I can answer your question in a couple of sentences, Dr. Siegel: It is not, and never has been, about "public health". It is about demonizing smokers until they are forced to quit or be shunned by the rest of the population.
It is hatred personified, and it is getting out of control. Your attempts at even a small level of sanity are but a finger in the dike.
Smokers have been shamed into accepting this vicious fraud. Unless they say "enough" and rise up in revolt, the obese will be next, then those who consume alcohol, then...who knows?
Democracies have always collapsed from within. Now, I see how.
Freedom, I would add:
It is not about the smoke it is about The Smoker.
Why do we do what we do in the "face" of all that "scientific evidence"-that we will eventually die?
I, The Smoker, know I am going to die someday, somehow, someway.
I am NOT a riskaversionist.
I am NOT afraid of my shadow.
I am NOT afraid of the future.
I am NOT afraid of my fellowman.
I am NOT afraid!
I live each day as if it is my last-fully, with strength, hope, eternal thought that this will all wash out in the end..that I have not wasted one day-IN FEAR of anything.
The Medocrats/Hypocrats will NOT kill me.
I choose how to live-NO ONE else is ALLOWED TO CHOOSE FOR ME.
The sooner The One realizes that, the sooner this USA can get back to what was once a pure/truthful existence.
Today, I thank you for "listening"
Dr. Siegel,
You need to edit your post to read:
FORMER US SURGEON GENERAL.
Carmona is currently working at a spa and resort in Arizona. We are still looking for a new Surgeon General.
My nominees are:
Dr. Michael Siegel or Elizabeth Whelan
Do I have a second to the nomination out there?
Ultimately what I think we are seeing is a move towards publicity in the guise of science. After all, if we say that even a "brief" exposure *may* cause cancer or increase your heart-attack risk, we aren't really lying. It sounds scary, and will promote proper healthy living, and all these things are good for keeping our public healthy. So, they figure, why not "publicize" the truth- or "propogandize" the truth... make it sound really bad, and people won't do it. Make it sound like it's not a big deal, and we'll have to back-slide on all our local smoking bans, and possible lawsuits for lost businesses and wages may ensue. No, no, it's better to tell a little lie here, cause the public to become lock-step on this issue, and promote proper public health.
Besides, isn't the Surgeon General the top-researcher in all the areas he writes policy on? Doesn't he know everything better than everyone else int he field? Hell, the "Surgeon General" said it, it must be true!!
[EPA '93, 98 WHO, Helena, Osteen commentary... - now, why in the world would they lie? Money? Naww... it's easy to get research funding these days... no one ever really needs to pump up his results, now does he?]
Besides a headline like: "New Drug Kills Cancer!" is so much nicer than "New drug kills cancer most of the time in research mice- which have been cured of cancer umpteen times before in different ways, and who are genetically engineered to have specific types of cancers just for study.... etc. etc. etc."
So, what we are teaching everyone these days is that SHS (and tobacco in general, even first-hand) is the ultimate deadly toxin. Hell, if I don't smoke and don't stand around smokers, no way I'll ever get Lung-cancer, right? Right!
The problem that most pro-freedom/choice people have with this issue is just that- the facts aren't as clear as most people make them out to be, and until you actually read the journal articles, and actually look at the results do you start to realize what reality is. I just wish that instead of the next 10-second headline that leads to public law, ending in the loss of livelihoods, we'd focus on real numbers, and honest results with a level head. But, well, that doesn't sell as well, now, does it?
Sorry for the ramble! It just pains me greatly to see govt. bodies hiding the realities from it's own public like this. This isn't really the first time, though, is it?
Hell, Eric, I'll second those nominees! In fact, let's make it a joint post. With Dr. Siegel and Dr. Whelan as co-Surgeons General, that should really give us some lively pronouncements!
Confession.
I once aspired to be a CDC flunkie.
Then I came to the conclusion that it was a political entity in the pocket of a powerful Medical Industrial Complex not a science and research facility.
That was about ..... 20-25 years ago.
What took you so long?
Oh, and this BS is just the latest in a long, long list of crappola spewing from Atlanta. I've spent many, many hours in the hell hole of CDC.gov scratching my head and trying to make heads or tails of their data and evidence on a variety if issues. Gone are the days of old fashioned publishing of collected data in nice little tables.
Comprehensive Deception Central.
Doc, I stopped trusting them ages ago.
If this latest crappola undermines their credibility with even more citizens - I consider that a good thing.
If it's a good lie and it furthers the cause of course it's got to become "the truth",isn't this the premise that tobacco control has been working to for the last 25 years.Of course it is,since they've made certain that any science that disproves this has been hidden away from the public gaze.Carmona has done what he set out to do,be a one man army with a message,it is irrelevant that it cannot be supported by scientific research.
The dose makes the poison. An old discovery. Politicized 'science' can do away with that on a need to basis.
I suggest the Office of the US Surgeon General be terminated.
My mother used to say "If you keep making that face - it'll freeze that way" I believed it for a while, then I grew up.
I remember seeing an interview one day wih the Surgeon General. The interview was all about his campaign against obesity and towards the end of the interview he was asked where he stood on the smoking issue. His reply and I quote was,"Oh don't worry, that is in my portfolio." It took a couple of years before he talked about smoking and secondhand smoke and when he did, he admitted that he didn't do the studies, he just revitalized the old ones. This tells me that he was FORCED to make those statements and he knew full well that they were all lies. Why else would he release that report one day and resign the next??!! I tried to read the thing and decided that it would be better served if I glazed it and used it as a door stop. Using the preverbial fine tooth comb, I did find many statements used for years from ASH and other tobacco free groups. Granted, he didn't plagarize as he did change some buts, coulds,ands, and mights around throughout the report.
Now he hides in plain sight in Arizona. He knows he lied and I say shame on him, the CDC lies and I send the same shame to them. I just hope they can live with themselves. I know I do my best to live each day with truth and dignity. Yet I see a tell all book from one of these people in the very near future.
The other possible explanation for the CDC's "misrepresentation" is that they accepted funding from some very biased and dubious pharmaceutical nicotine interests. Such as $50,000.00 from RWJF, and $50,000.00 from the Johnson & Johnson company itself:
http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/r...&
gsa=1#contents
http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/
r...1#int_grantinfo
Note under the "Chairman's Circle" the $50,000.00 + donors to the CDC included the Nicoderm manufacturer itself Johnson & Johnson Company.
(if you're asking yourself why a pharmaceutical nicotine manufacturer would want to ban tobacco nicotine use, you're apparently too naive to understand; but the marketing department at J & J understands)
My nominees are:
Dr. Michael Siegel
For Gods sake - NO. I'm for strict separation between science and politics.
I'll volunteer to be the next Surgeon general.... My first report:
There is no safe level of antismoker activism,
Even short term exposure to antismokers can immediately destroy your business.
Now, the CDC is really shooting itself in the foot here.
The whole SHS fraud has been constructed by measuring rates of lung cancer, heart disease, and other conditions among nonsmokers not exposed to smoke, and those who are. They have further not adequately taken into account all exposure to non-tobacco carcinogens inhaled, as possible other alternative explanations as to why the exposed group had slightly more cancer and heart disease, than the controls.
But who among all these nonsmokers who have been subjects in all these studies ( even the controls) has not, at some time in their life first-hand smoked at least one cigarette?
Dr. Siegel...have you ever even once in your life smoked at least one cigarette, or cigar, or taken a puff off of a pipe?
Accordingly the first-hand smoking of one tobacco product at any time in one's life has to be infinitely more dangerous than secondhand smoking even briefly at any time in one's life.
And therefore all SHS studies really would have no controls.
So, if the CDC is correct that even a small exposure early in life can initiate a chain of events that can someday lead to cancer, or possibly heart disease then every SHS study ever published immediately goes down the toilet.
Why? because that alternative hypothesis becomes so much more of a theoretical reason explaining why the study subjects developing lung cancr,heart disease, etc, that any exposure due to SHS becomes relatively meaningless. Dave K
Mike inquired:
"Why do we in tobacco control seem physically unable to simply admit that we made a mistake?"
It appears to me that most people in tobacco control consider Mike Siegel to be a right-to-smoke advocate, not a tobacco control advocate.
It is also outrageously inaccurate and condescending for Mike to imply that everybody in tobacco control is guilty of malfeasance, and that nobody in tobacco control
can admit that they made a mistake.
Tell you what Bill, when one admits he made a mistake then we'll all apologize. However, I fully believe everyone involved in tobacco control is a liar and knows very well that if the rest of the population grew enough intelliegence to read the study themselves they'd find the TC people run out on a rail. And the poor TC would no longer have free income coming in off my back. Always nice to know I'm working so Glantz can snub me and take my money.
If they aren't Bill, why don't they just make tobacco completely illegal? Stupid thieves...
OK then Bill. Do you then admit that the Surgeon General did indeed make a mistake, and that he was wrong in telling the public that brief exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease?
Remember Bill you may be a smokefree advocate but you are NOT Tobacco free since your indulgance in smokeless tobacco to satiate your desire for nicotine.King Canute seems to have had the same idealism as yourself in believing that single handedly you are able to defy that which is a scientific fact.
Uh, Bill,
What about the Helena and Pueblo authors, why can't they admit they made a mistake? They obviously know by now that they did make a mistake.
sargent and shepard , according to the Montanta senate meeting minutes attended a meeting where irrefutable proof was presented the helena ban was widely violated, and that people just went outside the city limits to patronize smoking establishemts.
yet, one month later they published in the BMJ that only 2 businessess violated the ban, and that Helena was isolated, implying patrons had noplace else to go where they could still be exposed.
At the very least, the Helena authors could ahve posted a rapid response, admitting those mistakes, which would have at least been an attempt to set the record straight.
Bill says, "It is also outrageously inaccurate and condescending for Mike to imply that everybody in tobacco control is guilty of malfeasance, and that nobody in tobacco control
can admit that they made a mistake."
Bill won't even admit the helena authors made a mistake.... Guilty as charged!!!!
Dave k
Mike wrote:
"Do you then admit that the Surgeon General did indeed make a mistake, and that he was wrong in telling the public that brief exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease?"
I wasn't aware that Surgeon General Carmona (or last year's SG report) stated specifically that "brief exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease?"
I think the CDC is correct in stating that exposure to even a small dose of a carcinogen can cause cancer, and I agree with Pechacek's comment about different interpretations of the word "brief".
si wrote:
"Remember Bill you may be a smokefree advocate but you are NOT Tobacco free since your indulgance in smokeless tobacco to satiate your desire for nicotine."
In fact, I have not used any type of smokeless tobacco product since I tried a wad of chewing tobacco about 35 years ago (when I was a teenager).
But since si raised the issue, I urge everyone to read a newly published article I wrote with Brad Rodu that is the most comprehensive review ever written about the health risks of smokeless tobacco products at
http://www.harmreductionjournal....7-7517-3-
37.pdf
Our article exposes the massive amount of misinformation by government agencies and various health organizations about the relative risks of smokeless tobacco products and the comparable health risks of smokeless tobacco products versus cigarettes.
Despite leading the world on antismoking efforts, our national public health report card gets a failing grade. It's time for our health authorities to get off the antismoking bandwagon, and do something which really will benefit our health. We don't need more antismoking programs.... we need new public health authorities.
According to Parade Magazine, by David Wallechinsky:
Is America Still No.1?
http://www.parade.com/articles/
e..._Are_Number_One
"Health. In the realm of health, the United States has a contradictory record. We are first (with at least 20 other countries) in terms of our citizens having access to clean water and sanitation facilities. We spend more money per person on health care a year ($5,700) than any country, and a greater percentage of our gross domestic product (more than 15%) goes to health care. But are we getting our money’s worth? .....
Thirty-three nations, including Cuba, have a lower infant death rate than the U.S., and 28 have a lower maternal death rate. We rank 30th in life expectancy for women and 28th for men. In each of these health-related categories, the U.S. position has steadily declined over the last 20 years.
The U.S. used to be first in life expectancy for women who already had reached the age of 65. Now we are 20th."
Uh, Bill, were losing ground here.... Dave K
Dave K attempts to obfuscate, but average life expectancy in America would be far higher if the smoking rate sharply declined, and America's infant mortality rate would decline if smoking among pregnant women declined significantly.
In fact, cigarette smoking is a leading reason why America doesn't have a higher life expectancy, and why America doesn't have a lower infant mortality rate.
Bill Godshall wrote:
Our article exposes the massive amount of misinformation by government agencies and various health organizations about the relative risks of smokeless tobacco products...
**************
So Bill, How's that exposing misinformation thing going? Kindof a pain, isn't it? A bit frustrating....
I saved and glanced at your article, I may dabble in smokeless just for the heck of it -to see for myself- buy more stock!!!
If you can make snuff that also whitens teeth - now that would be a marketing marval - the next sliced bread...
Bill, we have had a much sharper smoking decline than most other countries. and smoking among pregnant women in the USA has declined more than most other countries. Our SHS exposure has, until very recently declined much more sharply than most other countries.
We should have made more relative progress than most other countries, yet we have fallen further behind.
I am particularly bothered by the finding that our females, used to have the longest life expectancy after age 65, and now we are #20. Although our females have not quit as much as our males, they never smoked as much as our males to begin with. In fact, our females were more often secondhand smokers, and according to His Majesty, the Surgeon general, about 70% of secondhand smoking has dissappeared over the last 20 years.
WARR"S the Beef????
So, let's eliminate that last 30% of SHS and maybe we can drop to #30.
Dave K
Bill's correct. There ARE some people in TC that can admit mistakes.
Remember the woman who retracted her statement that asbestos was in tobacco (but then said plutonium 210 [sic] was)? LOL
Also, I wrote a government health website once and told them their information was so wrong that smokers would drop dead before they finished one cigarette if what they said was true. They removed that webpage within 24 hours.
Not all people in TC are liars. Some are just plain old morons.
Bill, did you get paid for your part in writing that paper? If so, did you know that money came from a tobacco company?
Bill you still advocate smokeless tobacco,so why be so coy about being a user or stooge of smokeless tobacco ?So Bill are you on the "pure nicotine" or do you abstain from this as well ?No wonder you are so piqued all of the time.How many years did you smoke 60 cigarettes a day for ?How does the brain cope when this quantity of stimulation is withdrawn ?With nicotine being a known mood elevator what effect did this have on you.If you quit cold turkey style do you really have to hate smoking /smokers in order to combat such collossal nicotine withdrawal ?Great that you stopped smoking,but do you still need to believe that anyone who believes in free choice,is the devil in disguise ?
OK Bill - so now that you ARE aware that the Surgeon General stated that brief exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of heart disease (it was in the press release, not in the report itself), will you now admit that was a mistake and that his press release misled the American people into thinking that brief exposure to secondhand smoke could a person to develop heart disease?
The direct quote from the press release is: "Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and increases risk for heart disease and lung cancer, the report says."
I understand your opinion about the lung cancer - which anyone can argue could be caused by even one molecule of a carcinogen. My question is about brief exposure to secondhand smoke increasing the risk of heart disease. Is it not misleading, if not inaccurate to state that? And did, or did not, the Surgeon General make a mistake?
Bill, you just stated you wrote a paper with Brad Rodu exposing misinformation about the risks of smokeless tobacco?
I actually look forward to reading your paper. Congratulations on its publication.
But Bill, I have to ask, is this the same Brad Rodu who dealt the death blow to the Helena study, by showing all the previous occurrences of 50% drops in heart attacks in Helena in this Rapid Response?
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/.../7446/
977#60213
Gee, Bill. What strange friends you have. Tell us again what you think of the Helena study? Haven't you defended it in the past?
Now that you've allied yourself with a anti-tobacco critic and pariah such as Rodu, how long before you find yourself out in the cold here like Dr. Siegel?
After all, if as referenced here:
http://www.capitalresearch.org/p...df/
07_04_OT.pdf
Rodu directly accuses organizations such as the RWJF and the Mayo Clinic of spreading disinformation about smokeless tobacco, even accusing the Mayo Clinic people of being "anti tobacco crusaders". I quote directly from Rodu's paper:
--- quote
Anti-tobacco crusaders at the Mayo
Clinic apparently reserve derogatory terms only for users of smokeless tobacco. There are articles about smoking in the medical literature by Mayo Clinic staff, but none of
cigarette smokers as “smokestacks.” In
fact, “spit” tobacco may occupy a unique position in the annals of published medical research, which does not generally use derogatory descriptive terms. For example,
medical research articles about alcoholism generally do not label people with this disorder as “alkies,” “boozers,” “winos,” or “drunks.”
--- end quote
So if they're spreading misinformation about smokeless tobacco, because of their contempt for smokers, it's not too far of a stretch to say that they're spreading misinformation about second hand smoke too.
The reason the average life expectancy in the US is not increasing,is that people are getting so frustrated that the so called health lobby are so full of crap and hellbent on interevention in their lives that they are keeling over due to the excess hypertension thay suffer from.However what about their enjoyment of life,is longevity the be all and end all ?Let's all become automatons like Bill,and spend our existence preaching against the things that people enjoy.
Bill said: "In fact, cigarette smoking is a leading reason why America doesn't have a higher life expectancy, and why America doesn't have a lower infant mortality rate."
I'm not sure how you can say that, Bill. The following are 2005 numbers: Japan's life expectancy for men is 78.53, compared to United States life expectancy of 77.71. However, Japan's smoking rate for men is nearly 50% and it's 24.1% in the United States.
As for infant mortality rate, that doesn't even make sense. Second hand smoke has NOT been proved to "kill" infants. I think they've narrowed down the cause of SIDS to some kind of genetic defect in infants, exacerbated by laying an infant on its stomach.
You keep spewing these things you hear as if they are facts, and it is purely speculation (by anti-smoking people like you).
Bill: "Do you then admit that the Surgeon General did indeed make a mistake, and that he was wrong in telling the public that brief exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease?"
I wasn't aware that Surgeon General Carmona (or last year's SG report) stated specifically that "brief exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease?"
Funny, that seems to be an answer to a different question than the one asked.
Perhaps you would like to try again without being evasive?
I must admit that you are correct though....the report said nothing of the sort.
His public statements and press releases were another story entirely.
Which, I believe, is what Dr. Siegel was asking about.
I think the CDC is correct in stating that exposure to even a small dose of a carcinogen can cause cancer, and I agree with Pechacek's comment about different interpretations of the word "brief".
Actually, the CDC is not correct in stating that unless/until they can specify the safe threshold in duration and quantity as well as a proven mechanism for minuscule amounts being a risk.
Up until that point it's just biased guesswork, scare-mongering, weasel wording and medical science on par with leeching.
I find it truly amazing with the amount of money being poured into tobacco research that still nobody can define those limits.
Our article exposes the massive amount of misinformation by government agencies and various health organizations about the relative risks of smokeless tobacco products - Bill
Really, Bill? Misinformation by government agencies and health organizations? You have a real scoop here. They would NEVER do that, would they? You mean even the Surgeon General ...? I'll be damned, who would have thought that.
Or did I simply misinterpret your postings over the last year ..?
Quote from Stanton A. Glantz:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/.../7446/
977#61207
"Rodu and Cole are following a well-established tobacco industry strategy of trying to shift the focus away from our actual observations."
Bill, you're associating with an individual that Stanton Glantz accuses of being a tobacco industry thrall.
How does it feel?
Is all your chest-beating over SHS really a red herring to legitimize yourself with anti-tobacco, so as to somehow lend credence to your position on smokeless tobacco, which, according to Stanton Glantz, is just as deviant from the party line as some of Dr. Siegel's positions?
Julie wrote: "I'm not sure how you can say that, Bill."
Bill will say whatever he likes, as long as nobody asks him for evidence to back it up.
And now that he works for the tobacco industry and promotes smokeless tobacco products, but tobacco nonetheless, we will rapidly see him switch sides and arguments. After all, there's money to gain.
A statement read in the paper by Rodu and Bill:
Agencies of the federal government (most notably the Office of the Surgeon General) and health promotion organizations (such as the American Cancer Society and the Mayo Clinic) should discontinue the campaign of
misinformation that irresponsibly misrepresents the scientific information about and use of ST products.
Dr. Siegel, Bill seems to admit that the Surgeon General did in fact misrepresent the scientific information, but only with regard to smokeless tobacco. Regarding ETS, the same Surgeon General was a perfectly honest and knowledgeable man.
It's going to be interesting to see how Bill will justify the fact that his study supports tobacco companies:
http://www.swedishmatch.com/
http://www.ussmokeless.com/conte...ntent.cfm?
id=59
We all remember that Bill et al. put Dr. Siegel in the pockets of the tobacco companies.
Disclaimer: I'm not implying that the studies by Brad Rodu are biased because of grants received by these tobacco companies.
benpal wrote:
"Dr. Siegel, Bill seems to admit that the Surgeon General did in fact misrepresent the scientific information, but only with regard to smokeless tobacco. Regarding ETS, the same Surgeon General was a perfectly honest and knowledgeable man."
Paraphrasing Glantz's opinion of Dr. Siegel: "Bill did some very good work, once upon a time."
BTW, if Bill hadn't shamelessly plugged his harm reduction paper on this "pro-tobacco site" how many people would've actually ever seen it? More than 5?
Now the REAL question is, if FORCES puts his paper on their website does that make Bill an even bigger stooge of BT?
this is the same CDC that forbids smoking OUTDOORS on its campus. i doubt you will get a retraction or correction, no matter how wrong they may be. it's all about agenda.
Morgan Toal provided the link to a paper written by Brad Rodu
http://www.capitalresearch.org/p...df/
07_04_OT.pdf
where Bradu cites the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery:
What’s in Spit Tobacco?
Chemicals. Keep in mind that the spit tobacco you or your friends are putting into your mouths contains many chemicals that can have a harmful effect on your health. Here are a few of the ingredients found in spit tobacco.
Polonium 210 (nuclear waste)
N-Nitrosamines (cancer-causing)
Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)
Nicotine (addictive drug)
Cadmium (used in car batteries)
Cyanide
Arsenic
Benzene
Lead (nerve poison)
Let’s do some fact checking. Do smokeless tobacco manufacturers really add nuclear waste, embalming fluid, car battery chemicals, cyanide, arsenic, benzene and lead to their products? Of course not! What the crusaders are not telling smokeless tobacco users is that all of these “ingredients” are really natural contaminants found in most of the foods we eat.
And Rodu to continue:
This is the precise wording found in many anti-tobacco brochures and web sites. And it’s completely wrong. Manufacturers of car batteries have never used cadmium. Apparently this myth appeared in one anti-tobacco publication, and it sounded so good that it was copied over and over without any critical appraisal. Critical appraisal within -- and of -- the anti-tobacco movement is long overdue.
Does that sound familiar?
Does Bill now that he is on the other side of the fence, admit that these are bloody lies, even with regard to ETS?
Sorry for the misspelling: Bradu should read Brad Rodu
Again, the leading center for SIDS has stated very clearly, and even wrote a letter that I copied in this blog before, that states to no longer associate their name with these SIDS claims because they are false claims.
What is this about arguing against misinformation about smokeless tobacco. Oh hell no, they are not even taking mine away from me and keeping theirs! They cannot use the crap we've said in opposition to TC to get THEIR little pet kept on. Please tell me that's not happening...Fill me in here, I'm not getting to keep up as well as I used to except through the blog.
At some point, the crisis of credibility that I've been writing about in the tobacco control movement is going to cross the line over into public health itself. This is the first example we've seen of this, because although the office that handles much of the Surgeon General's communications is specifically devoted to tobacco control issues, it is also a part of the larger CDC, and thus is part of the public health establishment in general.
Umm, no it isn't. This is by far, not the first example of CDC BS. It's just the latest. Just in recent memory I can think of well - what about the incredible shrinking number of obesity related mortalities?
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/a...cfm?
article=161
How about those 36,000 flu deaths we're told about every year? That's really credible - huh?
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/a...cfm?
article=161
How about the rationale for giving 24 hour old infants Hepatitis B shots?
Yes - this is a pet peeve of mine - because there is no rationale for this particular insanity.
Don't even attempt to make any sense of the CDC HIV numbers - now there's a quagmire.
I could go on and on but this is supposed to be about smoking. Let's just say that if anyone out there still believes the CDC is about real science and public health instead of a politcal arm of the medicrats, you're not paying attention.
Diane--
Carmona advocated total tobacco prohibition several years before he wrought his report. The link has been posted here on earlier threads but I'm sure you'll find it if you google "Carmona, tobacco, prohibition." So IOW, this is his long-standing agenda, not something he was "made" to say. And to whatever extent he knowingly lied, it was, in fact, to bolster his own agenda: prohibition by hook or crook.
Mr Bill--
What about second-hand spit tobacco? Seems to me they once outlawed spitoons because spitting in public was seen not only as gross and offensive (think public urination or, say, public vomiting) but a source of contagion. And think about The Workers who have to--inescapably-- clean the spitoons. Even the disposal of tobacco "tea bags" is surely a public menace. Those wet germy things. Yuck. Ick. No? And hey, couldn't Children pick up the germ-ridden used tobacco bags and put them in their mouths? Or puppies? Or possibly endangered eagles?
:
So Bill are you a stooge for smokeless tobacco ?Or do you just advocate it,but as you have stated,you've not used it for 35 years.So how can you say it is any better than the worthless nicotine big Pharma kick out.Sorry Bill ,but isn't this one of your famed "i know best" but i haven't really got a bloody clue about what i'm saying ?
Walt, that may be true but I was only relating one particular interview where there was absolutely no mention of smoking or tobacco of any kind. His only agenda for that interview was obesity and it was the reporter who brought the subject up. I wish I could remember what news show this was on. Sorry, the the memory is failing me right now. Anyways, he was rather quiet on his stance about tobacco and quite vocal on obesity throughout his term. Giving someone a title though doesn't make him an authority either and that is what this has all come to. I work for tobacco control so I know more than you, is now the mantra.
Mike wrote:
"The direct quote from the press release is: "Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and increases risk for heart disease and lung cancer, the report says.""
That's a very different statement than what Mike claimed yesterday that the SG said, when he wrote:
"OK then Bill. Do you then admit that the Surgeon General did indeed make a mistake, and that he was wrong in telling the public that brief exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease?"
There's a difference between "increasing risk" and "causing."
Meanwhile, the definition of "brief" could range from several seconds to many hours, and the definition of "exposure" could range from a single event to daily exposures.
But the fact remains that Mike has falsely accused the entire tobacco control movement of engaging in malfeasance over a slight difference of interpretation of a few words in one sentence from a several hundred page report (and in other cases just one sentence from a 5, 10 or 20 page report or website).
Meanwhile, the SG, NIH, SAMHSA and other DHHS agencies, virtually every state health department and many private health agencies have consistently and repeatedly (in some cases for the past 20 years) mislead the public about the relative and comparative morbidity and mortality risks of smokeless tobacco products versus cigarettes.
1624: On the logic that tobacco use prompts sneezing, which too closely resembles sexual ecstasy, Pope Urban VIII issues a worldwide smoking ban and threatens excommunication for those who smoke or take snuff in holy places. A century later, snuff-loving Pope Benedict XIII repeals all papal smoking bans, and in 1779, the Vatican opens its own tobacco factory.
1633: Sultan Murad IV prohibits smoking in the Ottoman Empire; as many as eighteen people a day are executed for breaking the law. Murad's successor, Ibrahim the Mad, lifts the ban in 1647, and tobacco soon becomes an elite indulgence -- joining coffee, wine, and opium, according to a historian living under Ibrahim's reign, as one of the four "cushions on the sofa of pleasure."
1634: Czar Michael of Russia bans smoking, promising even first-time offenders whippings, floggings, a slit nose, and a one-way trip to Siberia. By 1674, smokers are deemed criminals subject to the death penalty. Two years later, the smoking ban is lifted.
1646: The General Court of Massachusetts Bay prohibits citizens from smoking tobacco except when on a journey and at least five miles away from any town. The next year, the Colony of Connecticut restricts citizens to one smoke a day, "not in company with any other." Though some statutes remain on the books for decades, enforcement diminishes, and by the early 1700s, New England is a major consumer and producer of tobacco.
1891: Angered by the shah's generous tobacco concession to England, Iranians protest widely, and the Grand Ayatollah Haji Mirza Hasan Shirazi issues a fatwa banning Shiites from using or trading tobacco. The tensions spark the Tobacco Rebellion -- the culmination of a long-standing confrontation between Iran's shahs and its clergy over foreign influence. The following year, once the country's business dealings with the Brits are revoked, Iran's Shiites happily resume smoking.
1895: North Dakota bans the sale of cigarettes. Over the next twenty-six years, fourteen other statehouses, propelled by the national temperance movement, follow suit. Antismoking crusader Lucy Gaston announces her candidacy for president in 1920 -- the same year Warren G. Harding's nomination is decided by Republican Party bosses in a "smoke-filled room." By 1927, all smoke-free legislation -- except that banning the sale of cigarettes to minors -- is repealed.
1942: Adolf Hitler calls tobacco "the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor," and directs one of the most aggressive antismoking campaigns in history, including heavy taxes and bans on smoking in many public places. The country's antismoking movement loses most of its momentum after the Nuremberg trials, and by the mid-1950s, domestic consumption exceeds prewar levels.
Copyright The Atlantic Monthly Group
Bill writes: There's a difference between "increasing risk" and "causing."
OK, then: Exactly how could a brief exposure to secondhand smoke increase the risk of heart disease, but not cause heart disease?
It's funny to hear this from Bill:
Meanwhile, the SG, NIH, SAMHSA and other DHHS agencies, virtually every state health department and many private health agencies have consistently and repeatedly (in some cases for the past 20 years) mislead the public about the relative and comparative morbidity and mortality risks of smokeless tobacco products versus cigarettes.
It's like saying: the are really honest people, except with regards to ST.
Come on Bill, how ridiculous can you get!
Bill, how much are you being paid for your promotion of ST?
Meanwhile, the SG, NIH, SAMHSA and other DHHS agencies, virtually every state health department and many private health agencies have consistently and repeatedly (in some cases for the past 20 years) mislead the public about the relative and comparative morbidity and mortality risks of smokeless tobacco products -Mr. Bill
Interesting Bill how does it feel?..... they, and you have misled lawmakers and the public about false health hazard claims regarding secondhand smoke even as the American Cancer Society proves SHS air quality is up to 25,000 times safer than OSHA regulations:
http://cleanairquality.blogspot....lth-
hazard.html
Looks like your concerns about health, like the other activists......are only as sincere as your source of funding.......hypocrit.
Trying to split hairs with Dr. Siegel over what the SG said publicly, Bill asserts (and everyone should save this boomerang of a statement):
There's a difference between "increasing risk" and "causing."
Okay Bill. Just for you I went out of my way to settle this. You're just that special.
HHS (Health & Human Services) News Release
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/20...s/
20060627.html
The report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, finds that even brief secondhand smoke exposure can cause immediate harm.
Associated Press
(picked up nationally but here's just one)
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/
2...your_heal.shtml
Breathing any amount of someone else's tobacco smoke harms nonsmokers, the surgeon general said Tuesday
That's how the country read it over their morning coffee... ANY amount HARMS nonsmokers.
And that's the way it stands -- the reality of what was said as far as the public believes -- because not one organization corrected it.
Oh, and did you notice? The HHS said brief exposure can CAUSE harm. Out of the horse's mouth.
Cuffs should be slapped on you for felonious mopery.
Mike earlier I added this information to the comment thread:
"The other possible explanation for the CDC's "misrepresentation" is that they accepted funding from some very biased and dubious pharmaceutical nicotine interests. Such as $50,000.00 from RWJF, and $50,000.00 from the Johnson & Johnson company itself:
http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/r...&
gsa=1#contents
http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/ r...1#int_grantinfo
Note under the "Chairman's Circle" the $50,000.00 + donors to the CDC included the Nicoderm manufacturer itself Johnson & Johnson Company."
Wouldn't you agree that pharmaceutical nicotine funding from Johnson & Johnson Company and RWJF to the government public health entity (CDC) advocating for tobacco nicotine bans, looks dubious enough to open up a federal investigation into improper and undue influence?
http://cleanairquality.blogspot....000-
people.html
Sorry here are those two grants again:
http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/r...&
gsa=1#contents
http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/
r...1#int_grantinfo
Bill writes: There's a difference between "increasing risk" and "causing."
OK, then: Exactly how could a brief exposure to secondhand smoke increase the risk of heart disease, but not cause heart disease?
Michael Siegel
Doc, people who are routinely briefly exposed to SHS could share another common characteristic which does lead to heart disease.
The words "increase the risk" need to be defined. I beleive this is one of the major problems in intrepreting SHS data.
"increase the risk" does not distinguish between the dependent and independent variable...or even if the two are related.
When researches report that those who are exposed to more SHs have more heart disease, what they have found is that those nonsmokers had more risk...and thats all they really know. The trouble is they then report that SHS increased the risk. The latter statement is different than the earlier statement.
Increased exposure to SHS is probably just a handy tool to identify people who ahve more lung cancer, heart disease, and some other diseases.
Since smokers tend to be less concerned about healthy behavior in general, it is reasonable to expect those who do not smoke, but associate with smokers frequently would share this common lack of concern about about general healthy behavior too, apart from the smoking component.
So when we look at the health of those who associate frequently with smokers , we are identifying a group of people who are less concerned about thier own health, to begin with. And any group of people who are less concerned about their own health are going to be less healthy, in general.
This is the best explanation of why just about any disease can end up being associated with SHS exposure. and also why the prevalence of these so-called SHS related diseases is totally out of line with the dose-response curve developed based on first hand smoking- packs per day data. Dave K
If someone gave me $100 M, I could probably buy my way into a professor's position at some university which is in need of research funding. This would give me free access to graduate students which are really free slaves, except i do not ahve to pay to feed them.
I could get a copy of Geographic patterns and the Risk of Dying. which was published by the DHHS.
It shows people who live along the west coast, and north eastern states have more lung cancer than most other parts of the USA.
These ahppen to be the places where antismoking activism first popped up.
So, I could get my graduate students to sift through all the cities and towns in CA, MA, and NYC which passed early smoking bans, and find these places still have more lung cancer.
Geographic patterns and the risk of dying, also shows that the gulf coast around Louisana, has lots of lung cancer. although little early antismokign activism, but I could ignore that, since i control the purse strings.
So I could generate lots of studies using my free graduate students claiming antismoking activism INCREASES THE RISK of lung cancer.
What the data really show, of course, is that palces with high antismoking activism rates have more lung cancer, and we really all know that the 2 are not related, but i depend on stupid people to take my social movement to the next level.
So, now I can get people like Gill Bobshell all rilled up, because my studies overwhelmingly show antismoking activism causes lung cancer. And I can get Missourains against antismoking to publically state antsimoking contains asbestos and plutonium.
Of course, all this was, in the beginnig so stupid an idea that the antismokers never took it seriously enough to fight it, so now they are in a position to have to sceintifically prove that antismokign activism does not cause lung cancer. which is an uphill battle.
So, I can go to stupid local lawmakers, and public referendums and make a case to these poeple that the studies overwhelmingly prove that antismoking activism causes lung cancer, and we want antismoking activism banned.
I can also argue that even if my proof is not absolute, that it is safer to ban antismokign actvism than to do nothing.
Dave K
Mike wrote:
"OK, then: Exactly how could a brief exposure to secondhand smoke increase the risk of heart disease, but not cause heart disease?"
The same way drunk drving increases the risk of crashing, but doesn't always cause a crash.
JTF wrote:
"The report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, finds that even brief secondhand smoke exposure can cause immediate harm."
Once again, there's a difference between "can cause" and "causes".
After falsely accusing me of using smokeless tobacco, si makes yet another false accusation.
"So Bill are you a stooge for smokeless tobacco?"
Its interesting how folks who routinely make false accusations about other people in an attempt to mislead and smear others (which occurs daily on this blog) rarely acknowledge or apologize for their own mistakes (while continuing to demand apologies from others who they make false accusations about).
Bill failed to answer my question, which is how can brief exposure increase the risk of heart disease but NEVER cause heart disease. I am not claiming that the Surgeon General claimed that brief exposure ALWAYS causes heart disease. I am challenging the contention that brief exposure EVER causes heart disease.
If brief exposure does not EVER cause heart disease, then it does NOT increase the RISK of heart disease.
So Bill, what is your evidence that brief exposure to secondhand smoke EVER causes heart disease? If you can provide that, then I will retract my statements and apologize to my readers.
If not, then I have made my point that anti-smoking groups, like Smokefree Pennsylvania, are unwilling to admit that an obviously false or misleading statement has been made about this issue of the acute cardiovascular effects of secondhand smoke.
Jacob Sullum has highlighted this story on the Hit & Run blog here: http://www.reason.com/blog/show/...how/
117955.html.
I just love the comment of the 2nd discussant, who states: "I love Michael Siegel, and I love even more how he is the turd in the punch bowl among anti-smoking advocates."
Can't summarize it much better than that!
Bill, you are trying to defend smokeless tobacco aren't you?
Well if you are defending smokeless tobacco,then you MUST be a ST addict. I mean, really, only ST addicts would defend the use of ST. WE all know it's bad for you, I mean, the science says so! Bill, that isn't misinformation, you are just blinded by your addiction to ST.
I dont believe it "occurs daily" bill, you don't always post every day.
Jalestra: Well if you are defending smokeless tobacco,then you MUST be a ST addict. I mean, really, only ST addicts would defend the use of ST. WE all know it's bad for you, I mean, the science says so! Bill, that isn't misinformation, you are just blinded by your addiction to ST.
Brilliant, and according to Bill's own words here about cigarettes, absolutely true!!
Jerry T: I dont believe it "occurs daily" bill, you don't always post every day.
You took the words right out of my mouth..........I was thinking exactly that.
Mr. Bill points out (correctly-- though the unsophisticated General Public won't begin to catch the difference, any more than-- as JTF posts,--did the press) that there is in fact a difference between "causes" and "can cause." As for instance in the statement, "Buying a lottery ticket causes you to win a million dollars" vs. "buying a lottery ticket CAN cause you to win...."
But as long as he's parsing, what does he make of the parsable statement that the results from combining disparate surveys that loosely covered bar and restaurant workers, without a full knowledge of their smoking status or degree of exposure "suggested that there may be a 50 percent increase in lung cancer risk among food-service workers that is in part attributable to tobacco smoke exposure in the workplace."
Surely, using those same semantic skills, he'd determine there's a world a difference between that and,say, "ETS workplace exposure causes lung cancer."
Wouldn't he? Huh?
:
From his silence, I'll take it that Bill cannot come up with any evidence that brief exposure to secondhand smoke can EVER cause heart disease.
But I shouldn't single him out. Neither have ANY of the anti-smoking organizations that are making such a claim.
Doc, since you still have that $100 , why not bet it on the winning Superbowl team now, and when you win, donate the winnings to the Smoker's Club?
Dave K
Anyone who uses any form of tobacco, and is engaged in the 'tobacco control movement', yet calls smokers 'addicts' is nothing but a low-life, lying hypocritical worm. Period.
How could anyone take such a clown seriously, when every word out of their mouth is the very definition of a 'contradiction'??
Bill,in the universal english language,the words "are you" relate to what is commonly called a question.The sentence containing these words is usually,though not always ended with the use of a question mark,this is annotated as such ? .You will note that i used the words "are you" and actually used a question mark.Thus,it was a question,not a statement.You, due to your twisted and perverted view,decide it was a statement.What it clearly shows is that you say you do not use smokeless tobacco and you have no involvement with smokeless tobacco.SO,HOW CAN YOU STATE,THERE ARE HEALTH BENEFITS TO SWITCHING TO IT FROM SMOKING TOBACCO ?WHY DO YOU SUGGEST ITS USE IS MORE BENEFICIAL THAN PHARMA NICOTINE ?YOU HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE,APART FROM WHAT YOU THINK.You peruse reports which help you promote your agenda,an intense dislike of smokers,and promote them as if you are indeed proficient in the subject.You are a false person,a Walter Mitty character,who represents no-one other than yourself.It is about time people see you for what you really are,a lay person who thinks he is a specialist in Tobacco Control,but who doesn't make the grade.
Stupid browser,the above was me ,Si.
"What it clearly shows is that you say you do not use smokeless tobacco and you have no involvement with smokeless tobacco.SO,HOW CAN YOU STATE,THERE ARE HEALTH BENEFITS TO SWITCHING TO IT FROM SMOKING TOBACCO ?WHY DO YOU SUGGEST ITS USE IS MORE BENEFICIAL THAN PHARMA NICOTINE ?YOU HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE,APART FROM WHAT YOU THINK."
All it show, to me at least, is that the "topbacco control movement" is a complete and TOTTAL FARCE, and that folks like godshall are involved in it for the money. Either that, or they're total tools. But, I have the feeling it's for the money.
Liars, and charlatans, all of them.
All it shows, to me at least, is that the "tobacco control movement" is a complete and TOTAL FARCE.
typos....oooooopppppppppsss
Well look here Bill... this is the second article I found this lawmaker (also founder of the anti-smoking group Smokefree Charlotte) saying this. The first time it was in a local paper. Now it's in an article being printed in papers all over the country:
Half of U.S. population now living with anti-smoking laws
Associated Press - January 20, 2007
Susan Burgess, the mayor pro tem of Charlotte, N.C., said what’s fueling the push is a U.S. Surgeon General’s report released in June that found just a few minutes inhaling someone else’s smoke harms nonsmokers, and separate smoking sections don’t offer enough protection.
No "can." No "may." No "increase the risk of..."
So stop playing your semantics game. It's so utterly transparent. Don't you get embarrassed? Doesn't your pride trump your cause?? (all rhetorical)
Hi, guys.
If antis had any pride, they wouldn't be, would they?
I was just kind of skimming through some of the scams of anti history...
By now, everyone's heard that Sir Richard Doll, on whose claims tobacco blame was established, was paid by industry for every personal choice transference of blame made in reducing liability in each case.
Yet his assessments are still accepted as real, showing the influence of industry as strongly as any other multiple examples.
In case refresher's are required, some of the more popular articles are available below.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
scienc...1967386,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
smokin...1967376,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
medici...1967402,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
medici...1967381,00.html
Please note the increase in the combination of liver, lung, limb and brain cancer appearing orginally in the young, (best known as affecting Terry Fox and too many other young people,) of which the claimed Canadian second-hand smoke victim - of about that generation - Heather Crowe died.
A 'second-hand smoke' victim was required, located and publicized in response to demands that some scientific proof or a single victim of second-hand smoke be produced to substantiate accusations, as 40 years of various industry efforts had failed to show that tobacco smoke actually caused lung cancer or other disease, such interests being reduced to expedients such as plastering burnt tobacco residue with added carcinogens onto the skin of genetically susceptable animals for extended periods to produce cancers. No proof of causation was possible, but the fact of previous second-hand smoke exposure was claimed as proof of cause, despite all other virtually or entirely universal exposures, including radon, asbestos, fossil fuel pollution and various common industry-produced chemical exposures, potentially causing this. Essentially, the 'proof' of smoking being hazardous is now to be supplied by the number of neversmokers suffering from supposedly smoking-related diseases.
Sane people would realize that this means that smoking is not THE cause and that the causes must be identified and dealt with; this means insanity - disassociation with reality - in the form of endless censorship and propaganda must bulldoze reality fast - before all-essental trade and profits are affected.
Heather Crowe was used to conceal the fact of frequent industry causation of and liability for disease, and the liver, brain and limb cancers appearing were said to have 'spread' from the lung, as in other, similar cases lung cancer appearing later was said to have spread from limbs or liver; once-rare brain cancer - being for some time progressively more common in infants and young children and now becoming appallingly common also in adults - is typically more rapidly fatal, leaving little time for other latent periods to expire and cancers to be diagnosed when this appears first in a potential combination of several cancers.
Had she not been useful, she might have been left to potentially starve without support, as has happened to others stricken with cancer and other disabling disease, since our humanitarian programs in Canada have been shut down by self-interested industry 'concerned with our health and economy' and profiting thereby, despite the fact that our business is none of theirs and only that of the public involved - who clubbed together to ensure universal insurance for all, so that no-one would be abandoned or desperate when ill fortune or ill health struck anyone down.
Something good came of that circumstance, that at least she had care and an income through those last days of life, but it's long past time to end a farce enabling slow murder for profit among multiple toxic industries to continue.
Sir Richard Doll, Sir Austin Bradford Hill and Sir Julian Peto, producing protective industry cover by using 'personal choice' blame, all received knighthoods, while greats such as Dr. Selikoff seemed to receive less public recognition and official quoting/reliance than those protecting toxic industry, whether because of conviction or for any other reason.
http://www.preventcancer.com/los.../other/
doll.htm Please note that Ronald Aylmer Fisher, who pioneered modern statistical science and who was joined by Austin Bradford Hill on studies relative to smoking and lung cancer, strongly objected - not immediately but in 1957, when bias and discrepencies evidently became apparent - to the procedures and conclusions of Hill (knighted in 1961) in this area and criticized the work both in academic publications and the media, as stated in the article found at http://www.answers.com/topic/aus...n-bradford-
hill for Sir Richard Peto's response to doubts of Doll's - and therefore his own - methodology, alliances and direction -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
scienc...1967377,00.html
http://www.lkaz.demon.co.uk/ban19.htm http://www.hsenews.com/category/...egory/asbestos/
http://www.mgwater.com/scam.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/healt...lth/
4530057.stm
(note emphasis on pharma drugs)
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.a...age.asp?
id=1548
(Claims are of enormous numbers of deaths averted by reducing tobacco use, but the phenomenal drop from 80% or higher in some large groups to 20-odd percent of tobacco use over half a century has resulted in massive disease increases expected to worsen drastically - actually asbestos/chemical/petro/industrial pollution, etc. epidemic figures - all attributed to 'the' 2 major causes of death, HIV and tobacco use.
Imagine how many lives would have been saved and how much environmental damage prevented had the energy and money - plenty of this being public funding - devoted to toxic industry cover-up and personal choice blame been instead focused on determining actual causes and dealing with them.) http://www.preventcancer.com/
los...why_prevent.htm http://www.preventcancer.com
If time, go through articles; ('Trade Secrets' possibly the most essential if pressed for time - but all important and the right-hand list are short articles) the connections are interesting and different associations/information in different articles all (indirectly) relate to the global attack on smokers - and the population in general, along with the very concept of democracy itself.
What a ghastly web they weave/ When global powers us deceive...
One may well question why - and how - effort and funding has flooded this global effort to prove smoking dangerous, and virtually all other industry products and by-products not, or less so than thought, or somehow only really damaging in tobacco's presence.
Why is it that whenever the obvious hazards of asbestos, radon/radiation, diesel exhaust, pollution or any of a hundred thousand industry chemicals to which we are unknowingly and unwillingly subjected are studied or discussed, tobacco use immediately receives nearly all mention, the original culprit almost forgotten, in the virtually invariable conclusion that this culprit isn't so bad and the most (industry) cost-effective solution is to make people quit smoking rather than deal with any other problem providing profits for the 'right people' over the dead bodies of the rest?
(Con't)
We begin with high cancer/disease levels associated with one thing for which the 'right people' may be liable, and the immediate response is to focus on smoking, and claim that the worst effects in every case occur only because of the victims personal choice - which failed to produce such response on its own and was not the substance identified as the problem and supposedly under consideration. Apart from everything else, that's a chosen, not an inflicted risk - and none of toxic industry's business. Under democracy, our minds and bodies are our own, while the powerful are prevented from abuses; the situation has now been reversed in virtually every case, even when obvious harm done by industry profit-makers is given rare publicity.
What typically happens is that toxic industry worms off the hook, out of the limelight and twists the onus round onto victims in a manner which also gains commercial industry control over the public in destructive reversal, reducing the defensive capacity of the public and instead giving toxic industry the upper hand over a public claimed 'incompetent' to decide for itself what's personally worthwhile and profits themselves.
Imposed smoking bans do all that and worse.
Only the most abject slave has ever been deprived of personal choice; such rights are not itemized in Constitutional preservation, in avoiding any perception of restriction or limitation to what was or was not specifically included, but certainly with enough indication given to cover all contingency in a society of equals.
Principles are intended to guide and govern, and these are implicit and entailed.
Democracy exists to provide maximum individual freedom within a socially responsible society of equals, ruled by the ruled, not bullied or damaged by the powerful or the noisy and selfish demands of the pathologically selfish.
But generations of PR experience has produced enough semantic deviltry that even when smoking produces less disease in smokers, people are to believe that 'less is more' in defiance of science (in this case - endocrine disruptors are a different matter) and sense, to explain why population smoking levels fail to correlate to population disease levels supposedly caused by this, rather than numerous known causal factors known to be present in relation to these.
One should also ask why the claimed magical power of tobacco smoke to protect against all such toxic exposures so that these can be produced only by itself has not been studied and this amazing prophylactic ability put to use.
A book I've read recently (Bullet Heart, by Michael Doane) had a vivid illustration of the obvious and essential truths of which we are so often oblivious; to paraphrase, one character stated that the white culture recognized four directions while native North Americans used six.
We unbelievably forgot about up and down because not required on 2-dimentional maps or often in general reference to the 'four corners of the world' so to speak - and such massive, unnoticed blind spots apply to everything, in all senses.
If you don't look in the right direction, or even realize it's there, not only will you not see the big picture but fail to realize it exists.
And while the multiple agendas of multiple interests regarding the use of the smoking issue are too many and convoluted for one person to unravel and understand in their entirety, even those with knowledge of some aspects often simply accept others - like the religious and unexamined faith-based belief in the evils of tobacco use and the industry - created by those like the asbestos/chemical industries who trespass against us all.
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