Midnight Garden

[Rose]

Lessons Learned From Tobacco Control Should be Applied to Climate Policy
http://www.prwatch.org/node/8767?


"Set up committees of sophisticated politicians and economists in every country to help pursue stated goals."
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kub2aa00/pdf


"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.
An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city,he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
A murderer is less to fear.
The traitor is the plague."

Cicero

[Rose]

UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim

"A STARTLING report by the United Nations climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its 2007 benchmark report that even a slight change in rainfall could see swathes of the rainforest rapidly replaced by savanna grassland.

The source for its claim was a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was authored by two green activists. They had based their “research” on a study published in Nature, the science journal, which did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning. This weekend WWF said it was launching an internal inquiry into the study.

This is the third time in as many weeks that serious doubts have been raised over the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change."

"The latest controversy originates in a report called A Global Review of Forest Fires, which WWF published in 2000. It was commissioned from Andrew Rowell, a freelance journalist and green campaigner who has worked for Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and anti-smoking organisations.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 009705.ece

[Rose]

They really have got the bit between their teeth now.


Government's anti-cigarette drive to stop you smoking at the wheel and at home

"Cigarettes to be sold in plain, grey, logo-free packets
Sale of tobacco from vending machines to be banned
Smoking to be banned at entrances to buildings

Plans to cut the number of smokers by pressurising them not to light up at home and in cars have been unveiled.
The Government’s ‘tobacco control strategy’ also proposes banning smoking at entrances to buildings and selling cigarettes in plain grey packets as part of a series of policies aimed at halving the number of smokers by 2020.
The plans were dismissed as ‘ meddlesome’ and ‘unworkable’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... l?ITO=1490


"Look, there's a chap over there smoking. Let's go over and torment him. We've already banned him from smoking indoors, forced him to stand outside the pub in the freezing sleet, charged him over six quid a pack and festooned each pack with images of rotting lungs, disgusting teeth and stunted babies. We've told private members' clubs they can't make their own rules about whether members are allowed to smoke, and we've made employers think twice about hiring a smoker (even if he doesn't indulge at work) as if the act of lighting a gasper was in some way criminal.

But we're not finished are we? People are still smoking in the street, outside the office, in the hotel car park. Look at that chap, smoking in the pub garden. Let's make up a new rule and say, you can't smoke in that garden, it's a health risk. Yes, I'm aware that smoke rises and keeps going up until it's dispersed into the atmosphere, but it's possible that some pub employee could be passing overhead in, say, a hot air balloon at 9,000 feet, could inhale a trace element of nicotine and suffer in the future from a slight cough, and because of this high risk factor, we've told the pub owner to ban smoking in the open air, among the innocent, tobacco-free trees ...

Pardon the sarcasm but, sometimes, the anti-smoking lobby sound like sadistic children, dreaming up ever-more elaborate ways to torment people engaged in a perfectly legal activity."
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 86129.html

[Rose]

War on smokers: the backlash

"Over at Ash – Action On Smoking and Health – Ogden's opposite number is Deborah Arnott.
She was fond of the occasional cigarette until 2003, when she decided to leave a job in TV production and devote her working life to the anti-smoking struggle.
"I smoked Silk Cut," she says, "which probably shows my age."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... n-backlash

[Rose]

Kiwis will get used to smoking ban

"Health officials say Kiwis will eventually get used to a smoking ban on beaches and public areas.
The move is being looked at by a parliamentary select committee.

The call comes from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS).
They say Kiwis could get used to it - like they did when the smoking was banned in restaurants and bars in 2003."
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/kiwis-g ... an-3349960

I doubt it.

Anti-tobacco has just claimed the no-man's-land between the land and sea and maritime nations tend to have strong feelings about that kind of thing.

We were furious when we discovered that our ancient rights had been quietly legislated away.

Pirates galore
Given the environmental impact of the beached cargo ship MSC Napoli - how wrong can a spot of beachcombing really be?

Spiritually though, I am in Devon, exercising my ancient rights of salvage
What seems to have upset the authorities is that they were caught off-guard, and had not managed to regulate private salvaging out of existence.
Being employed to hand out honesty forms to those on the beach can't have been the greatest job in the world".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ ... atesgalore

Oh yes they had.


Still, there is a precedent.

"banned from parks, restaurants and swimming pools"
"excluded from cinema, theatre, concerts, exhibitions, beaches and holiday resorts
http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/v ... crees.html

[Rose]

Top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility

"A LEADING British government scientist has warned the United Nations’ climate panel to tackle its blunders or lose all credibility"

"The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

This weekend Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, told The Sunday Times that he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035.

The African claims could be even more embarrassing for the IPCC because they appear not only in its report on climate change impacts but, unlike the glaciers claim, are also repeated in its Synthesis Report."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 017907.ece

[Rose]

African crops yield another catastrophe for the IPCC

"Ever more question marks have been raised in recent weeks over the reputations of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and of its chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri. But the latest example to emerge is arguably the most bizarre and scandalous of all. It centres on a very specific scare story which was included in the IPCC's 2007 report, although it was completely at odds with the scientific evidence – including that produced by the British expert in charge of the relevant section of the report. Even more tellingly, however, this particular claim has repeatedly been championed by Dr Pachauri himself.

Only last week Dr Pachauri was specifically denying that the appearance of this claim in two IPCC reports, including one of which he was the editor, was an error. Yet it has now come to light that the IPCC, ignoring the evidence of its own experts, deliberately published the claim for propaganda purposes."

"One of the most widely quoted and most alarmist passages in the main 2007 report was a warning that, by 2020, global warming could reduce crop yields in some countries in Africa by 50 per cent. Dr Pachauri not only allowed this claim to be included in the short Synthesis Report, of which he was co-editor, but has publicly repeated it many times since.

The origin of this claim was a report written for a Canadian advocacy group by Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan academic who draws part of his current income from advising on how to make applications for "carbon credits"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu ... -IPCC.html


World may not be warming, say scientists

"The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.
These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.

Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.

“The story is the same for each one,” he said. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”
His study, which has not been peer reviewed, is illustrated with photographs of weather stations in locations where their readings are distorted by heat-generating equipment.

Some are next to air- conditioning units or are on waste treatment plants. One of the most infamous shows a weather station next to a waste incinerator.
Watts has also found examples overseas, such as the weather station at Rome airport, which catches the hot exhaust fumes emitted by taxiing jets.

In Britain, a weather station at Manchester airport was built when the surrounding land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by heat-generating buildings."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 026317.ece

[Rose]

Presumably they came up with this little gem, before Climategate.

Climate change report sets out an apocalyptic vision of Britain

"Mass migration northwards to new towns in Scotland, Wales and northeast England may be needed to cope with climate change and water shortages in the South East, according to an apocalyptic vision set out by the Government Office for Science.

Heathrow would be converted into a giant reservoir by 2035, there could be severe restrictions on flying and driving and farmers would be forced to sell their land to giant agricultural businesses. Greenhouse gas emissions would be controlled by carbon rationing for individuals, which would lead to “significant shifts in lifestyle as everyone tries to stay within budget”.

The Government would ease pressure on the South East by planning to “disperse citizens to three new towns in Dumfries and Galloway, Northumberland and Powys”.

The vision is published today in a report entitled Land Use Futures: Making the Most of Land in the 21st Century.
John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, who directed the research, said that climate change and the growing population would present Britain with difficult choices about how it used its land."

“Business as usual is not an option over the longer term. The effects of climate change and new pressures on land could escalate, seriously eroding quality of life,” he said.

The report says that the projected population increase of nine million by 2031 and an increase in the number of single-person households would result in unprecedented demand for land for development and put pressure on natural resources such as water. By 2050, hotter, drier summers could reduce river flows by 80 per cent.

The report, compiled by 300 scientists, economists and planners, includes three scenarios to “stimulate thought” and “highlight difficult policy dilemmas that government and other actors may need to consider in the future”.

All the scenarios involve dramatic changes in lifestyles and landscapes in response to climate change. In the most extreme scenario, world leaders hold an emergency summit in 2014 when it becomes clear that the impacts of climate change are going to be far worse and happen much sooner than previously envisaged.

The Government responds by taking control of vast tracts of land and using it to grow wood and crops for biomass power stations. An agricultural productivity Bill requires farmers to increase yields per hectare but most have to sell up because they lack the resources to comply. “The average farm size in the UK increases from 57 hectares to 500 hectares; farms in the East and South East of England increase to 5,000 hectares.”

The report says that satellite images in 2060 would reveal dramatic changes in the countryside. “The landscape is mottled with wind turbines; the patches in the patchwork are bigger; there are more forests and fewer animals; there are fewer vehicles moving along the roads.”

In another scenario, the Government redefines land as a national resource and the rights of landowners are balanced with “society’s rights to public benefits from the services produced by it”.
Home ownership falls as people begin to embrace the idea of “stewardship” of shared natural resources."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 041857.ece

I get the picture.

In four years time? Thank heavens for the whistleblower!

[Rose]

Row over leaked climate emails may undermine reputation of science

"The row sparked by the leak of climate change emails from a British university has the potential to "undermine" the reputation of science as a whole, two respected scientific organisations have warned"

"In its submission to the MPs' inquiry it said: "The position of the RSS regarding public dissemination of scientific data is that where the results of scientific analyses have been published or are otherwise in the public domain, the raw data, and associated metadata, used for these analyses should, within reason, also be made available."

The society added that such scientific information could be stored in special data centres set up for that purpose.

But Professor Jones, speaking in front of the Common's committee, said such release of information was not standard practice among climate scientists and that some of the data could not be released as it belonged to national weather services in other countries who had refused permission to publish it.

Dr Don Keiller, deputy head of life sciences at Anglia Ruskin University, however, claims that Professor Jones and his colleagues conspired to withhold information in case it was used to criticise them.

He said: "What these emails reveal is a detailed and systematic conspiracy to prevent other scientists gaining access to CRU data sets. Such obstruction strikes at the very heart of the scientific method, that is the scrutiny and verification of data and results by one's peers."

Professor Darrel Ince, from the department of computer science at the Open University, added: "A number of climate scientists have refused to publish their computer programs; what I want to suggest is that this is both unscientific behaviour and, equally importantly ignores a major problem: that scientific software has got a poor reputation for error." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7385584/Row-over-leaked-climate-emails-may-undermine-reputation-of-science.html?

[Rose]

Is Policy Exchange the most loathsome think tank in Britain?

"Another day, another reason to hate Cameron’s progressive Conservatives. This one comes courtesy of their favourite soft-left think tank Policy Exchange, which has hit on the brilliant idea of punishing smokers even more than they are already by raising the cost of cigarettes still higher.

Just have a skim, if you can bear it, through the witterings of Policy Exchange’s creepy-sounding policy wonk Henry Featherstone on the Conservative Home website"


"£2.9 billion lost because of smoking breaks? And how do they KNOW? What about all the productive thoughts that smokers have while nipping outside and talking to the fellow-most-interesting-people-in-the-office? What about the improved productivity-rate induced by having had a good blast of nicotine and fresh air? What about all the time the non-smokers are wasting surfing porn sites and catching up on Facebook?"
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... n-britain/

[Rose]

Pinched from Dick Puddlecoat
http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com


Pfizer to pay $142M for drug fraud - March 26 2010

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been ordered to pay $142 million US in damages for fraudulently marketing gabapentin, an anti-seizure drug marketed under the name Neurontin.
A federal jury in Boston ruled Thursday that Pfizer fraudulently marketed the drug and promoted it for unapproved uses. The jury sided with California-based Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the first to try a gabapentin case against Pfizer.

Data revealed in a string of U.S. lawsuits indicates the drug was promoted by the drug company as a treatment for for pain, migraines and bipolar disorder — even though it wasn't effective in treating these conditions and was actually toxic in certain cases, according to the Therapautics Initiative, an independent drug research group at the University of British Columbia.

The trials forced the company to release all of its studies on the drug, including the ones it kept hidden.

A new analysis of those unpublished trials by the Therapeutics Initiative suggests that gabapentin works for one out of every six or eight people who use it, at best. The review also concluded that one in eight people had an adverse reaction to the drug.

"The much larger majority of people will not get any benefit and many of them will have chronic neurotoxicity or poisoning of the brain," said Dr. Tom Perry of the Therapeutics Initiative."
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/03/ ... n-ubc.html


2009
US drugmaker Pfizer has agreed to pay $2.3bn (£1.4bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice."
"These were Bextra, an anti-inflammatory drug, Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug, Zyvox, an antibiotic and Lyrica, an epilepsy treatment."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8234533.stm



2007
Pfizer Inc., the pharmaceutical giant, halted late-stage trials of a cholesterol drug called torcetrapib after investigators discovered that it increased heart problems — and death rates — in the test population"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/healt ... ref=slogin


Is this a regular thing then?


Pfizer
Understanding Health. What's in a cigarette?

Acetic Acid (vinegar)
Acetone (nail varnish remover)
Ammonia (cleaning agent)
Arsenic (ant poison in the USA)
Benzene (petrol fumes)
Cadmium (car battery fluid)
DDT (insecticide)
Ethanol (anti-freeze)
Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)
Hydrogen Cyanide (industrial pollutant)
Lead (batteries, petrol fumes)
Methanol (rocket fuel)
Tar (road surface tar)
http://www.pfizerlife.co.uk/SmokingWhat ... rette.aspx

I think I'm beginning to understand...

[Rose]

Climate scientists at East Anglia University cleared by inquiry

"Climate scientists at the centre of the row over stolen e-mails acted with integrity and made no attempt to manipulate their research on global temperatures, an external inquiry has found.

Their research was, however, misrepresented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which failed to reflect uncertainties the scientists had reported concerning the raw temperature data."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 097234.ece

See comments.

[Rose]

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF A HEALTH MENACE
A CAUTIONARY TALE
http://tobaccodocuments.org/mayo_clinic ... art_page=1


1971
SECOND WORLD CONFERENCE on Smoking and Health

"But psychologist Daniel Horn, of the U.S. Public Health Service's National Clearinghouse on Smoking and Health, observed that "under certain conditions" an increase in carbon monoxide from others' cigarettes might be harmful to someone with a heart condition."
http://tobaccodocuments.org/lor/00622190-2193.html

A psychologist?


"Carbon monoxide is an anti-inflammatory, and they want to explore its potential in treating high blood pressure, heart disease and possibly cancer"

"Carbon monoxide causes vasorelaxation and is produced naturally as a result of the breakdown of haemoglobin. This can be seen in the healing process of a bruise, where various colour changes indicate the degradation of haemoglobin and release of carbon monoxide. The slow release of carbon monoxide reduces blood pressure for someone who has angina, for instance"
http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/n ... nmonoxide/

Carbon Monoxide
viewtopic.php?f=363&t=1429


But nevertheless -

Just 30 minutes of passive smoking 'can lead to heart attacks' - 2008
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... tacks.html

Analysis Reveals that Institute of Medicine Report Failed to Include Data that Found No Effect of Smoking Bans on Acute Coronary Events in 3 Countries
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/200 ... te-of.html


The Firsthand heart attack theory?


"Late in the war nicotine was suspected as a cause of the coronary heart failure suffered by a surprising number of soldiers on the eastern front. A 1944 report by an army field pathologist found that all 32 young soldiers whom he had examined after death from heart attack on the front had been "enthusiastic smokers."

The author cited the Freiburg pathologist Franz Buchner's view that cigarettes should be considered "a coronary poison of the first order"
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/313/7070/1450

"Many of the Wehrmacht's soldiers were high on Pervitin when they went into battle, especially against Poland and France -- in a Blitzkrieg fueled by speed. The German military was supplied with millions of methamphetamine tablets during the first half of 1940.
The drugs were part of a plan to help pilots, sailors and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1 ... 06,00.html

"The period to recover from the drug effect was getting longer and longer, while attention concentration ability was getting weaker and weaker.
This eventually resulted in messages of lethal outcome in several Nazi divisions in France and Poland."
http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/ ... _Nazi.html

Methamphetamine
"An overdose of methamphetamine can result in seizures, high body temperature, irregular heartbeat, heart attack, stroke and death"
http://www.camh.net/About_Addiction_Men ... e_dyk.html

[Rose]

Swine flu

Gordon Brown plans tonic for pharmaceutical industry - January 2009

"The Government has placed the pharmaceuticals industry at the heart of its economic agenda with the appointment of Lord Mandelson and Alan Johnson to a key health sector group that will report to the Prime Minister.

Gordon Brown has summoned senior industry figures, such as Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, and David Brennan, his opposite number at AstraZeneca, to a meeting at No10 to discuss ways of protecting pharmaceuticals and biotechnology companies, their revenues and their jobs, as the economy deteriorates rapidly"

"The traditional pharmaceuticals companies, for which some key patents will expire in the coming years, are concerned about the increasing cost of bringing new drugs to the market and growing regulatory hurdles.

They hope to persuade the Government to introduce a package of measures, which may include changes to taxation and patent legislation. In return, they may agree to conditions, such as reducing the extent to which the manufacturing process is moved to cheaper developing countries"
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 594350.ece



GSK hopes ‘unprecedented’ order for flu treatment will generate £600m - July

"GlaxoSmithKline hopes to reap the benefit of 18 years of preparation for a flu pandemic by generating £600 million from its Relenza treatment this year.

GSK, which said yesterday that it was in talks to sell a flu vaccine to more than 50 countries, reported that sales of Relenza rose to £60 million in the second quarter, 20 times the volume of the period a year earlier.

It forecast that revenues would hit about £600 million over the year as it fulfilled orders agreed with 60 countries"
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 723892.ece



Britain prepares for 65,000 deaths from swine flu - July

"People will obtain a diagnosis over the telephone or by completing an internet questionnaire. They will then be given a reference number so that a “flu friend” can pick up the antiviral drug from a depot. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have not yet set up such a service but may do so."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 716477.ece



Who is making a profit from swine flu? - August

"In terms of the share price, Roche is rocketing and GSK might as well stand for Great Swine flu Killing. The profits being reaped by these companies in the wake of the pandemic have been rising faster than the mercury in an old-fashioned thermometer"

"Roche expects to have flogged 2 billion Swiss francs (around £1.2 billion) of Tamiflu by the end of this year, but what most people don’t realise is that another company, Gilead, actually made the drug and licensed its use to Roche (this kind of alliance allows smaller, innovative companies to harness the marketing muscle of larger companies).

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) also expects to report a bumper balance sheet for the first half of the year. It manufactures Relenza, an inhaled alternative, suitable for pregnant women, as well as antiviral masks expected to be used widely by healthcare workers during a predicted autumn resurgence. GSK is also the main force behind the swine flu vaccine, which should be ready for delivery in the autumn and will cost about £6 a shot.

GSK remains rightly unbothered by accusations that it is exploiting the scare, pointing out that it has spent £2.5 billion researching vaccine development"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 737507.ece



Unused swine flu doses leave taxpayers facing a £150m loss April 2010

"Ministers previously signed deals worth £155 million with GSK and another company, Baxter, for enough vaccine to protect the entire population during a pandemic. Originally, 60 million doses were ordered from GSK and 36 million doses from Baxter, but owing to production schedules, this was revised later to 90 million and 9.2 million doses respectively."

"Paul Flynn, a Labour MP who is involved in an investigation by the Council of Europe into the flu pandemic and allegations of drug company influence on government policies, said that Britain had bought “vastly more than any other country we know of” and called for greater transparency on the cost."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 089601.ece

[Rose]

The pandemic that never was: Drug firms 'encouraged world health body to exaggerate swine flu threat'

"Britain braced itself for up to 65,000 deaths and signed vaccine contracts worth £540million
The actual number of deaths was fewer than 500 and the country is now desperately trying to unpick the contracts and unload millions of unused jabs.

The focus on swine flu also led to other health services suffering and widespread public fear.
Pharmaceutical companies, however, profited to the tune of £4.6billion from the sale of vaccines alone

Mr Flynn said: 'There is not much doubt that this was an exaggeration on stilts.
They vastly over-stated the danger on bad science and the national governments were in a position where they had to take action.

'In Britain, we have spent at least £1billion on preparations, to the detriment of other parts of the health system. This is a monumental failure on the WHO's part.'

"The Council of Europe inquiry heard allegations that the WHO had downgraded its definition for declaring a pandemic last spring - just weeks before announcing there was a worldwide outbreak."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... l?ITO=1490



Smoking ban 'is based on bad science'

"The Government takes more notice of scare stories than of evidence, a Lords committee has said.
THE ban on smoking in pubs was an over-reaction to the threat posed by passive smoking and symptomatic of MPs’ failure to understand the concept of risk, a House of Lords committee has said.

The Lords Economic Affairs Committee accused the Government of kneejerk reactions to scare stories about health, saying it did not weigh the risks.
Ministers placed insufficient weight on available scientific evidence and relied instead on “unsubstantiated reports” when formulating policy."

"The committee cited the smoking ban as an example of a policy based on bad science, it having been sold to the public as necessary because of the apparent dangers of passive smoking"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 672477.ece