My appearance on China TV

Last year on May 1st I was interviewed by China TV to get a UK perspective on  their restrictions on smoking in public. It was interesting that the reporter said that in China that you cannot say what you like but you can do what you like.

Being the national TV service no doubt there was a line to follow. I did not say the best thing to do was not to start. I do believe smoking can be bad for you, bit if you have made an informed choice the state should leave you alone.   The video is in the link and the article is afterwards.

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newshour/20110501/104348.shtml

 

“As China’s new smoking laws come into affect, CCTV Correspondent Jack Barton takes a look at how the British have reacted to tough anti-smoking laws introduced four years ago.

The English love the outdoors.

That’s an especially good thing if you are an English smoker, because that’s about the only place you can light up these days.

It’s illegal to smoke here in almost all public buildings.

No smoking signs are everywhere and the ban is now widely accepted.

That wasn’t the case when the laws were introduced four years ago by the then Labor Government.

Jack Barton, London, said, “Britain’s anti-smoking laws were a highly divisive issue in 2007 even amongst the political party that introduced them. Many Labor politicians fought for broad exemptions but in the end very few were allowed. They included in prisons, hotel rooms and of course parliament house”.

Since then politicians have voluntarily imposed a ban in the seat of government to prevent a public outcry.

The government says the new laws help reduce cancer caused by passive smoke and also make restaurants and the lounge areas of bars more family friendly.

But not everyone is convinced.

David Atherton is a spokesman for Freedom to Choose.

He freely admits smoking is bad for a person’s health and advises people not to do it.

But he also argues that the science on passive smoking is thin and that the hospitality industry has been hit hard by the ban.

David Atherton, Spokesman of Freedom to Choose, said, “Fifteen percent of pubs have closed… that’s ten thousand pubs, 150,000 jobs, that’s full and part time, have been lost alone in the pub industry. Also gambling halls like bingo and nightclubs have closed at an alarming rate in this country”.

It’s unclear how many of those bar and gambling venue closures are linked to the ban or a general slump in the British economy.

And not all smokers agree the ban is a bad thing anyway.

Ben Young, Smoker, said, “It’s been good in some ways because obviously we are going out not smoking so much and I think overall it’s been a good thing for England as a whole.

Agniszka Young, Smoker, said, “It helps us to smoke a little bit less as well which is good”.

The government says about thirty people die every day in Britain from smoking related illnesses.

It will take many years before doctors will know if the smoking ban will reduce those terrible statistics.

In the meantime Britain seems to have learned to live with smoking outdoors, and the argument that it would lead to the complete collapse of the hospitality industry has largely gone up in smoke.”

JD Rockefeller’s letter on Prohibition

John D. Rockefeller Jr the wealthy industrialist, was a tee totaller who agreed with American Prohibition of alcohol. It lasted from 1919 to 1933 and was a complete disaster. Drinking increased and organised crime blossomed, in 1932 he wrote a letter confirming the abject failure.  It looks like the Conservative government will be condemned to not learn from history.

“When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.”

Letter on Prohibition – see Daniel Okrent, Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center, New York: Viking Press, 2003. (pp.246/7).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States

Prof. Romano Griesshaber professor in medicine, now retired, has written a book (in German) about how second hand smoke harm is a scam.

Sorry for the slightly untidy presentation, but I will tidy it up later. Another scientist dissents on the harm of passive smoking . He too like Professor Philippe Even had to wait for his retirement, as he was silenced when working.

 

First Klinikum Munich fulfills a contract content including: BGN and prevention in general, refuse to discuss it and Diffaminierung is not pleasing to BGN research results, garage experiment, measurement of tobacco smoke content in the air, BGN study of diseases of the gastro-employee

Second missionary zeal and war rhetoric: WHO is the successor to the Holy Inquisition Contents include: War on Tobacco WHO with its aspects, such as FCTC third , the truths of the creative collaborators. 

Contents include: The infamous 3301 , some epidemiological problems, zero-molecule dogma  fourth on risks and Side effects that you ask your local pub to host content such as: impact of smoking bans on restaurants, such as Ireland, Bavaria 

fifth , the epidemiologists-basics
content include: Multifaktorialität, meta-, Denialism, Ropohl-Kuhn-examination

sixth … and tomorrow the whole world
content including: campaigns and progressive demands of the Antis, Bavarian referendum, tobacco, Groupthink in tobacco control, role of the EU

7th Higher Mathematics for milkmaids
Contents include: (active) smoking, risk factors and disease triggers heart attack miracle, 3rd / 4th hand smoke, dealing with dissidents

8th Good is meant the opposite of good
content including:
black lung, a sense of prevention marketing, general health development

ninth When the uprising of the decent comes 
Contents include:
scientific ethos, denormalization, Champix, recommendations and outlook

Prof. Romano Grieshaber

(Université d’Iéna)

Review by Tim Cole ( Critique de l’ouvrage)

 If we do here on czsylansky.net already spoiled with all the do-gooders and do-gooders want, then we must not forget the militant Non smoking. The bullheaded and stubborn curmudgeons of the ÖDP and other ideologues clubs have managed our peace-loving smokers to tobacco use by popular vote to ruin so thoroughly that it is now considered anti-social outsider feels when you light on his own balcony a cigar. They have ensured that we are locked at airports in smoke-filled glass cages and must close ranks on platforms as narrow, yellow-marked Absperrzonen to indulge our filthy vices under the reproachful gaze of honest citizens. They have denigrated as addicts and ensure that we have to freezing in front of office buildings or pubs, so they gotten just so none of our Zasterqualm, because as everyone knows, is the second-hand smoke is one of the greatest threats to life and limb of an innocent Non smoking may threaten: A couple of times taken a deep breath, and the desire to have lung cancer, his ominous proliferation.

Absolute rubbish – but effective!

How do I know? Because I was just a new book by Prof. Romano Grieshaber as a review copy on the table: “ Passive smoking – Twilight of the gods of science“(Publikom Z-Verlag).And the good Professor really brings out the sweeping blow to expose the lie-hand smoke. There is no single scientific investigation durable, able to demonstrate a genuine threat by bystanders smoldering colleagues in offices and pubs, he says. In reality, would have otherwise honorable scientists in such institutions as the German Cancer Research Center(DKFZ) and the World Health Organization ( WHO) Of narrow-minded anti-smoking fundamentalists kidnap and can be misleading in “a kind of faith stamp, in which scientific studies probably have to meet more needs than quasireligösen scientific claims.”

Now one might reply yes the other hand, that the good professor himself was probably more of a drooling spinner who just happens to be one denomination of tobacco lovers. First, and was Grieshaber, as he writes himself, his life Non smoking. But above all: he was the leader responsible for the prevention and research of food and catering trade association(BGN), and thus one of the leading experts on health, which is available in Germany. Just to make the list of its activities fully honorable: He is a professor for Applied Prevention and Health Promotion at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, a board member of the Research Institute for Applied System Safety and Health(FSA), a member of the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and CEO of the Center for Interdisciplinary Prevention (KIP) of the University of Jena. Oh yes, he studied in Heidelberg Medicine and is director of the “ Erfurt days“One of the most important occupational health specialist conferences on respiratory diseases.

Grieshaber has, as he writes, his professional life exploring causal relationships at work-related health hazards and described. And this man claims that there is no proven link between secondhand smoke and lung disease pathway. Who says that is lying (which he does not write like that, but it is implicit in almost any of the 280 pages of his book). The anti-smoking simply believe that it is so, so they claim it as well. And since it is apparently politically incorrect to believe it, no one dares to say otherwise.Whoever does so anyway, is made either muzzled or marginalized. As a scientist, it could mean the end of the career, because higher education is the network of anti-smoking Taliban linked very closely, as he had 2007 experience at a symposium he had organized at the University of Mannheim, in order to initiate a dialogue between the two camps and where he was shouted down simply.

This is also the reason why only now Grieshaber wrote his book – namely, he is retired. And the book is really worth reading – not just showing off because, as political decisions are made on the basis of half-baked or fictitious reports and studies, but also because it gives a deep insight into the workings of reputable scientists who are engaged in the field of prevention and protection measures seek to provide evidence.

Militant opponents smoke assume that each soft breath of secondhand smoke causes serious health problems already. They are calling for complete smoke-free workplace and in the pub. ”Only the zero-exposure ensures health,” he quoted a scripture from the DKFZ, where it also says: “This should be achieved. No matter how cleverly ventilation system you get to the same effect. “

Strangely, the demand for total prohibition applies only to smoke. In any other hazardous materials science class works with limit values or orientation. This applies, for example, just for particulate matter in the traffic area such as flour dust in bakeries – an area where Grieshaber knows very well thanks to decades of practical experience.

Grieshaber also questioned the figures, which throw smoke opponent around. For example, claims the DKFZ, the former head Prof. Harald zur Hausen, after all, the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded in 2006′s and since then over and over again cited publication that in Germany every year more than 3000 people die from the effects of passive smoking . Prof. Katja RadonUniklinium from Munich said to have claimed, according to the Mannheim Symposium Grieshaber, have been demonstrated in lung cancers at a significantly higher risk than employees in the catering office workers. Be of the employees of most companies, such as smoke-filled nightclubs, bars and Einraumkneipen it to as many as 22 of 1000, the disease over the course of a forty-year career at Lungenkebs.

Unfortunate that Grieshaber knows the real numbers. According to statistics, there are no obvious BGN increased numbers of patients for lung cancer among waiters – rather the opposite: a direct comparison with dozens of other occupations are waiter even those with the lowest proportion of disease cases ever!

The woman radon and her colleagues has not prevented from issuing to the Mannheim symposium, a press release in which they are required to implement an immediate implementation of its proposals, which amount to an outright ban on smoking at work in the hospitality industry. Grieshaber quotes the press release as saying: “It is scientifically no need to conduct further studies and defer decisions to have.”

It is this unscientific (it might even call it anti-scientific) brings stubbornness, the Grieshaber on the palm. Not that he really believes to be able to change that. The anti-smoking laws in Germany and much of the world are, and no one will seriously have the political will to revoke it. What politician likes to say: “Oops, sorry – we were wrong”?

But the Professor hopes to be able to shake the conscience of his colleagues. The demand for factual accuracy of scientific results, which are the basis of laws and constitutional decisions, such as the SNB used in terms of smoker protection is an important and legitimate demand. Prevention is only possible if the true causes of disease are known. Note: Do not second-hand smoke, but bigotry threatens the health!

 Best regards

Christoph M. Suter

http://lesdissidentsdegeneve.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2587%3Ala-pretendue-l-fumee-passive-letale-r-est-un-mensonge–un-livre-le-prouve-&catid=1%3Anouvelles-quotidiennes

The Taxpayers’ Alliance gets their retaliation in first on SmokeFree South West and wasting public money

You may have seen over at Dick Puddlecote’s Freedom Of Information Request (FOI) the appalling waste of money spent by SmokeFree South West on their plain cigarette packets initiative, £468,462.06 to be precise. Matthew Elliott of the The Tax Payers’ Alliance wrote this article in January 2012 on Right Minds the Daily Mail blog site. I am sure you will enjoy.

26 January 2012 5:44 PM

Quangos lobbying the Government using our money

Last week, a quango called ‘SmokeFree South West’ launched a lobbying campaign to push for the introduction of plain packaging on tobacco products ahead of the Government consultation. Kate Knight, heading the campaign,claims that plain packaging will discourage new smokers from taking up the habitand prevent tobacco companies from seemingly targeting young smokers and women with stylish packaging.

This campaign is being paid for using taxpayers’ money, so you and I are working hard and paying our taxes so one government body can lobby another government department to endorse plain packaging. Should taxpayers’ money really be used to lobby Ministers to make a decision on something? Can’t they make up their own minds?

Funded by the 14 Primary Care Trusts in the South West, the Smoke Free South West campaign is costing taxpayers £440,000. Despite the seemingly noble goal of encouraging healthy living, is this a good use of our money? Wouldn’t it be better to use the money to help young people find jobs, or lower the tax burden on local businesses so they can afford to hire more people?

There is a real question about the public sector’s priorities here. During the good years, before the financial crisis and the collapse in economic growth, not many people complained when the government used taxpayers’ money to mount campaigns and police personal lifestyle choices. Things have now changed. Money is tight, we need to find savings, and paying public sector bodies to lobby the Government and nanny our lives feels like an extremely low priority.

Earlier this week, when it was revealed that ‘environmental health officers’ fromHertsmere Borough council had intervened to outlaw smoking on the ‘outdoor lounge’ of the Celebrity Big Brother set, it was seen to be faintly ridiculous – very 1990s. Perspectives and priorities change in times of economic crisis.

Though the goal may be seem honourable, campaigns such as this are costly and inappropriate. Groups such Smoke Free South West has no business picking our pockets for unnecessary campaigns. No-one is stopping Kate Knight and her friends writing to their local MP and the Department for Health. But they shouldn’t be employed at our expense, wasting our money and interfering in our lives.

http://elliottblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/01/quangos-lobbying-the-government-using-our-money.html

An open letter to Professor Terence Stephenson and Professor Dame Sally Davies

Dear Professor Terence Stephenson and Professor Dame  Sally Davies,

Let me introduce myself, I am Chairman of Freedom2Choose a pro choice smoking organisation, funded by its members. The ‘F2C’ organization does not receive a penny directly or indirectly from tobacco companies. I am also embarking on an PHD course to investigate levels of benzo(a)pyrene (BAP), the ambient existence in the atmosphere from cars, especially diesel, BBQs etc and compare them to levels of BAP from mainstream and second hand smoke (SHS).  I am sure you are aware of the guanine to thymine transversion (genetic mutation(s)) that BAP has on the p53 gene.

The late Dr. Alvan Feinstein was a Yale epidemiologist who was sceptical of the harm of passive smoking and lung cancer. In a paper he wrote in 1993 in response to the EPA report, he quotes a colleague at the World Health Organization (WHO) who said “Yes, it’s rotten science, but it’s in a worthy cause. It will help us to get rid of cigarettes and become a smoke-free society”. (1)

The late Sir George Godber said at the WHO in 1975;- “..foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily to the smoke in the air.”

It seems that the British Medical Association (BMA) was caught out misleading the public on the concentrations of PM2.5 particles in cars. Stating that concentrations were “..23 times higher than in a smoky bar.” It was forced to retract the claim after an article appeared in the Canadian Medical journal by Becky Freeman and Ross MacKenzie stated: “We recommend that researchers and organizations stop using the 23 times more toxic factoid because there appears to be no evidence for it in the scientific literature.” (2)

“The BMA issued a correction on Thursday retracting the claim that research showed the levels of toxins in a car can be up to 23 times higher than in a smoky bar. Instead it said the risk in a car was 11 times greater. A spokeswoman said the mistake was due to human error, and it had made the amendment after becoming aware there was other research that disputed their original figure.” (3)

The medical establishment has laid out their store.

It is not only me that believes that you are deliberately and willfully misleading the public on the harm of passive smoking.  While reducing smoking prevalence may have some medical merit, the corruption of science and medicine in the process is unforgivable.  I hesitate to invoke analogies with Professor Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, (Stalin’s favourite) or Dr. Josef Mengele but I will invoke Nobel Prize winner Friedrich Von Hayek and his book The Road To Serfdom. His thesis was that authoritarianism leads to the politicisation and publication bias of science.

Your assertion that SHS causes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) plumbs new depths. You either are ill-informed or simply grievously misleading us. Firstly how do you explain the connection that males are three times likely to succumb to SIDS, how come there was a dramatic reduction in SIDS when parents were advised to lay their infants on their backs? Most importantly how would you explain that in the UK from 1970 to 1988 SIDS deaths rose by 500% while smoking rates and by definition exposure to SHS, reduced from 45% to 30% of the population? (4)

In 2000 Professor Stanton Glantz of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) first began an assault on smokers over SIDS by claiming that 2,000 children were dying from SHS per year. He promptly received a letter from the American Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Alliance who implored: “The sensationalist heading for one of your recent Internet reports, ‘Smoking Parents Are killing Their Infants’ has gone too far. The fact is, researchers still not know what causes SIDS.. Insensitive generalizations about SIDS broadcast through print or the electronic media serve only to perpetuate the public’s misconceptions.. Your literature states that ‘kills more than 2,000 infants each year from SIDS.’ Any published figures are sheer speculation, guesses, not grounded in actual experimentation…we respectfully request that you adjust your message as SIDS is concerned.” (5)

Frankly you have exposed your shallowness in not keeping up with the latest medical papers. In 2010 Harvard Medical School funded by the National Institute of Health proved a constant in babies that died of SIDS and I quote:  ”The researchers found that serotonin levels were 26 percent lower in tissue from infants who died of SIDS than in tissue from the group of infants who had otherwise died unexpectedly. Measurements of tryptophan hydroxylase, an enzyme needed to make serotonin, also were 22 percent lower.” Here is more. (6)

“Science Daily (Feb. 2, 2010) — The brains of infants who die of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) produce low levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that conveys messages between cells and plays a vital role in regulating breathing, heart rate, and sleep, reported researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.

In the same way that smoking with an RR of 2.72 (95% CI=1.36-5.46), statistically significant,  was always thought to play a role in cervical cancer, it has been firmly established that humano papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18, known as genital warts it is the sole cause of cervical cancer. The confounder here is that promiscuous, risk takers tend to smoke, which is not a correlation with smoking itself. 

On asthma Professor Dame Sally Davies joins you in the junk science hall of infamy. On this I am can really write with impunity; – asthma and atopy are diseases in which smokers and those exposed to SHS have statistically reduced incidence.

Firstly in this paper published in the British Thoracic Society in 2004 it bemoans;- “Trends in asthma indicators from population surveys (prevalence) and routine statistics (primary care, prescriptions, hospital admissions and mortality) in the UK were reviewed from 1955 to 2004. The prevalence of asthma increased in children by 2 to 3-fold…” (7)

In 1955 adult smoking rates were over 60% of the adult population with few restrictions where and when you could smoke. Most children would be exposed daily if not hourly to SHS. Adult smoking rates in 2004 were 28% of the population yet asthma increased “2-3 fold.?” 

Additionally the 2008 Mishra Paper, published in the American Journal of Immunology in 2008 found that; – “The results unequivocally show that, even after multiple allergen sensitizations, nicotine dramatically suppresses inflammatory/allergic parameters in the lung including the following: eosinophilic/lymphocytic emigration; mRNA and/or protein expression of the Th2 cytokines/chemokines IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IL-25, and eotaxin; leukotriene C₄; and total as well as allergen-specific IgE.” (8)

Nicotine stops asthma and atopy developing and reduces the symptoms in others, to trigger an asthma attack you need a protein and tobacco smoke contains no traces of protein. Any reaction to SHS is psychosomatic, some scientists believe asthma may be a psychosomatic illness in the first place!

The Swedish Hjern paper from 2001 was a three generational study of children exposed to SHS. (9)

“Methods: A cross-sectional study of present and former smoking habits in relation to atopic disorders from data on 6909 young and middle-aged adults (16-49 years) and their 4472 children (3-15 years) from the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions in 1996-97.

Children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of mothers who had never smoked (ORs 0.6-0.7)

CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates an association between current exposure to tobacco smoke and a low risk for atopic disorders in smokers themselves and a similar tendency in their children.”

This New Zealand study confirms further. (10)

“MedWire News: Parental smoking during childhood and personal cigarette smoking in teenage and early adult life lowers the risk for allergic sensitization in those with a family history of atopy, according to the results of a study from New Zealand.

Writing in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Robert Hancox (University of Otago, Dunedin) and colleagues explain that “the findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the immune-suppressant effects of cigarette smoke protect against atopy. The team found that the children of atopic parents were less likely to have positive SPTs at 13 years if either parent smoked (odds ratio [OR]= 0.55), although the significance of the association was lost after adjusting for confounders.

Participants with atopic parents were also less likely to have positive SPTs between ages 13 and 32 years if they smoked themselves (OR=0.18), and this reduction in risk remained significant after adjusting for confounders.

The authors write: “We found that children who were exposed to parental smoking and those who took up cigarette smoking had a lower incidence of atopy to a range of common inhaled allergens. ”These associations were found only in those with a parental history of asthma or hay fever.”

They conclude: “The harmful effects of cigarette smoke are well known, and there are many reasons to avoid it. Our findings suggest that preventing allergic sensitization is not one of them.”

On childhood exposure to SHS and lung cancer (LC), thirty-six studies have been conducted. Four suggest a non significant raised risk, 11 say a non significant protection and 21 the null hypothesis. The most (in)famous being the 1998 World Health Organization (WHO) Boffetta paper which was statistically significant in finding that children had a 22% reduction in LC. (12)

“ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer (odds ratio [OR] for ever exposure = 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.64-0.96). ”

Just to underline the hard of SHS here is a list of over 80 studies into SHS and LC and 85% are protective or the null hypotheis. The author Oxford University educated Statistician Peter Lee concludes: ” Taken as a whole, the epidemiology does not support the claim that ETS causes lung cancer in non-smokers.” (13)

Quite simply the amount breathed in by non smokers is minuscule. The smokiest bar with little or no ventilation leads non smokers to breathe in 1/100th of the smoker. Good ventilation 1/1,000th and outside 1/10,000. My blog URL has numerous papers, including my provenance from the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH) which stated that: “The increased risk associated with exposure to SHS is about 25%,a substantial fraction of the risk from active smoking, although uptake of smoke by non-smokers is typically only about 1% of that by active smokers.” (14)

May I say that this is a very small sample of the scientific papers I have available to publish.

In conclusion at the risk of sounding discourteous and disrespectful, I can only conclude you people have left medicine and science behind, engaging in junk science politics. It is not noble to stigmatise, leperise, demonise an identifiable minority while at the same time causing smoking parents guilt, possibly grievous depression if they have suffered a SIDS death. I consider this to be abuse of the emotionally vulnerable by way of ill-informed propaganda and at worst, bare-faced lies. 

1. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lsv20a00/pdf

2. http://www.cmaj.ca/content/182/8/796

3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15744352

4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530949/Fiddling-those-smoking-figures-again.html

5. Velvet Glove, Iron Fist A History of Anti Smoking. Pages 235/6 author Christopher Snowdon

6. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100202171811.htm

7. http://thorax.bmj.com/content/62/1/85.abstract

8. http://www.jimmunol.org/content/180/11/7655.abstract

9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11422156

10. http://www.medwire-news.md/48/72330/Respiratory/Smoking_linked_to_reduced_allergic_sensitization_.html

11. http://www.data-yard.net/science/assorted/ets_lc_table.pdf

12. http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/19/1440.short

13. http://www.pnlee.co.uk/documents/refs/lee2010B.pdf

14. http://daveatherton.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/a-critical-review-of-the-evidence-on-passive-smoking/

The TaxPayers’ Alliance savages George Osborne’s 37p rise in cigarettes

Hat tip Dick Puddlecote.

National treasure The TaxPayers’ Alliance have produced their usual erudite take on the UK’s budget for 2012. They launch a devastating critique on the 37p rise in taxation on a packet of cigarettes, confirming the criminal classes will be toasting George Osborne the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Here is Matthew Elliott and Matthew Sinclair at their very best.

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/budget2012.pdf

“Contributing to the illicit trade in cigarettes

The Chancellor decided to increase the duty on tobacco by 5 per cent above inflation.
Tobacco duties are probably the single most regressive taxes there are, disproportionately
affecting people on lower incomes. For many smokers it will account for all or most of the
saving from the decrease in direct taxes between 2011-12 and 2012-13:

This is not the first time that tobacco taxes have been increased substantially above
inflation, but such tax hikes can increase the trade in illicit substitutes. A World Health
Organisation report in 2004 found that:

In 1998 and 1999, taxes increased by 5% over inflation, but revenues declined because of
continuous growth in smuggling. By 1999, the revenue lost through tobacco smuggling was
estimated to be about 25% of all tobacco revenue.
Another study in 2004 found that the tax avoidance response to tax changes is at least
twice the consumption response. That is the equivalent of two people simply switching to
the illicit market for every one person who stops smoking because of higher prices.
This is a serious problem in other countries, too. In the 2010 Irish Budget, the Minister for
Finance Brian Lenihan froze the duty on cigarettes. He outlined in his speech why:

I have decided not to make any changes to excise on tobacco in this Budget because I
believe the high price is now giving rise to massive cigarette smuggling. My responsibility as Minister for Finance is to protect the tax base. I have full confidence in the effectiveness of the current multi‐agency approach but early in the New Year I want to explore what further measures we may need to stem the illegal flow of cigarettes into this country.

That was a frank acknowledgement that the high duty on cigarettes had not necessarily
curbed consumption but had led consumers to purchase substitute illicit goods instead.
Gabler and Katz carried out a study in Canada in 2010 and their findings were stark:

Contraband cigarettes are perceived to be a near‐perfect substitute for lawfully purchased
cigarettes. As such, contraband tobacco use neutralizes the deterrent effect of higher taxes.
When taxes on cigarettes were increased in 2002 in New York City, the combined state and local taxes were $3 a pack. But during the four months that followed, sales of taxed
cigarettes fell by 50 per cent compared to the same period the previous year.

It is not plausible that this was due to a fall in the number of smokers; again it suggests that the measure was a considerable boon to the illicit market.”

World Health Organisation Taxation of tobacco products in the WHO European Region: practices and challenges, 2004
6Brian Lenihan T.D. Financial Statement of the Minister for Finance, 9 December 2009Gabler, N. & Katz, D. Contraband Tobacco in Canada: Tax Policies and Black Market Incentives, Studies in Risk and Regulation, Fraser Institute, 2010

Fleenor, P. Cigarette taxes, black markets, and crime lessons from New York’s 50-Year losing battle, Cato Institute Policy Analysis number 468, 2003

“The results suggest that the public consensus about the negative effects of passive smoke is so strong that it has become part of a regime of truth that cannot be intelligibly questioned.”

So said Sheldon Ungar of the Department of Social Science, 1265 Military Trail, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1C and Dennis Bray of the Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Geesthact, Germany.

The background to this paper was the publication in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) of Dr. James Enstrom and Dr. Geoffrey Kabat’s “Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98.” It concluded on the effects of second hand smoke that, “The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.”

The Rapid Responses saw the anti smokers whip themselves up into a frenzy of denial, ad hominems and smears. The two authors above also commented too and in response produced a paper published in 2005 called “Silencing science: partisanship and the career of a publication disputing the dangers of secondhand smoke.” This is the abstract:

“Abstract

This paper examines the silencing of science, that is, efforts to prevent the making of specific scientific claims in any or all of the arenas in which these claims are typically reported or circulated. Those trying to mute the reporting or circulation of scientific claims are termed “partisans.” The paper examines silencing through a systematic examination of the “rapid responses” to a smoking study published in the British Medical Journal claiming that secondhand smoke is not as dangerous as conventionally believed. Media coverage of the smoking study is also examined, as is the question of whether there is self-silencing by the media regarding doubts about the negative effects of passive smoke. The results suggest that the public consensus about the negative effects of passive smoke is so strong that it has become part of a regime of truth that cannot be intelligibly questioned.”

Ungar and Bray then quote from some national newspapers.

“According to the National Post (Toronto, Canada) of 20 May: “To believe that second-hand smoke may not be very harmful has become a thoughtcrime almost akin to Holocaust denial. Those who dare express doubts must expect hysterical abuse from every point of the PC compass. “ And the British Telegraph of 19 May asserted:
“Researchers who dissent from the party line face character  assassination and the termination of grants. Those who report their findings are vilified as lackeys of the tobacco industry, and accused of professional misconduct (in 1998, campaigners tried to have this newspaper censured by the Press Relations Commission for our reports on passive smoking. They failed).”

Professor Carl Phillips the former Professor of Public Health at the University of Alberta was hounded out of his post for trying to be honest, also has written a paper on the same lines, he consludes: “It is an attempt to promote the kind of self-censorship of thought examined by Orwell and mastered by Stalin.”

Nobel Prize winner Friedrich Von Hayek in his 1944 publication “The Road to Serfdom” cited that in totalitarian regimes science is perverted for political ends, we can only conclude that when it comes to epidemiology and the science of second hand smoke we live in a post democratic age.

http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7398/1057.full

http://pus.sagepub.com/content/14/1/5.abstract

http://www.scientificintegrityinstitute.org/publications.html (4B)

http://daveatherton.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/professor-carl-v-phillips-and-honest-science/