Equally troubling is Stier's observation that due to these actions of the anti-smoking movement, we can no longer trust the public health establishment for scientifically accurate information.
Perhaps you should have considered THAT particular consequence when you began pushing your personal agenda as a "public health" issue.
I had been losing trust in so-called public health officials for years. You and your kind just finished the job faster.
I'm so sick and tired of everyday hearing/reading of some new health threat, recall, pandemic that I don't believe a word of it anymore.
For example, this past Sunday 60 minutes did a piece on MRSA....the point being stressed in this piece is that MRSA canNOT be contracted by touching THINGS (inanimate objects), but only by physical person:person contact. This morning on my local news channel, their promo of the 10 pm Thursday news is about MRSA and everyday objects you touch. I'm going to be curious to see IF they are just hyping the promo using fear to end up stressing what 60 minutes did; OR if they are going to say the opposite of 60 minutes.
In which case, WHO is lying?
My local news channel promotes itself as "investigative". I suspect I'm going to have a field day come Friday with some letter writing to both channels.
I no longer believe ANYTHING any of you so-called professionals claim.
How many more articles?
I'd say around 2,498,367.
They cannot stand their lies being exposed for all to see, but they don't learn.
You should count your blessings Doc. With you they used words to shut you down.
Our site (www.freedom2choose.info) required more extreme action. We must have said something they don't like.
Today they sent in the hackers. Normal service will resume shortly.
Dont give up Doc. You are rattling their cages.
Colin,
Isn't amazing how those with truth on their side don't ever have to resort to slander, libel or hackers to "debate" or oppose the opposition?
It's no wonder no one believes them anymore.
Colin
I noticed that, your site was down at the same time as Forces.
Rose, Lynda,
We are hosted by the same company. The nerds bypassed Forces to get at us. They hijacked our site and sent half a million emails from our website. The US authorities had no choice but to shut us down under anti-spamming laws.
We are repairing the damage and we will be back with a vengeance.
If its truth they cant stand, then they ought to prepare themselves.
We have it stockpiled.
"It is not the case that the majority of what anti-smoking groups are communicating is flawed. In fact, most of their communications are accurate."
That's right, doctor. Like the anti-smoking group The American Council on Science and Health with it's 380 scientists.
OT, but not atrociously so: Today's Diane Rehm show (11-12 AM spot) had on it an interview of Shannon Brownlee, whose new book has the appearance of being an eye-opener to all of us naive and trusting souls. The title is: 'Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.'
It's available for listening on the Web:
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/
.
Doctor, you may be personally anti-smoking, but these groups that you both defend and criticize are not anti-smoking they are ANTI-SMOKER. You justify every single lie they promulgate every time you refer to them as anti-smoking.
You all may have started out as anti-smoking, but when you failed miserably in getting people to stop smoking you switched to being ANTI-SMOKER. When the number of active smokers did not decline to your satisfaction you invented the canard of ETS/SHS to make it look like smokers were harming their fellow man. That worked for a while, but even non-smokers started realizing how full of crap you actually were and so you have to ramp up the rhetoric. But now that it has ramped up you are no longer comfortable with SOME of it. You can't have it both ways Doc, no matter how much you wish it.
You need to make up your mind once and for all, Doctor. Are you going to become part of the solution, or are you going to remain a major part of the problem?
You demand responses from the rest of the cartel through your challenges to them, however you conveniently ignore questions that have been repeatedly posed to you by your loyal readers. You are really in no position to issue such challenges or demand such responses, when you yourself are equally as guilty of the same type refusals.
Doc said, - "And as far as corruption goes, I have yet to publicly deny, on this blog, that I am being paid by tobacco companies to express these heretical positions."
This is the second time this week that you have made this or similar statement.
Doc, said just a day or so ago,- "Second, I have never claimed not to be corrupt. I have repeatedly been accused of taking tobacco money to take the positions I espouse on this blog. Yet so far, I have failed to definitively deny those accusations"
So,...with the obvious bait placed before us, and since it appears that no one else is going to follow up, allow me to ask directly:
(Not that you're likely to answer in any definitive or meaningful way of course)
Are you?
Gabz;
In a nutshell the questions I would like Michael to answer directly.
In attacking the E&K research, Glanz made this statement;
"every independent organized scientific body in the world that has considered the effects of second hand tobacco smoke has concluded that it causes cancer, heart disease, sudden infant death and variety of other diseases in non smokers. "The fact that it is possible to see negative effects on the heart, blood and blood vessels with just thirty minutes of exposure to second hand tobacco smoke proves that these effects are both real and immediate."
I would like to know if Michael agrees this is accurate and if only partially which parts.
Does ETS cause all of these diseases by, as it appears is suggested; evaluating direct physical, Time line or observational evidence? and if every Independent organized scientific body on the planet agrees? Further does ETS represent an immediate health risk? as, one has to assume referring to healthy non smokers, as no one else was mentioned.
Now even the BBC are reporting on what bullshitters the tobacco control cartel are:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magaz...ine/
7093356.stm
YOU'RE LOSING.
Doctor, I believe you claim that smoking is the leading cause of preventable death just like a good tobacco nazi but you take issue with the claim "if you can smell it it's killing you"
Both claims have precisely the same purpose--tobacco prohibition. A pox on both.
Your badmouthing other tobacco nazis has an obvious motive. You want the antitobacco movement for yourself. How much is your Robert Wood Johnson check??
Gabz,
I too would like to see those questions answered. Time for true colors to march forward.
John,
Number fudging is to scare the public. It happens all the time, of course, they never think that anyone will remember them when the real numbers and facts are finally posted.
OT but it is my chuckle for the day. You might have heard how the Govenor of New York wanted to give illegal immigrents drivers licenses. This man is known as the steamroller, as what he wants, he gets. Well, the people of New York didn't want it and they yelled it loud and clear. Today, he backed away from it, saying that "According to a poll, 70% of New Yorkers were not in favor of this program." There is that 70% in a poll again!
Unfortunately I think it's already too late. I no longer believe the validity of any study on any subject released these days. The daily bombardment of my increased risk of a horrible (but apparently needless and preventable) death have made my eyes glaze over. I'm tired. So very very tired of being scared by outlandish claims. Now I'm determined to simply live my life with as much enjoyment as I can pack into it because I'm going to die anyway.
It would be nice if researchers and health officials come up with an acceptable way for us to die instead of constantly telling us how we're to blame for the ways we do die. Isn't blame a beautiful thing? It's also becoming an alarming trend being used by health care providers to berate, demoralise and ultimately deny medical services.
But that's the end goal really isn't it? "If you don't live this perfectly healthy lifestyle, exactly the way I've prescribed it then I'm afraid it's your own fault. I'll have to de-normalize you and eventually deny you health care altogether. We can't have unhealthy sluggards gumming up the works and draining the resources for all us 'healthy' folk."
I know I've mixed up a lot of messages there. As a member of joe public that's my overview of the escalating tone of the information released by scientists and officials in the health field over the last several years.
I for one have stopped listening.
"According to a poll, 70% of New Yorkers were not in favor of this program." There is that 70% in a poll again!
Diane | Homepage | 11.14.07 - 4:44 pm | #
Yep, and it's still a lie for I believe the number was higher (like around 72 or 75%)...............they just can't get numbers accurate can they? LOL
That man is another loser and I can't believe he got voted in. Thank Goddess I left that state.
What I am trying to figure out is exactly how your career is in so much jeopardy, which you mention from time to time.
You seem to still have your job at Boston. If you don't have tenure and they haven't fired you yet, then you're probably ok.
As far as your career in TC, you don't seem to want to have anything to do with them anyway and you've gone so far as to turn in your TC membership card.
So you can't get jobs you don't want at ASH, ANR, or TobaccoScam, and you're a long term university professor, your career doesn't seem to be in much jeopardy to me.
Something just hit me. I don't why I didn't make this connection before, or remember this before.
My father was born with a severe heart murmer. So severe that apparently his mother prevented him from doing many things as a child. He grew up in a smoking household. He is still alive today, still smoking and in his 80's now.
I was also born with a heart murmer, and because of my fathers hatred of his mother's pampering of him, my mother was never told of my condition. She didn't learn of it until I was about 13 and the doctor announced I had finally outgrown it. In fact it was severe enough that when I was 9 years old the doctor was praying that they could simply treat my appendicitis away because he was terrified of performing surgery on me. Alas, he had no other choice for on Sunday morning it burst and in/under I went. I came out of it fine (though years later the doctor admitted to almost losing me on the table because of my heart then); AND I healed fast and beautifully well.
I grew up in a smoking household (my father smoked along with all my aunts and uncles), I am about to turn 55 in 6 weeks and have been smoking for almost 40 years.
So, I really want the Doc or someone from TC to explain how my father and I have both survived, healthily no less. IF smoking and SHS are as deadly as you claim, explain these two very REAL and ALIVE cases.
Can I sue someone because I'm not dead yet? What about Glantz and Banzhaf? Aren't they they ones implying I should be dead?
BTW I think I saw it posted somewhere that Banzhaf earns over 200k/year from ASH.
Lynda
Funny you should say that, I am beginning to think that several million people across the world have the glimmerings of a mass action against this lot for defamation and I'm fairly sure that orchestrated hate campaigns can't be legal either, not to mention deliberately misleading governments with shoddy science.
What I am trying to figure out is exactly how your career is in so much jeopardy, which you mention from time to time.
You seem to still have your job at Boston. If you don't have tenure and they haven't fired you yet, then you're probably ok.
Setting aside the point that a career is about more than holding onto a job...
...what antismoking groups were trying to figure out about smokers is, why would they worry if their jobs are in jeopardy? ...you're probably ok.
And I think this sort of logic is bad in any stretch
1) many prominent anti-smokers want continual progress and further restrictions
2) they rationalize it by saying smokers can make do and they'll probably be okay
If governmental officials got together and stonewalled them with regard to bans in the home/cars, you can bet the serious antismokers would be upset.
Taking all this into account, I see a double standard here of "WE can/should strive but YOU can't/shouldn't."
Michael Siegel in his own words with observations, speculations and questions.
Taken from his profile:
"I am a physician who specialized in preventive medicine and public health. I am now a professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department, Boston University School of Public Health."
Never practiced? Never worked in residence? Never dealt with the public?
"Social and Behavioural Sciences Department." I don't know how Boston U is organized but this is a branch of the Psychology Department in other places.
"I have 20 years of experience in tobacco control, primarily as a researcher. My areas of research interest include the health effects of secondhand smoke, policy aspects of regulating smoking in public places, effects of cigarette marketing on youth smoking behavior, and the evaluation of tobacco control program and policy interventions."
Never studied first hand smoke. Studied how others practice marketing with no first hand experience in marketing. Did evaluate the effectiveness of tobacco control strategies, message development, and political pressure.
Do you teach courses in tobacco control? Is your doctorate in epidimiology? Do you have one in psychology? I read somewhere around here that you peer reviewed for the SG Reports. Do you have the mathematical background needed to critically read the studies included or referred to in those reports?
I'm not being critical and if anything here is too personal I don't want an answer and I don't want the lack of an answer to be misunderstood as anything more than in inappropriate question in the first place.
I'm just curious and I'm trying to better understand why you take the positions you do without taking the same positions in regards to first hand smoke? The hyperbole about tobacco smoke is older than you are.
E=MC^2
OT;
The quote of the day is likely from Warren Buffet;
Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fund raiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton,
“The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
The news article found a lot of support for Buffets words [650 comments] among which included the question; If we only paid taxes on purchases how much more fair could taxation be?
The primary reason the majority of billion dollar corporations pay no or little tax, is found in their ability to dump huge tax exempt funds into charity foundations.
The so called charity foundations finance such enterprises as promoting smoking bans to sell alternative products or investments to raise the profile of the chosen few, who are named on the ballots as the only choices we are allowed as elected leaders.
Think about how charity is defined by most of us. It would never include advertising to promote the desires of big business.
Take away the charity exemptions and the majority of the working poor who actually do "work for a living", would never have to pay income taxes again.
BTW; If industrial charity foundations no longer controlled medical research, the gov would have to make the allotment decisions and conflicted medical research funds would cease to be an issue beyond political affiliations.
The controlling tyrants in big business today must have night sweats thinking about such a scenario; having to earn it the old fashioned way.
If the Public Health lobbies working so hard to dehumanize smokers, thought about it and applied half the effort toward their own liberation, they could rise out of the slave system which keeps them working as prostitutes selling their integrity and self respect promoting industry products.
More importantly, I am glad that Dr. Glantz recognizes that I have completely lost it. I've been telling my family that for years, but no one seems to be paying any attention. Perhaps that's because they realized I had already lost it many years ago. I think it probably became apparent 38 years ago, when I frantically and desperately rooted for the Detroit Tigers in the post-Kaline era.
You, too, Doc? Kinda fun livin' on the edge, ya know.
Lynda F-- I think you might be thinking of Banzhaff's take of ASH cash. That $200k(+) figure can be found here: http://www.charitynavigator.org/...mary&
orgid=8247 Under "Leadership", you'll see:
John F. Banzhaf Executive Director $217,350 17.21%
*waves to everybody*
"On a more serious note, I find it quite troubling that there is a perception that in order to remain credible in academic circles, one needs to censor what one says in order to avoid political incorrectness."
Dr Siegal,
I say, bully for you! The anti-smoking movement in this country (and indeed, worldwide) has taken on the troubling aspects of a religious fervor. Truth has become the inevitable casualty.
I have taken the liberty of linking to you from my own blog as well. Keep fighting the good fight!
-smith
Alan Piccun wrote:
"So you can't get jobs you don't want at ASH, ANR, or TobaccoScam, and you're a long term university professor, your career doesn't seem to be in much jeopardy to me."
Grant money?
The doctor's done dozens of studies/reports/papers that fall under anti-tobacco research and I doubt the funding came from Philip Morris.
Doc, just for the record
WHY are you doing this?
What unjustice are you trying to fix?
Kevin,
You have summed up how big business, non-profits and politicians in all countries goes hand in hand. Non-profits pays no taxes, big business funnels their money through non-profits and politicians covers for them if they are willing to pay that $4600 for a dinner so to line their re-election campaign. I wonder how many dinners I could actually cook and for how many people with that one $4600. Right now, I am thinking about alot of homeless people who would be enjoying several hot meals. Then we have those slick little programs where we get big business to send their jobs to countries like China and India. They get to enjoy lower overhead and lower salaries paid to their employees. They rake in the big bucks and pay lower taxes than we the everyday people. What do we get for it? Lead paint on our childrens toys, contaminated food and God only knows what else. Just think what life could be like if they brought the jobs back home. More people would have jobs, even if it were in manufacturing, which just might mean that the welfare rolls would decline and they might even beable to pay for their own health insurance. SCHIP could be a thing of the past, consider it an experiment that didn't work. People could take pride in themselves again. They would be working instead of sitting on their butts all day watching television, maybe ending obesity while they are actually moving around, we could better monitor our food supply and make sure there is no lead paint. Sure, people in big business may end up balking at paying $4600 for a dinner, but in the end, to me it would be a win win for everyone.
Doctor,
I have a cousin who lives in Brookline and I am sure that he would be more than happy to socialize with you, should you ever feel completely alientated in your home State. I must warn you though. He and his wife are both life long non-smokers, but they will defend my right to smoke, so good natured conversations could get heated at times.
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