September 22

Junk Science

September 22 [12:10 GMT] - Junk science links junk disease with active and passive smoke! - Yep, the very controversial Attention Deficit Disorder, denounced as a fraud created ad hoc to make a huge market for drugs such as Ritalin (click on the numbers for reference links 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... the list could go on forever) is now "caused" 1 out of 3 times by active and passive smoke! Corruption and trash science are really outdoing themselves!! Let's put it together, for whatever it's worth: con "scientists" ATTRIBUTE the cause of an INVENTED disease using junk science questionnaires to ride on the more-than-demonstrated epidemiological fraud of passive smoke! This is the funny part. The ugly part is that top "public health" institutions and "scientists" are involved in this Chinese box fraud, giving unquestionable demonstration of their corruption and stupidity. And if  you think the building is rotten, check out the foundations: above and beyond the public fraud and the lavish economic and political rewards that come with it today, "public health" is dozing in a pseudo-philosophy and  belief set that exists in the shady area between statistics or quasi-statistics and quasi-magic; where reason intertwines with paranoia; where deep intellectual dishonesty intersects with gross incompetence and grotesque naivité. Welcome to the 21st century Twilight Zone.

September 22 [12:10 GMT] - California sues carmakers over global warming - And, just like tobacco control, collecting an additional $400-$500 from consumers per new car to fund a “Global Warming Settlement” will not solve the problem any more than collecting 45 cents per pack from cigarette consumers solved the “problem” of smoking. Next, as the model goes, we’ll start to hear about the compelling need for higher car insurance premiums to discourage driving and lower emissions. The more things change the more they stay the same, when theft from the consumer's pockets is the real intention of the state! (See additional comments here)

...What scientifically based research?

September 21 [15:30 GMT] - Stealth assault launched on selling tobacco by mail - Disposable citizens. Useful idiots. Revenue sources. Patients. Killers. Floor mats. Smokers are considered all that - and more - by all who have interest in their exploitation. Smokers are largely responsible for that, because they just don't rebel. Be that as it may, we don't think that there has ever been a greater orgy of hypocrisy, incoherence, fraud and corruption as there is in the antitobacco enterprise. Marxist ideology mixes with Nazi rhetoric; capitalism in-breeds with monopolistic politics while it babbles about free markets; "freedom of choice" becomes the liberty to chose to be punished if you use a legal product on which the state gets rich. This article by The Hill gives us another example of that, and we agree with almost everything that is in the piece. "Almost everything" because (unfortunately) too many people who defend freedom still show utter ignorance about the "science".

We read: "This strategy begins with sound, scientifically based research that pinpoints the specific health hazards associated with particular types of tobacco use. Then, the choice-based approach simply conveys this information to the public and allows individuals to exercise their own best judgment on how to balance the risks of tobacco against the enjoyment derived from using it."

If the implication of the piece is that the research exists and it is what is currently available, then we have a question: >WHAT< "sound, scientifically based research"? Retrospective questionnaires about unverifiable consumption of a product supposed to cause diseases that have 50, 100 or even 500 co-factors ARE NOT "sound, scientifically based research". Nor are arbitrary attributions of causality for diseases of unknown origin and causality, where all other co-factors are ignored and everything is attributed to smoking. ALL the evidence on smoking is statistical (epidemiological) which, by definition cannot establish causality - a causality that is attributed as substitution for knowledge. As long as this veritable mockery of science (better described as fraud) is represented (and believed) as science, not only will we never get rid of antitobacco, we won't get rid of all the other frauds that cost trillions to the world economy and are turning the planet into a big dictatorship. And all those who keep on calling epidemiology a science become accessories to that fraud, even when they defend the liberty to choose.

The disgusting

September 21 [15:30 GMT] - Smokers, beware when traveling to India! - French reporter roughed up for lighting up - On lighting up a cigarette recently, a vacationing French reporter was physically assaulted by local officers in India. As of this news report, the journalist and his wife were still waiting to get their passports back in order to leave the country. The officers who jumped on the man after he lit up claim they thought he was a terrorist (sure). "Just before boarding I wanted to smoke and lit a cigarette. But suddenly this officer came and slapped me. Some others roughed me up and hit me on my legs," Ugin alleged. No doubt the American anti-smoking movement will find it gratifying that their message is taken so seriously in countries where the authorities feel a little less constrained than they usually do in the States.

Son of a Precautionary Principle

September 21 [15:30 GMT] - When the Precautionary Principle trumps all inherited values, there’s big trouble - Psychologists and university administrators are starting to worry about the middle-class kids emerging from fiercely overprotected childhoods where even play has been supervised and parentally directed to the point where it hardly exists anymore.

When safety, control and the Precautionary Principle take over as the guiding principles of life, we don’t get youngsters who grow up to be adults: we get small babies who grow into large, long-in-the-tooth babies who can’t function as adults. That’s very bad news for individuals and society.

What’s going on here? No doubt a lot of different things, but it’s tempting to speculate about some of them. At their most extreme, the babyboomers initially rejected the lessons of history, their parents’ values, the notion of moderation – in short, they said “no,” to whatever society the older generation endorsed, and “yes” to whatever caused a gratifying reaction of anxiety and panic in what they called The Establishment. They ended up profoundly confused. Many of them never developed wisdom in the aftermath of their own mass-adolescent counterculture, which, paradoxically, was highly conformist in its call to “do your own thing”. As parents, they became overprotective hysterics, so uncertain as to their role and so clued-out about what to teach that contradiction and angst have apparently become one of their greatest legacies.

And let’s not forget that babyboomers are used to being the protagonists: they hate being left out of anything. That includes youth itself: as 50 and 60-year-olds, the members of the Youth Culture biotox and nip and tuck, doing their pathetic best to compete with people decades younger (how can you be an older, wiser parent when your deepest wish is to be 15 again?). They want to have it all, and the “all” appears in many cases to include the very lives, personalities and futures of their children.

From Michael Siegel's blog

September 21 [15:30 GMT] - Another anti-smoking group supports discriminatory workplace smoker bans; but rest of the story commenter sets the record straight - As smokers continue to be unresponsive victims of abuse, there will be more who abuse them, and more companies will fire or refuse to hire them. Of course, antitobacco groups cheer on, for it serves their interests of hatred and financial gain. "For many employers, [firing smokers] makes sense... They are concerned about the message they send to employees, customers and the general public". Concerned... - yes sure - just the same type of "concern" racists have about sending the wrong "message" if they hire a black. "What kind of message does the Smoke Free Maryland Coalition of Baltimore have in mind?", considers Siegel, "That smokers are second class citizens who are undeserving of employment? That children of smokers should go hungry because no one ought to hire their parents? That there is no room in society for smokers?" - Exactly, Dr. Siegel, you got it. And let's be easy prophets: with the fake excuse of health costs, these bastards will fire or not hire "fatsos" and social drinkers in the near future. This is the cost of fraudulent epidemiology, criminal "public health" policies and hatred - a deadly combination. There should be no room for healthism in a civilized society - for the moment society adopts it, it's no longer civilized.

September 21 [15:30 GMT] - You caught us lying? No sweat, we take back one lie and replace it with another - The compulsion to lie of antitobacco is something we recently spoke about. Here is another example: SmokeFreeOhio apparently admits inaccurate claims in fact sheet, but retains and adds even more fallacious ones. Read the Rest of the story - and consider this: isn't it ironic that antitobacco gangs love to compile their lies in "fact sheets"? There is a constellation of them -- and all proving only one real fact: that it's one fraud after another. And here comes another one: a supposed "fact sheet" put out by SmokeFreeOhio claims that secondhand smoke causes the debilitating lung disease known as pulmonary emphysema.. Twenty five more gangs, according to Siegel, claim the same thing. "Without sufficient evidence", says Siegel, mentioning that not even the California Environmental Protection Agency report and the Surgeon General report give such indication.

But here is where we beg to disagree with Dr. Siegel: one cannot consider as "evidence" epidemiological junk science based on trash questionnaires. And this is what both CALEPA and the SG do. So there is no evidence at all - thus both CALEPA and the SG are responsible for public fraud.

The shame of the World Health Organization September 18 [19:30 GMT] - …Sorry folks, just go ahead and use DDT now – After supporting and pushing a global ban of DDT for 30 years, the World Health Organization reverses it position: “WHO says there is no health risk [in DDT]". That’s all. No apologies, no admission of error – nothing of the sort: life goes on as if nothing happened. For malaria alone, the WHO is responsible for  the genocide of at least 50 million people, on the basis of epidemiological junk science and rotten politics - more deaths than WWII, Holocaust and Stalin’s purges combined. And the world does not even get an apology. (...continues inside)

Tourism and politics

September 17 [20:10 GMT] - Tourism slump worries US - Big slump in tourism to the United States. One wonders why. Most of the time you reach the US by airplane - that is, undergoing all kinds of red tape, aggravation and controls on the ground after being treated by the antismoking airlines like cargo in the air. Finally out of the no-smoking airport, you light up surrounded by fanatical dirty looks and have to observe legal distance from buildings just in case you kill someone with passive smoke. On top of the generally widespread paranoia (especially if the smoker looks "foreigner" enough) any attempt to walk into any business welcomes the traveler with no smoking, no drinking, no ice cream, no dogs, no bare feet signs - not to mention high-tech cameras that watch everything he does. The automated have-a-good-day-smile-by-regulation pasted on the face of the cashier ushers him out again into the no smoking, no drinking, watch-your-waist environment and into a no-smoking hotel room that costs a bundle and is wallpapered with a variety of warning sings telling him what to do in case of earthquake, fire, and terrorist attack. When he turns on the TV set to forget it all he can enjoy anti-drinking, anti-smoking and anti-fat campaigns and commercials, and get "educated" on what kind of horrible death awaits him because of his abominable vice(s). The US sure sound like a great place to visit!

The "experts" talk about "boosts" and "huge marketing campaigns" to change the situation. Big idiots always perceive problems as big, thus requiring amply funded solutions. Here is a simple and inexpensive solution: just the lifting of smoking bans could probably relieve the problem by quite an impressive percentage, attracting many more of the 1.7 billion smokers that populate the world. But it will not happen, of course - because idiots always "sink with pride". That defines why they are idiots in the first place.

Straightening up Eaters

September 17 [20:10 GMT] - Canada poised to make trans fat illegal - The great villain strikes again: there is absolutely no scientific evidence that trans fat is bad for your health. Of course there is common sense (is there really any left?...): too much trans fat - too much of anything - is bad for you. Whoppy skippy! The ancient Egyptians knew that already. But today the junk science par excellence, epidemiology, says that trans fat is bad for you - no causality established, no science involved, no accountability whatsoever by the "experts" who generate this trash information. And governments? They go along with the fraud, of course - somebody must show that "something has been done" to forbid what the "experts" say is bad, right? So what if these BS laws put the economy on its knees and make people work much harder to buy food. Health before economy, freedom or truth! This is the Health Revolution!  We want a zero risk existence - and we-mean-zero! Who are you (you bastards) to say that zero risk is impossible? Whose payroll are you on -- who's your daddy?!... So what if there is no proof that trans fat harms health? We don't need any of that hair-splitting shit. We already know that fat kills!

However, (like everywhere else health fanaticism is involved) here the word "know" does not mean scientific knowledge at all: it means belief, justified with a mockery of science, because nowadays religion and old-world witchcraft have been replaced by epidemiological witchcraft. It just sounds more scientific, you know?... We are in the 21st century after all. This critique of the anti-transfat "science" written by Rolf Penner of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy’s Agriculture in 2005 can be literally transposed to passive smoke, as multifactorial epidemiology is trash of universal application.

HIDE THAT DATA!!! "Smoking bans are good for business... didn't you know?" - Part II

September 16 [18:10 GMT] - MPAAT now known as ClearWay Minnesota mistakenly provides a picture of honesty - We have recently covered (Sept. 11) the story of ClearWay Minnesota, formerly the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco (MPAAT) attempting to suppress data. Clearing the Air picks up where we have left it and tells us the rest of the story.

Smoking bans

September 16 [18:10 GMT] - Health department director gets sued - In Wheeling, West Virginia, a local politician and bar business owner who opposed a smoking ban, is claiming that the health director has singled out his business in the enforcement of the ban. "He's made a huge smoking room," counters the indignant director. Stay tuned.

September 16 [18:10 GMT] - All sides uncomfortable with Philly smoking ban - After six years of fighting, and a last-minute threatened withdrawal of support by the Mayor, Philadelphia has a messy smoking ban that doesn’t really satisfy anyone. We can expect this issue to be revisited with even more acrimony before it’s all over. Meanwhile, a medical organization is rushing in to pin award buttons on the lapels of a local politician who apparently is gambling his support for the ban will translate into enough votes to make him the next mayor. Needless to say, bar owners won’t be among his most ardent supporters.

Health Nazism and hysteria

September 16 [18:10 GMT] - Will the salt of the earth become a controlled substance? - Drop the salt shaker, put your hands in the air and slowly step away from the frozen foods. If the American Medical Association and the Centre for Science in the Public Interest have their way, salt will become a controlled substance and those who use too much will be subject to sanction. Don’t imagine for a moment that the War on Salt will only affect food manufacturers, or that the regulation will only extend to pre-packaged food. If they’re successful with the first part of their campaign, watch these control freaks call for salt by prescription only.

The war on cancer

September 16 [18:10 GMT] - Antismoking disinformation aside, what is the progress in the search for a cancer cure? Well, cure – none. But there seems to be some progress on understanding mechanisms and finding treatments. A sardonic comment: as, statistically, 2 out of 3 cancer patients are nonsmokers, this could be of most interest to those nonsmokers who preach from the pulpits of the health religion to quit smoking -- two thirds more interesting, to be exact. Seriously, researchers have found a way to reactivate programmed cell death and thereby treat cancer. Furthermore, (and so ironically!) a key for the treatment of cancer seems to have been found in the tobacco plant. Recently, world media have gone “ballistic” with these new items – sensationalism sells! In reality, there is good progress based on experimental science (no BS epidemiology involved here), but in reality the cure for cancer still is a long way off. One good reason to quit smoking? Not really. As we have said, 2 out of 3 cancer patients are non smokers. Yes-yes, the majority of lung cancer is amongst smokers, although (statistically) 9 out of 10 smokers will not get lung cancer – and for those who get it, there is absolutely no proof that smoking did it in spite of what the good ol' family doctor may parrot. And there is absolutely no guarantee that if you quit smoking you will avoid cancer – in the lungs or somewhere else – if, as it seems, it is a matter of DNA. The reality is that we still do not know. Thus the philosophical question: should we stop enjoying life just in case something that we still don’t understand may kill us? We say no -- and to those who say yes may we suggest that they stop living while they are still healthy to prevent death and afflictions?... That's a hell of an effective way to prevent disease!