anti-corporate activists who never miss an opportunity to target business for regulation. This latest report has been released in conjunction with calls to regulate the food industry to reduce obesity. Relying on junk science to pursue political ends is the trademark of an elite that wishes to mold everyone into an image that they decree. |
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It has been long established that hostile personality traits are related to cigarette dependency and smoking cessation difficulties. Now UCI researchers have found that in people who have aggressive personalities nicotine triggers significant brain activity in the areas that help control social response, thinking and planning. In turn, non-hostile people showed no brain activity increases at all to nicotine. These findings suggest that some people are born with a predisposition to cigarette addiction and helps explain why quitting for some is practically impossible. "We call this brain response a 'born to smoke' pattern," said study leader Dr. Steven Potkin, professor of psychiatry and human behavior. "Based on these dramatic brain responses to nicotine, if you have hostile, aggressive personality traits, in all likelihood, you have a predisposition to cigarette addiction without ever having even touched a cigarette." There are two lies in the first two paragraphs. The first is that this press release claims that "underlying brain mechanisms that link personality traits to nicotine addiction" is revealed for the first time in this study conducted by the University of California. There have been countless studies that link negative personality traits to smoking. Juvenile delinquency, cognitive disorders, hyperactivity, lethargy and even lesbianism have been blamed on tobacco. This study, although claming to break new ground, is just an other example of parasites cutting and pasting parts of previous studies into something "new" so that they can get more funding. All this linkage between pathologies and tobacco occurred in the past dozen years as billions of dollars have flown from taxpayers and consumers into the pockets of organizations set up to demonize tobacco. The second lie is an example of grifters baldly stating a "fact" that has not been proven by any real research. Hostile personality traits have never been legitimately related to cigarette dependency, itself a non-scientific term. The researchers are merely claiming that anyone who refuses to quit smoking is disturbed, if not insane. This technique was the norm in the Soviet Union where dissidents were institutionalized solely because they refused to buy into the lies that the communist state dispersed to the captive masses. It's related to the inquisitions where people who did not toe the line that the Catholic Church had decreed were judged to be possessed by devils. These bad old days have been resurrected by Big Health. Either one is subservient to the demands imposed by the health cultists or one is crazy. For now smokers do not face imprisonment or death by burning. That isn't much comfort since the gulags in Siberia and the auto da fe's of the Inquisition didn't spring up over night. Read this study and contemplate the inhuman malice behind it. If this sort of perversion of science isn't stamped out soon, this county is asking for the same sort of horrors that have signified every oppressive and fanatical regime in history.
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As the baby boomers begin their inevitable journey into late middle-age and old age, expect more of these studies examining the effect of years passed on overall health. Although the humanity knows that as one grows older ailments increase ultimately becoming so serious that death results. The acolytes of Big Health find this progression hard to take. They see that even though they practice the gospel of self-denial they are still getting older and sicker. It just isn't fair! After decades of eating right and denying themselves the pleasures of the table and tobacco they still will meet their maker just like all their brothers and sisters who, instead of self-flagellating themselves into purity, enjoyed life to the fullest. This is the karma faced by the life-haters who have worked so hard to impose their sterile morality upon the rest of us. February 18 - Profiles in Elitist Cowardice -- "As I read The PI’s crude attempt to once again negatively label persons who smoke -- now as people prone to anger and aggression – it occurred to me that the entire article is a stunning example of twisted thinking that apparently dominates tobacco control and its mainstream media support. The study reported obviously describes discernable side effects of “Smoke Free” nicotine patches, yet the negative behaviors observed are attributed to people who smoke cigarettes. The study should have been reported as documented evidence of normal people’s adverse reactions to substituting fake products for the real thing." (continues inside), in Norman Kjono's Corner. |
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These findings may give heart attacks to anti-tobacco operatives. Although the researchers certainly peppered their report with anti-smoking provisos they deserve credit for examining a phenomenon that goes against the politically correct vein. Several reasons for smokers having a better survival rate after heart attacks are advanced. Each of them implicitly contradicts the false notion that there are no benefits derived from smoking tobacco. Smokers, according to the director of a heart research institute, are less prone to pulmonary congestion, or fluid on the lungs, and often had lower blood pressure than non-smokers. They also have higher levels of carbon monoxide in the blood which helps them retain oxygen. Despite the negative comments about smoking, a ritualistic defense all researchers must mumble whenever they find something positive to report about smokers, this study provides more evidence that tobacco is not the demon plant that the zealots would have the public believe.
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The reason: Babies of black women who smoke during pregnancy die four times as often as those of pregnant white women who smoke, according to the Forsyth County Infant Mortality Reduction Coalition. "We're trying to reduce infant mortality, in part by reducing areas where pregnant women are exposed to cigarette smoke," said J. Nelson-Weaver, director of the coalition. Let's see if we can deconstruct this pathetic attempt to impose prohibition in tobacco country. Researchers say they have determined that babies whose mothers are black and smoked during pregnancy die four times as often as the babies of white mothers who smoke during pregnancy. This finding contradicts the assertion that smoking during pregnancy is harmful to the fetus for if that contention were true then the percentage of babies killed by their smoking mothers would be identical for all babies, no matter what the race. Never mind the statistical sleight of hand that was used to manufacture the mortality rates in the first place since there is, as is usual, no evidence that smoking during pregnancy harms the fetus. The racial angle is promoted, and manufactured, to give added urgency to a problem that doesn't exist. The thrust of the report is equally inane given the subject matter. To protect pregnant woman who smoke from secondhand smoke restaurant owners are being urged -- more like aggressively pressured -- to ban smoking from the entire establishment. Woman who wantonly persist in smoking while pregnant are inhaling first hand smoke so protecting them from secondhand smoke makes as little sense as the contention that being a black smoking mother somehow is more harmful to the infant than being a white smoking mother. Nice try Tobacco Control, but, as even this advocacy journalism discovers, restaurants in North Carolina's tobacco belt will not voluntarily ban smoking. In that respect they are like most restaurants throughout the country where, given the choice, they would prefer that the government stop interfering in the running of private businesses.
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The reason why Man has always been able to fish with a hook and a worm is because the fish never learn – nor can they communicate with other fish and say: “Hey, uncle Fish, watch out for a hook and a worm – don’t bite, it’s a trick!” Read: fools exist for a purpose – to provide a tasty snack for those who want to feed on them. Darwin was right. This piece from Fox News is great because it shows that not only are rats not little people, but that there is absolutely no scientific evidence of addiction to food. ‘But some nutrition experts are sceptical of the claims. "I've never seen anything that convinces me people get addicted to certain foods," said Ruth Kava, director of nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health." Certainly if your blood sugar is really low, you're going to have physiological symptoms, but I don't know that it counts as an addiction." ‘ But for the rest, the piece misses the target from the title down. What debate?! Haven’t we learned anything from the tobacco experience?! This is not a debate – and please -- let’s not debate on this point! Recent history speaks – and it says this: the same pharmaceutically-paid activists and “public health” gangsters that handled tobacco (with the addition of some newcomers, perhaps) decided a few years ago what the world must eat and drink, and how to squeeze more taxes out of people. That means that they are going to fabricate massive amounts of junk science, for they are certain of the fact that a bunch of fools will waste precious energies in debating the truthfulness of that “science” – and they’ll be more than happy to entertain them. They have unlimited power and funds -- that is, they tap into your wallet. While this is going on, an avalanche of junk science keeps being produced, and taxes increase, hysteria grows, lawsuits start, industries wheel and deal and kiss asses, prohibition advances – and you pay for it all! The only way to stop this is to change the premise: this is not a debate – this is war – and they even tell us so; why are we so afraid to hear it? And war, by definition, means the destruction of the will of the opponent through the use of force, to make the opponent behave as desired. In war, there is no debate, no deals, no arguing: you shoot to kill. For our side, that means that income tax returns have to be withheld and business categories must strike. Public facilities must be occupied by smokers, drinkers and eaters who must insist on smoking, drinking, and eating inside those facilities – just a few examples amongst thousands possible. If we don’t have the balls to do that, at least let's have the dignity not to call it a debate – for we know damn well that no amount of scientific evidence (or lack of it) will change the population control plans of the health gangsters. It happened that way for smoking. And one last thing: at least let's have a little bit of honesty – please! The American Council on Science and Health, which has distinguished itself for exposing junk science before, is the first one that has helped the health Nazis to spread frauds and disinformation about smoking, using the very same junk science methodology and propaganda now used for food! Dear ACSH, one cannot be “a little bit pregnant”: you took Big Pharma’s money [1], [2], [3] to spread the frauds on smoking and to help open the market of the smoking cessation junk “therapies” and population control of those who paid you off. Why point at the frauds now? If you willingly open the door to thieves, there's no use in whining that they took more than that old TV set on which you wanted to collect insurance in the first place.
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Firstly, nicotine levels must be manipulated in order to keep the amount of nicotine constant; second, nicotine is what tells the smoker “enough smoking”. Thus, the higher the nicotine content in a cigarette, the less the smoker smokes. Third, the “addiction” to nicotine is part of the whole junk science bandwagon of addiction, on which unscrupulous “health experts” make a whole pile of money selling smoke to cure a disease that does not exist. Nobody knows all that better then Mr. Benowitz, the “expert” from UCSF who has made a career out of misleading the public on this subject, while for years pushing pharmaceutical nicotine. According to Benowitz, nicotine from a cigarette is addictive, while nicotine from a pharmaceutical patch is not – actually, it’s therapeutic, and even makes you quit -- so nicotine’s “addictive” properties disappear by magic in virtue of being manufactured by those who pay off antitobacco’s cartel of professional cons. In fact Pharma-nicotine is so good, it can even be pushed on kids, as described by Norman Kjono in his 1998 article “Targeting Kids for Drugs”, in which he made the memorable comment, “Personally, I regard anti-tobacco activists as economic paedophiles”. Paedophiles belong in jail; however, this kind has managed to rule “public health” -- take Big Pharma's word for it.
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Do you still wonder why Big Pharma wants the nicotine monopoly market? Smoking and nicotine have several health benefits that, of course, are kept hidden. This news, therefore, is not new to us and to any honest scientist. It goes without say that while reading this piece in The Economist, we were waiting for the inevitable, politically correct final bang – without which, nowadays, no writer who writes about tobacco has a chance in hell to be published by a major publication: “None of this, everybody is keen to explain, should in any way be regarded as endorsing smoking. And it would surely be foolish to take the habit up early in life merely on the off-chance that it might ward off dementia in old age. But smoking takes years to impose its toll, so it is at least worth speculating whether the odd puff in late middle age might actually do more good than harm.” Good old Economist, teasing the truth through even in the disclaimer. But, based on the junk science on tobacco, the conclusion could be re-written like this – and have the same “scientific” value: “… And it would be foolish not to take up the habit early in life merely on the off-chance that you may get any of the diseases that science has never been able to prove with the scientific method to be caused by smoking, as you will inevitably die of something; thus, you may as well enjoy life while it lasts.”
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Mr. Carmona, we have the solution for the problem you are talking about: stop lying to the public with junk science, and health (the real McCoy) will return; actually, it is already here. By undoing the statistical con work that altered the Body Mass Index to create an artificial statistical “epidemic,” the number of “obese” in the US would go back down to about 13% from the present, false 53% -- and that includes the children. Anorexia has never been a good health standard, sir. Yes, it is true that Big Pharma would be displeased, but we would save billions of tax dollars in false propaganda campaigns, endless alarms and useless “therapies” – money that is much better spent elsewhere (like teaching children good math and geography, for example, and far less health paranoia). And, by the way, wasn’t antismoking the “more important message for athletes to send to kids” – or have the marketing priorities of the pharmaceutical multinationals shifted, Mr. Carmona? The people ought to know which interest you serve in real life! |
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But the most interesting part is still to come. What is the reaction of the target industry? To fight back? At least, to give their tormentors the finger? Oh, no! In this CTV video we hear that: “Canada’s Baskin-Robbins company was applauding the study for advertising its nutritional information” while we are told in the same breath that “Even the cones can be killers”. So, here again is the classic, fatal mistake: figuring that the public believes everything the health gangsters say, the industry tries to deflect the hit and score PR points by applauding its persecutors! As long as that goes on -- and the public either does nothing or even believes the con artists – we all get exactly what we deserve, while the con artists keep on laughing all the way to the bank – which they own by now. Crime pays? You bet your belly it does. |
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“...Half the smokers were allowed to continue smoking while the others abstained from smoking using a nicotine or placebo patch. After 1 week and again at 4, 8, and 12 weeks later, small suture-closed incisions were made on the smokers. For comparison, among most of the never-smokers an incision was made at only one of those time points. […] After 4 weeks and again at 8 and 12 weeks, abstinent smokers were significantly less likely to develop a wound infection than continuous smokers. Moreover, this benefit did not depend on whether they quit using a nicotine or placebo patch. “ Of course, the tens of interacting variables (thus thousands of possible combinations) involved in wound healing are thoroughly ignored, because here the political intent is to show that there is "scientific evidence" that quitting smoking "is good for you" (and maybe to provide surgeons with one more excuse when an operation does not work out so well?). Also, since this badmouths smoking, Reuters does not care to tell us if Big Pharma paid for this “study” -- as is usually the case when antismoking junk science is circulated. It goes without say that if instead the “study” showed the opposite results and if it had been paid for by Big Tobacco even indirectly, that would be the first thing on the header. In short, junk science that makes smoking look bad and that recommends Big Pharma’s junk “remedies” is circulated as sound information, and the source of funding is not mentioned by the media. Conversely, junk science that states that tobacco is not so bad is thoroughly investigated for the funding source and when – as was the case for the WHO study on passive smoke in 1998 – it shows absolutely no evidence that smoking is harmful, it is simply buried, as people must believe that "smoking is bad." One can tell who pays the biggest advertising budgets to the media, nowadays. Is that too cynical? Is there anything to this recent study? Who knows? These days health-and-lifestyle type research is so badly compromised and corrupted that sorting out the forest for the trees is all but impossible. In fact, that's the most outrageous part of the problem. Here is the final bang: ‘Two Stanford University physicians point out in a commentary that these results "suggest that surgeons need to be even more active in recommending smoking cessation programs to their patients because the impact of smoking on even minor incisions can be significant." ‘ – just as the impact of smoking cessation products can be significant to the coffers of Big Pharma. Please note that Stanford University, vipers’ nest of Stanton Glantz, is receiving many millions of dollars a year from the pharmaceutical industry for the production of junk science for antismoking purposes and for pushing useless pharmaceutical quit-smoking “therapies”. It follows that anything that comes from universities that take Pharma money is at least as tainted as what comes from those who take tobacco money (as the smell and the colour of dollars is the same, the last time we checked), and so they should not be believed. Let’s light one up to that – and don’t worry if you cut yourself: it will heal just fine. |
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We can’t help but observe, once again, how the junksters are always surprised at the results (could it be some residual ethics?... Naaah…! It is only the surprise on how easily they can get away with it). The reality is that all cancers, including the ones in question, have tens of co-factors that interact differently in each individual, thus making the quantification of each factor impossible – a basic fact always ignored by junk science (sorry…the multifactorial epidemiology that is used to “quantify” “mortality” from smoking, electro-magnetic fields, alcohol, obesity…). Oh, well, if you believe the “smoking kills” superstition, then eat a lot of pizza, whose tomatoes (rich with nicotine, by the way) fight cancer – but do not forget to remove the cold cuts and the mozzarella that “cause” cancer. In that way, you can even smoke a cigarette and get away with it – assuming, of course, that you do not guzzle alcohol with your pizza, as “everyone knows” that alcohol “causes” cancer. Clear? Conclusion: drink, smoke, and eat your pizza without allowing private and public health charlatans to ruin your enjoyment. A healthist-free life has a whole different flavour. Bon appetit -- and happy smoking!
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Where there is junk science, political correctness cannot be far away -- thus the articles say that women, too, "wildly masturbate" because of the Internet (an audacious argument for the control of Internet, the last bastion of free and uncontrolled information). No, we are not kidding you: this is real – complete with "big doctor" names -- and here are the links [1] , [2] , [3] for those who can read Italian. Don’t laugh too hard: those who did that when the first anti-smokers and anti-fatsoes appeared have made a tragic mistake, and they are no longer laughing now. It is much more useful to ask ourselves what we are prepared to do to put a full stop to this dementia -- all of it. |
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At any rate, that doesn't matter because non smokers were not even
considered!) "Bacteria in the stomach convert
nitrates and nitrites into nitrosamines. And nitrosamines are carcinogens."
Hilarity aside, where is the trick?
Well, the cons in question have used these techniques many this times, but the most glaring one is the omission of social status! In today’s Western countries, who are those who lose all their teeth, if not the derelict, apart from those with some rare, isolated cases of very aggressive dental disease? But usually, those unfortunate people also have problems such as alcoholism and malnutrition – two enormous co-factors that have not been taken into account. The researchers say they have taken education into account, but many people with fairly good or even sometimes excellent educations have found themselves in dire straits for a variety of reasons, including mental health problems. The researchers apparently relied on the subjects' own self-reported statements about their health, a notoriously unreliable thing to do. And note the "may" and "could" ass-covering characterizations of the findings. But none of this matters anyway, as what counts is to show that “smoking is bad”… keep at it, antismoking cons, as your credibility continues to grow – as negative numbers go! In the meantime, guys, keep on smoking and say a prayer to the memory of poor science, which is turning in its grave.
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Because of its eagerness in dispensing junk science the BBC should be renamed Banal Bunk Central. In this press release rewrite, agents of bamboozlement posit that some people find it hard to quit smoking because of a special gene that paradoxically helps prevent the onslaught of lung disease. Sound ridiculous? Not really considering that anti-smoking junk scientists can reach any conclusion they find most useful. Science has nothing to do with these studies but the conclusions often do offer hints of the real purpose: "This research could be useful as people with the gene could be warned about it and it might help dissuade some from starting to smoke. "It could also enable the tailoring of smoking cessation treatment which may need to be different for people with this genetic history." For "different" cessation treatment, read "more expensive" and one of the above comments, uttered by a flack from an anti-smoking organization, make sense. What doesn't make sense is the contention that identifying people with the gene could prevent them from smoking. As the anti-smoking organizations continuously screech only the very young, unduly influenced by cigarette advertisements and especially by smoking in the movies, start smoking. No glamour-addled teenager is going to reveal his genes to a hygienist with cold hands or take the advice of a finger-wagging preacher.
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 July
7 -
Junk food
link to ageing, or: junk science against junk food – Supreme junk science popularizer BBC brings us this gem:
“An early diet of junk food makes it harder to fight off the effects of
ageing, scientists have found. The discovery, by scientists at
Glasgow
University, applies to zebra finches but experts believe the same
could apply to humans.” […] ‘ "In the case of the bird food, the poor
quality diet was low in vitamins and proteins - but human junk food is high
in fat and can be high in protein", Prof Metcalfe said.” “In the case of
zebra finches, he said, the two-week period covered by the survey was the
equivalent to the first 10 years of a human being's life.” Sure thing. Remember “smoking causes wrinkles?” In reality,
this study has nothing to do with hamburgers and French fries – but any
“responsible scientist” must do the "good deed", nowadays -- and bamboozle the public on
smoking and food; that is how one gains respectability in an inverted world.
Well, junk science can be fun – when it's not taken seriously. |
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Of course, of the 785 people not found none is assumed to be dead. In fact, everybody knows that if you quit smoking, you live forever, although in this case you start smoking again. And, by the way, that would have doubly served the clear propaganda purpose of this piece of junk science, increasing the percentage of those who quit smoking (difficult to smoke in the coffin), and also increasing the percentage of smoking-related deaths!! Sometimes, idiocy is its own worst enemy in an idiotic endeavour. As for the “tremendous benefits to health of giving up smoking”, perhaps we should talk about that when these clowns can prove that one single death or disease in the world at any time in history has been caused uniquely by smoking, or at least can quantify the contribution of smoking to death or disease in one single person. Until then, just keep on smoking, and have fun – who the hell wants to believe “experts” like that, anyway?
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Oh, the good ol’ excuse of prevention -- eternal weapon of the oppressor and of the cheat! In the past, prevention was carried out in the name of God, then in the name of Country, then in the name of “morality". Today it is carried out in the name of “health” by crooks who intentionally confuse real disease with mental attitudes and personal choices that they do not like for their own twisted morality or, more frequently, because they are servant of some interest, pharmaceutical or otherwise. By making personal choices appear as medical disease, the crooks easily smuggle their lurid agendas as “therapies” – just like Stalin and Hitler (great advocates and users of “therapeutic psychiatry”) did. And the main target is always the youth – to be conditioned and moulded to perpetuate and even enhance the rotten social and moral values of these crooks in white coats, who make crystal ball predictions with junk science, conning the greatly ignorant and fatally indifferent public. There is only one cure for these “cure dispensers”: cut their funds, and hang them morally, legally and politically. We cannot allow cons and their junk science to keep establishing politics, economics, and our destiny. We sincerely hope that the youth does not fall for this garbage and that, one day, this dirty theatre will undergo a long overdue clean-up. To the young and the old we recommend reading “Addiction is a Choice” by Prof. Jeffrey Schaler, member of our International Honour Committee.
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June 26 - Flash junk science news - Smoking May Exacerbate Lupus: “Study” – Since the situation about smoking and disease has got to the point that anything goes (into the trash can of junk science) as long as it blames smoking, we will employ but a few lines on this one. Thanks to Excel-style pre-packaged software, in fact, any idiot with a computer and an academic title can perform epidemiology faster than MacDonald's can produce a hamburger. Peer reviews are carried out amongst members of the white mafia who are involved in similar junk science business, thus are guaranteed to “pass”. Finally, the blaming of smoking with junk correlations ensures publication -- as well as more pharmaceutical/state grants to get you to keep on lying. This study found a correlation of 1.5 (that is, a 50% increase in risk) between smoking and Lupus on a tiny number of subjects. There are at least a dozen confounders for Lupus, and the bias… well, never mind. Minimum risk elevation to even assume that the risk exists: 200-300%. ‘Nuff said: keep on smoking. By the way: maximum cancer risk elevation ever concocted for passive smoke: 30%, normally 10-20% - and this is the best they've got. For second hand smoke and other diseases, it's even worse. Keep on smoking in public places, you will hurt no one – just watch out for the white-coated fascist health police.
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More people from Spain are smokers than any other European country, yet the mortality rates in Spain for CVD (229 per 100,000) and respiratory diseases (60.8 per 100,000), are relatively low. So Spain has the highest smoking rate in Europe and also the highest life expectancy. How can this be? It looks like smoking is not the overwhelming, or even major, factor in people's health and longevity. This isn't a secret. The tobacco control industry knows very well that smoking is only one factor in thousands of variables that affect -- or do not affect -- health. So why are the anti-tobacco operatives stating smoking is the most destructive past time that man can do? For the money! There's gold in them thar anti-tobacco hills and the riffraff don't care what facts must be trampled on their way to their ill-gotten gains.
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Lest smokers take comfort that they avoid senility in their old age, the reporter sternly warns that "the discovery should not be seen as an excuse to smoke." And why the hell not? There could be no future more dreary than living out one's final years as a vegetable in a rest home. The whole nicotine as a preventive for and a possible treatment of Alzheimer's theory has been batted around for years while anti-tobacco has done its best to keep the possible benefits of smoking obscured from view. Such theories are anathema to anti-tobacco which mindlessly chants that there is no benefit -- none, whatsoever -- derived from smoking tobacco. Scientists and health providers have always known that mantra is bunk and as the population ages the truth is finally getting out that there are benefits to smoking. A one-sided "education campaign" that buries those benefits is not education and now appears to be fraud.
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The writer of this blurb took a tour through some of the “reaction” postings to this item on the Yahoo news sight, and among the volleys from the predictable slanging match between smokers and anti-smokers, found a few worth pulling out (worth, at least, as much as the study they comment on): “Why would a man get an earring? I dunno. I never got one anyway.” “I smoked for 34 years and I never had a problem with earrings - and I don't know anyone who did. My sister who has never smoked and is rarely around anyone who smokes, can only wear 14k gold earrings; everything else causes infection.” “All I know is that from the time I got my ears pierced at 14 years old, I could wear any earrings I wanted. It didn't matter if they were cheap costume jewellery or 14k gold. But in my mid-twenties I began to not be able to tolerate wearing any earrings that were not 14k. I started smoking at age 19. I quit smoking when I started having children but still can't wear anything in my ears that isn't 14k. They become irritated and red. Does it have to do with smoking? I don't know.” “I have had a nickel allergy since I was a kid. My son now has the same allergy. Neither of us smoked (obviously) or had smoking in the house growing up. I'm not going to get into the smoking/anti-smoking ranting thing here. My first reaction was -- Geez, now I can't tell anyone I have a nickel allergy or they'll think I smoke!!”
“I'm rather
allergic to Danish cookies. Eating Danish cookies may increase my risk of
developing allergies to German Chocolate". Ain’t it grand, ain’t it grand…
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Smoking causes cancer. Absolutely. Positively. There must be no doubt whatsoever about that. It is proven. That statement, along with the biblical multiplication of the statistical fish concerning “tobacco-related” death and disease is now the ritual, idiotic opening or closing line of most articles about smoking (even many anti-prohibition ones). Without it, the article is "not worth reading" – because it is not "believable" – so the holy bible of superstition must be ritually kissed as a sign of submission to the credo before opening any issue on smoking. Smoking causes cancer. Any study to the contrary must be thoroughly investigated -- to check if the grandpa of one of the researchers just happened to work for a tobacco farmer, so that the study can be discredited on those grounds. If the search turns out to be negative, then the study must be utterly ignored. There can be no heresy: smoking causes cancer – never forget that, in any of your waking hours – rather, dream about it too. No matter how many studies cannot prove it – those are worth nothing. Instead, consider only those which corroborate what you must believe -- to be considered intelligent, bright, modern, healthy, and educated. Knowledge is dangerous: you do not know that not even one of the millions of “tobacco-related” statistical deaths can be proven to be caused uniquely by smoking – and God forbid that the thought that it's impossible even to calculate the contribution of smoking to one single death or disease (thus the “social cost”) crosses your mind. There ARE millions and millions of deaths – there are! -- to scare smokers with, because smoking is bad, bad, BAD. And since the high priests of junk science (sorry: "public health") cannot make an act of (real) science, you must make an act of faith in their holy words for your own good – rather, a leap of faith – or you will be punished, and you’ll suffer from a horrible, horrible tax (and death). Amen.
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Iain Murray begins with the fact that as the population increases each year, it isn't surprising that traffic accidents and resulting deaths are likely to increase. Furthermore, when one examines the number of people killed per vehicle mile traveled the death rate was identical to the prior year. In fact the rate for both years is the lowest in years and far below the rate in 1991. So the number of people killed per vehicle mile traveled has steadily declined for the past decade, which doesn't, of course, generate any press coverage in these hysterical times. He uncovers more deception from the NHTSA, but his point applies equally to all special interest statistical acrobatics. Both in and outside of government special interests are not above hyping scares using shoddy statistical techniques. The war on tobacco is based completely upon statistical analysis and epidemiology, both notoriously inadequate methods to address the results of smoking. It's not surprising that other agendas are fertile ground for the reality.
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Joel Schwartz casts a jaundiced eye upon both the Bush administration and the environmentalists and discovers the American Cancer Society right in the thick of things cranking out studies that just plain don't make any sense. All of the mortality benefits and more than 90 percent of the monetary benefits claimed for Clear Skies come from reductions in PM2.5 [fine particulate matter]. Yet the claim that PM at current levels is causing increased mortality is implausible. EPA based its benefit estimate, as well as its stringent new PM2.5 health standard, on the American Cancer Society (ACS) study of PM and mortality. The ACS study reported that a 10 microgram per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 was associated with a four percent increase in the risk of death during the 16-year study period. But some odd features of the study suggest that PM is unlikely to be responsible. According to the ACS results, PM increased mortality in men, but not women; in those with no more than a high school degree, but not those with at least some college; in former-smokers, but not current- or never-smokers; and in those who said they were moderately active, but not the very active or the sedentary. These odd variations in the relationship between PM2.5 and mortality seem biologically implausible. Even more surprising, the ACS study reported that higher PM2.5 levels were not associated with an increased risk of mortality due to respiratory disease; a surprising finding, given that PM would be expected to exert its effects through the respiratory system And on it goes. The American Cancer Society, it must never be forgotten, fingered drinking orange juice as hazardous to health. It's participation, especially given its naked political activism, in a process that will cost society billions of dollars should be taken with a huge grain of salt. The ACS cold-bloodedly lies about the hazards of secondhand smoke. It really can't be trusted.
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April
28 -
World Health Baloney
- "While infectious disease ravages hapless
millions, the ineffective Brundtland distracts the public with crusades
against lifestyles — i.e., how much we eat, drink, and smoke. A final irony
is that malnutrition is the leading cause of death worldwide — according to
the WHO’s own World Health Report 2002!"
What a shame that the start of the 21st century is
proving to be such a dark carnival of superstition, cheap propaganda, and
cynical irresponsibility on the part of institutions. Nowhere is that so
evident as at the WHO, once spearheading the worthy work of eliminating the
smallpox scourge, now bitching at rich westerners about their fat
consumption while Third World millions succumb to disease and starvation. So
arrogant are the WHO gang these days that they launch their shrill and petty
crusades without even the pretense of disinterested scientific evidence. But
as junk science buster
Steven Milloy points out in this recent pillorying of WHO's recent
nutritional guidelines, it all goes to help fatten up the reputations and
resumes of the High Priests of Health. The SARS scare reminds us of what public health should really be about, and why it is important for public health bodies to maintain sterling integrity. Recently, with the number of SARS cases mounting, WHO advised the public against traveling to Toronto, Canada. The mayor went ballistic and said the advisory was outrageous; only time (and perhaps some viral mutations) will tell whether the emergence of SARS was the start of something disastrous or a (relative) tempest in a teapot. When such situations arise, as they inevitably will, people get frightened and -- in extreme cases -- some civil liberties may be legitimately suspended in order to enforce quarantine. Under such circumstances citizens MUST have a justifiably high level of trust in bodies charged with making sensitive and extremely important public health decisions. They MUST see that those organizations are not inclined to abuse power and that they act with prudence and in the light of solid scientific reasoning. But when "public health" has a track record of being politicized, petty, capricious and power-grabbing, it may find itself -- when a serious infectious disease emergency hits -- in the position of the boy who cried "wolf", having squandered its credibility. That's bad news for us all. In seeking to aggrandize itself in new and inappropriate ways, Public Health undermines the foundations for the important legitimate role that it does have. |
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Acute smoking may be what normal people call chain smoking. It's the opposite of "moderate" smoking which, according to anti-tobacco, doesn't exist. Whatever "acute" is, the reporter doesn't provide the definition but she does impart the startling news that examination of smokers' hair reveals nicotine and cotenine which she calls a "toxic byproduct" of tobacco smoke. Cotenine is a byproduct of tobacco smoke and it isn't toxic. Although it's easy to make fun of a scientific illiterate reporter, considering the bilge she was given to rework the researchers' press release into "news", it's not surprising that this story doesn't say anything. The facts are, as with secondhand smoke, impotence, wrinkles and the like, that this research doesn't prove smoking causes baldness. These studies never prove anything. Their only purpose is to spend public funds to transfer dollars from taxpayers to the pockets of middle class mediocrities.
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Although normal people with even a minimal understanding of the real world are not surprised when a commodity's price hike results in reduced consumption, it is quite astonishing to see the anti-tobacco Centers for Disease Control finally admit that tacking on high cigarette taxes does not result in people quitting smoking. Anti-tobacco has been conducting an extravagant road show to every state capitol promising that raising the cigarette tax will simultaneously balance the budge and force people to quit smoking. What has happened, however, as confirmed by the CDC, is that many smokers have cut back. Which leads to another anti-tobacco contradiction that is disintegrating. The anti-tobacco enterprise has worked diligently for the past two decades convincing people that tobacco is the most addicting substance on earth. The enterprise bought a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and a former U.S. Surgeon General to preach the gospel of tobacco addiction and, worse, to rewrite the definition of addiction to encompass tobacco. The result of that corruption of a medical term is that people are referring to all sorts of activities as "addicting" such as coffee drinking, sex, shopping, and the like. Reality always trumps anti-tobacco and the myth of tobacco addiction will be gone once pharmaceutical anti-smoking interests are discarded by the wayside.
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The risk of cardiovascular disease mortality for male and female air crew was surprisingly low (reaching statistical significance among women). More evidence that the nearly universal smoking bans on passenger airlines is unjustified comes from researchers who examined the specific health risks associated with working in commercial aviation. It is not an examination of secondhand smoke per se but does conclude that these workers who certainly are exposed more than most are no more likely to get lung cancer than those who are not exposed. Banning smoking on airlines makes no more sense than banning smoking in a restaurant or office building. No studies on secondhand smoke have ever demonstrated a significant risk.
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This is the latest come-on from the busybodies who want to banish smoking from private businesses. The claim, which has been credulously repeated by the news media, is based on a study of heart attacks in Helena, Montana, during the six months after a smoking ban took effect. The unpublished study is the work of Richard Sargent and Robert Shepard, two local physicians who were leading advocates of Helena's smoking ban, and Stanton Glantz, a well-known anti-smoking activist who directs the University of California at San Francisco's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. Sargent says they discovered that the smoking ban "led to an immediate and dramatic decline in the number of heart attacks experienced in Helena." In truth, the study shows nothing of the kind. The fact that Sargent and his fellow tobaccophobes got away with this kind of prevarication shows how eager journalists are to accept any factoid that helps the anti-smoking cause. Jacob Sullum takes on the nonsense coming out of Montana and slices and dices it down to size. There isn't much left to chew on after he is finished. Anti-tobacco used to go to great lengths to preserve the illusion that its results-oriented studies maintained heavy patina of legitimacy. Peer-reviewed and published in a respectable medical journal were the minimum requirements for conclusions that secondhand smoke is the most deadly toxin known to man. Now that the money is drying out and even the "legitimate" studies have been summoned to the court of scientific judgment, found wanting and dismissed like AWOL conscripts, the junk purveyors are getting sloppy. The bilge from Montana, so far, takes the cake and the most astonishing development is that "Dr." Stanton Glantz, one of the wiliest of the statistical manipulators, is affixing his imprimatur on this piece of obvious junk. More astonishing is that his employer, the University of California, is heralding the Helena study as if it were a tablet brought down from Sinai. Harvard, at least, regards the study with a critical eye.
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Doctors said their study, which they described as a kind of "natural experiment," is the first to examine what happens to public health when people stop smoking -- and breathing secondhand smoke -- in public places.
In Helena, two country doctors, both supporters of smoke ban, counted the number of heart attacks that occurred during the six months the ban was in effect. They compared that with the number of heart attacks that occurred the four years prior to the smoking ban. The adjusted those numbers to reflect seasonable ups and downs (whatever that means). The discovered that the smoking ban reduced the number of heart attacks per month by three. Even the doctors admit that their "research" must be conducted on a larger scale to be meaningful. They also seem to have forgotten that conclusions such as they reached should be evaluated by their peers to make sure that their study is valid. Considering the tiny population base and the short time the ban was in effect it's a safe bet that peer review would prevent these findings from making their way into any reputable medical journal. That didn't stop the ambitious doctors from taking their findings to Chicago where it was met with applause at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Cardiology. Needless to say this study is prime junk, about as meaningful as a rain dance. That didn't deter the medical editor at the Associated Press from writing a story that is as full as gobbledygook as extreme gullibility. The mainstream press, ever devoid of true scientific knowledge, has also picked up this pile of junk up just as it has accepted the quote from the American Heart Association stating that secondhand smoke kills 35,000 Americans from heart attacks per year which is based on the American Cancer Society's claim that a grand total of 53,000 are killed by secondhand smoke each year. To bad there is no basis for the 53,000 or for any of the other numbers. They are the product of agenda-driven research that has never stood up to close examination. Two Helena Doctors are on the verge of discovering just how profitable kitchen table research can be.
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The
key words in this write up are that baldness may be due to "acute"
and "long-term" smoking. While neither of these terms are
defined, long-term does hint at a significant passage of years. What
most men, whether smokers or not, discover as they grow older is that hair
does thin and in many cases almost completely deserts the pate. The
process is called aging and has absolutely nothing to do with
smoking. 
Does the reporter really believe that this study is the
first to examine what happens after secondhand smoke is banished? In
California alone there have been innumerable, and extremely expensive,
studies that have taken a look at "public health" after the Smoke
Nazi's have been put in charge. None of proven anything but have
provided employment for quite a gaggle of grant junkies.