In the world of psychology, Hans Jürgen Eysenck needs no introduction. It is sufficient to consult Wikipedia, for example, to have handy an impressive profile of this important figure.
Wikipedia does not list, however, one important work by Hans Jürgen Eysenck on the computations on “smoking-related” mortality. This time, Wikipedia is not to be blamed. This work is largely unknown. Why? Because when Eysenck submitted it for publication to scientific journals shortly before his death in 1997, publication was refused. False information on smoking must be protected at any cost.
Coming close to death, Eysenck gave the manuscript to a close friend, expressing the desire that it would be published, one day. The friend turned to some British smokers’ rights groups, thinking that they would have an extreme interest in publishing a powerful work from “the psychologist most frequently cited in science journals” — a work that argued that tobacco mortality quantification is a fraud based on trash science.
But the publication was again refused. The smokers’ rights groups (SRG) of the time were primarily funded by the tobacco industry and under strict orders to ignore the scientific frauds of “public health” in order not to upset the “authorities” and allow them to con the public into the belief that “smoking kills”. The SRGs of the time were only allowed to argue on surely losing arguments, such as the liberty of “having a place to hide.” That was because the tobacco industry had by then decided to “bend over”, both in the US and in the world, and try to “exist by surrender.”
Years after Eysenck’s death, his friend discovered FORCES and gave us the original manuscript, hoping to fulfil Eysenck’s dying wish. Here it is in its original form – out of Eysenck’s own typewriter and with his handwriting on it to number the pages. Those who know his work will recognize his style. We at FORCES never met Eysenck personally, but we do know that he had no ties with the tobacco industry (and even if he did, it would not have made any difference, anyway).
Eysenck denounced the tobacco mortality fabrication spontaneously, moved solely by the outrage that any honest scientist should have for a fraud. There you go, Professor Eysenck: your work is finally published. We may not be the high-ranking “scientific” journals that you sought, but we are high-ranking on the Internet, and you will be read by even more people, eventually.
The closing words of this documents are food for serious thought:
If I am right in suggesting that psychosocial factors are at least as influential risk factors as smoking and other physical factors, then it is no longer permissible to neglect personality, stress, and similar psychological concepts. The answer to the question: “How many people does smoking actually kill?” is at the moment no more susceptible of a scientific answer than the question: “Who killed Cock Robin?” Indeed, as Evans has asked, is health promotion science or ideology? Sir Ronald Fisher many years ago said: “The question seems to be a serious one; when is serious investigation going to begin?” He might ask the same question today.
Publication date: 1997
Author: Eysenck, HJ
Significance: No Risk Estimate Reported
Published: Publication suppressed
Funding: No funding