Shakedown

July 3 - Here comes the next one: the war on Big Cappucino - “Sue Starbucks!” is the rallying cry of that ridiculous but unfortunately powerful organization, the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The kicker is that the attack is being helped with the participation of some of Starbucks own employees, who merrily cash their paychecks while wailing about the product they serve up hot to customers with a smile everyday. For more on this madness, and the ironies of the KFC lawsuit that’s also heating up, check out this opinion piece on Tech Central Station.

July 3 - Fight tobacco: nationalize the tobacco companies! - In the United States, the Master Settlement Agreement marked the attempt by government to mount a de facto takeover of the tobacco companies by snatching up their profits. Now, in Canada, where more frankness about the intention is permissible (it’s more of a social welfare state than the US, after all) certain anti-smokers are peddling the line that nationalization of the industry is the way to get rid of smoking. Any suckers ready to fall for that line?

Junk Science

July 3 - USC study shows junk science plays a big role in women starting to smoke – This would be the appropriate headline for the umpteenth agenda-driven antismoking study of the day. The “better understanding” of why people choose to take up a joy in life is full of “appears”, “should”,  “seems” - and contradictions galore -- all in an attempt to make smoking seems like a disease. But the real disease – and message – is in what Ann Hamilton, assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, says shamelessly about this “groundbreaking” piece of political conmanship: “Public health education programs are needed in the community, schools, and media to spread the message to teens and young adults that smoking is no longer socially acceptable”.

Oh, really. As we light one up with great gusto, let us take a look at what must, instead, no longer be socially acceptable. Junk science like this is not socially acceptable. Epidemiological frauds on smoking are no longer socially acceptable. False representation of what the evidence says is not socially acceptable. Laws based on such false representations are not socially acceptable, nor should they be respected – as is in the case with smoking bans. Universities defrauding the public in order to get grants are not socially acceptable. Prohibition is not socially acceptable nor is antitobacco. And society better wake up and become intolerant of such an industry of frauds. Antitobacco is a social cancer that has to be treated as a disease with the appropriate therapies: cut grants and funds, take antismoking activists to court for false advertising, and sue public health authorities for the same reasons. Make statistical frauds on public health issues a crime punishable with stiff sentences. That’s how people like Hamilton and her like may be persuaded to keep their mouths shut until they have some real scientific evidence to talk about.

Commentary

July 3 - Liberalism & regulation of lifestyle - For a generation "liberalism" has been a dirty word in the United States.  The tarnishing of this once luminous concept is entirely due to the abuses enacted by the far left in liberalism's name.  In an article about Berkeley, California, for instance, the reporter unwittingly reinforced the public's distain of of the "L" word by glowingly describing that most intolerant of cities as a bastion of liberalism and cited Berkeley's early embrace of smoking bans as proof.  Enacting smoking bans, and by extensions demonizing smokers, is antipodal to true liberalism.  Søren Højbjerg, our correspondent from Denmark delves deeper into the tragedy liberalisms transformation from an ideal to a nightmare.

Understanding the obvious

July 3 - Laws Don't Stop Kids From Smoking, Swiss Study Finds - A few of us who are now getting rather long in the tooth actually grew up under laws to stop kids from smoking (laws about sales to minors, for example). Didn’t stop the ones inclined to do so then, doesn’t stop ‘em now. And yet, behold -- a Swiss study weighs in to confirm what we already knew!

The corruption of antismoking “public health”

July 3 - 1. Antipsychotic use among US young people has risen six fold – Apparently people like Ann Hamilton (above), who seem so concerned about conditioning kids to fraudulent claims on smoking don’t seem to have anything to say about the drugging of an entire generation of children by the pharmaceutical industry (from which antitobacco gets a huge chunk of its money). It would be interesting to see these self-declared defenders of children and “public health” say something against intoxicating kids with pharmaceutical drugs. But nothing happens, of course: nobody bites the hand that feeds him.

July 3 - 2. European agency approves use of fluoxetine (Prozac) for children and teens – The most important thing is for youth is not to smoke, although not even a single death can be scientifically demonstrated to be caused by smoking. The Eurocrats also believe this, yet they don’t seem to have any problem drugging children with Prozac and Ritalin. Only one conclusion is possible: the main concern is not so much to keep children healthy; it’s a matter of allowing them to be intoxicated only by the products of the industry that pays off health bureaucrats best – and there is no question that Big Pharma is that industry.

July 3 - 3. What price integrity? – Antitobacco activists are fond of accusing everybody who opposes their fraud-based agenda of being corrupted by the tobacco industry. It’s almost automatic: you oppose a smoking ban on a beach? Well, you are a Big Tobacco operative, then. But what about the integrity of most of those who bark loudest against smoking? Most of them are paid off by Big Pharma. This BMJ article talks about how pharmaceutical funding is polluting any source of medical information, study and research. It is getting to the point where no information or study concerning health can be believed, such  is the taint of  pharmaceutical money. So, at the end of it all, the message of antitobacco is that its tainted money is better than the most often non-existing tainted money of its opponents. Selective ethics? No, selective corruption.

July 3 - 4. Obesity task force linked to WHO takes "millions" from drug firms – Fat people, like smokers, have become pariahs today; we’re told that obesity is a planetary “epidemic” just like tobacco; finally, we  know that the statistics on obesity rely on fraudulent mechanisms similar to those used by “public health” to falsely represent smoking as an epidemic. There is a common denominator between smoking and obesity and it is – you guessed it – the corruption of the health authorities at the very top of the pinnacle. This piece published by BMJ states it clearly: “The International Obesity Task Force has relied heavily on funding from the drug industry for a decade, despite being widely seen as an independent think tank and having ties to the World Health Organization. Set up in the mid-1990s with help from grants from three drug companies, the task force aims to portray obesity as a ‘serious medical condition’ and to promote better prevention and management strategies. It has a high media profile and is highly influential. A senior US member and a well respected authority on obesity, William Dietz, is currently one of the driving forces behind a controversial change in definitions of childhood overweight and obesity, which some researchers believe may exaggerate the problem and unnecessarily label children as diseased. Although the task force has at times disclosed the names of drug company sponsors, the exact amount of that sponsorship remains secret.^“ With this kind of prostitution of “public health” to Big Pharma going utterly unpunished, policies and politics are set, laws are written, behaviours are persecuted – and people keep on surrendering, disgusted at what’s going on but absolutely terrified at the though of rebelling and punishing the health authorities who con them for profit. FORCES’ warning that the antismoking cancer was just the tip of an immense degeneration of the political and social system have gone unheard – so far. So stand by for more “alarms” and “epidemics” from the public health snake oil sales office near you.

July 3 - 5. Height of irony: End pharma influence on CME, says AMA journal - The stand of the American Medical Association against smoking is one of the most vicious known, as the AMA has been one of the most energetic pushers of the epidemiological frauds on smoking as well as a big peddler of pharmaceutical smoking cessation trash. The AMA has been (and is) a heavy-duty recipient of pharmaceutical money from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Johnson  & Johnson)  - amongst others - for the purpose of misinforming people on the effects of tobacco on health and obtain the de-normalization of smoking. It strikes us as disgustingly hypocritical, therefore, that the AMA’s  Journal  of Ethics now calls for “reducing drug companies’ influence on doctors’ prescribing habits by stopping the companies paying for continuing medical education”. That sure takes some face; but let’s say it once again: selective ethics? No, selective corruption.

Tobacco Control

July 3 - Making an impact - We are pleased to report that Michael Siegel, a supporter of the tobacco control movement, is getting his message of scientific integrity out to the public.  Specifically his criticism of SmokeFreeOhio for making outrageous claims about the dangers of secondhand smoke is making the news in that state as it discusses whether to enact a stringent smoking ban.  While FORCES operates under the assumption that anti-tobacco is lying every time it opens its mouth, Dr. Siegel demonstrates here why SmokeFreeOhio should be very ashamed of itself for misinforming the citizens of Ohio.

July 3 - Shun smokers - Last week the Surgeon General of the United States advised Americans to ostracize smokers.  Although such a tactic has been advocated by tobacco control for quite some time, Dr. Michael Siegel, himself a tobacco control advocate, is troubled by the apparent effort to stigmatize smokers as somehow beyond the pale of human society.  As a tactical matter advocating shunning smokers as a way to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke undermines tobacco control's rationalization for smoking bans.  Since nonsmokers for years have not had to expose themselves to tobacco smoke, except when they do so voluntarily by patronizing private establishments that permit smoking, nonsmokers already "shun" smokers if they choose not to step into the places where smoking occurs.  In other words people already shun tobacco smoke and have no problem with smokers.  The Surgeon General's rhetoric, whether intentional or note, is both hateful and unneeded.

July 3 - Doing the right thing - Speaking of being shunned, truth teller Michael Siegel has been getting the cold shoulder (and worse) from his peers in the tobacco control movement.  Apparently demonstrating that anti-tobacco organizations are dispensing faulty science is a faux pas among those who aim to prohibit smoking by any means necessary.  Interestingly those who deplore Dr. Siegel criticism of tobacco control are more concerned with him speaking out publicly than with the criticism itself.  To his credit he recognizes the importance of openly debating tobacco control issues rather than keeping the dirty laundry within the family.

July 3 - Paving the way for home invasions - A California state representative has authored a bill that criminalizes smokers who smoke in their cars when children under six years of age are present.  The representative labels smoking in the presence of children a form of child abuse.  Michael Siegel takes a dim view of such coercion and wonders why such a regulation cannot logically be expanded to include private homes where children reside.  Such legislation is inherently problematic, specifically undermining parental authority, the sanctity of the home and the right to enjoy a lawful product.  Certainly banning smoking in cars will not advance public health one iota while igniting resentment against health interests who claim to be working for the health of all.

July 3 - Cracking the wall of unanimity - While anti-tobacco appears, and passes itself off accordingly, as an unstoppable juggernaut a more realistic view is one of a school of brightly colored, tiny fish, darting and weaving as one.  The astonishing ability of each member of the school to move in exactly the same direction at exactly the same time protects the collective as it dazzles predators with uniformity of action.  Michael Siegel, although an advocate of tobacco control, is not a part of the anti-tobacco collective.  His incisive exposés of the dubious science used to advance the movement's goals have made him persona non grata to many in tobacco control, although, as he notes in this commentary, he is hardly alone in disagreeing with particular methods used to attack smokers.

Straightening up eaters

July 3 - Meddling Medicos - The American Medical Association is jealous of the behavior controllers in the United Kingdom who have been given free reign to impose wholesale their social regulations upon the population.  The AMA has a wish list that it wants our government to enact to save Americans from themselves. 

The coverage of agenda in the Wall Street Journal on June 14 adds that the AMA wants the Food and Drug Administration to take salt off the list of food additives that can be used without regulation because they are on the GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) list. In other words the AMA wants to treat salt like a carcinogen or other toxin. The reason is to reduce heart attacks and because we stupid people just won't cut down on salt no matter how much the "experts" have nagged us, so the behavior engineers are going after the manufacturers and restaurant owners and hoping to criminalize salt. Since salt-reduced let alone salt-free food is virtually tasteless, they will succeed in making people either avoid restaurants or travel to restaurants with their own shakers. Sort of like hip flasks during Prohibition.

July 3 - Hauling out the heavy artillery - Plans to radically expand the therapeutic state in Great Britain could provide the last nail in the coffin of personal liberty in that once great country.  To combat the brand new "epidemic" of obesity, the social engineers propose sweeping regulations of the food industry and advertising industries.  The medical profession will be monitored to ensure that it is assigning the utmost priority to battling childhood obesity.  Showing its fealty to the multi-national pharmaceutical industry, the government is considering the use of anti-obesity drugs that reduce the size of the human body.  In Great Britain the political goal of converting a free citizens into automatons whose bodies belong to the state is well underway.