The Scottish Heart Miracle is followed by the English Asthma Miracle

Another miracle resulting from the smoking ban has appeared. This time, it concerns asthma in children. The BBC has reported on research which shows, apparently, that severe asthma attacks fell by about 12% immediately consequent upon the introduction of the smoking ban in enclosed public places in England. That this was indeed a miracle is evidenced by the obvious fact that if people cannot smoke in enclosed places (especially in inclement weather) other than their homes, they will smoke in their homes. Do children congregate in pubs, clubs, bingo halls, restaurants, etc? No. Where do children congregate? In their homes.

If we define a miracle as ‘some wonderful event which has occurred which cannot be explained other than by an act of the Deity’, then we must conclude that God is working with Tobacco Control. “SEE YE! HOW DOTH OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN JUSTIFY OUR GOOD WORKS! HOW DOTH HE PERFORM WONDEROUS THINGS FOR REFORMED SINNERS!”

And so it has come to pass that children with asthma have been miraculously cured of tobacco smoke intolerance. It must be so.

The alternative proposal by the Zealots is that parents MAY have declared their homes to be smokefree premises as a direct result of being banned from smoking in pubs etc. That is what the Zealots claim:

“We increasingly think it’s because people are adopting smoke-free homes when these smoke-free laws are introduced and this is because they see the benefits of smoke-free laws in public places such as restaurants and they increasingly want to adopt them in their home.”

That is a quote from the lead researcher, Prof Christopher Millett. Let us reproduce that statement again, and highlight some bits of it:

“We increasingly think it’s because people are adopting smoke-free homes when these smoke-free laws are introduced and this is because they see the benefits of smoke-free laws in public places such as restaurants and they increasingly want to adopt them in their home.”

So the esteemed (quack) Professor and (quack) Doctor and his mates THINK that …….. So smokers, according to these people, having been ostracised, WELCOME being ostracised and think that it is so wonderful that they will immediately ostracise themselves from their own homes!

So the miracle is NOT that asthma attacks from tobacco smoke intolerance has diminished, it is that smokers HAVE BEEN CONVERTED! “”PRAISE THE LORD!”"

But wait a minute. If that were true (that smokers have declared their homes to be smokefree), then, surely, they would have quit smoking? What sort of sinner only gives up his sinful ways indoors, but continues with his sinful ways outdoors? Eh?

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The reality is that statistics upon which this miracle is based have been cherry-picked. The interesting thing about this cherry-picking is that it is perfectly legitimate. For example, we have just had a certain weather pattern. We had a couple of days of clear skies and very frosty weather immediately followed by a couple of days of snow. It is therefore perfectly legitimate for me to say that, on this occasion, the frosty weather CAUSED the downfalls of snow. In the sense that would be rain clouds hit the frosty atmosphere hereabouts and what would normally be rain fell as snow, the causation assumption is correct, except that it was not the frosty weather that caused the snow, it was the influx of rain clouds. What the esteemed (quack) Doctor did was compare the ACTUAL figures for severe asthma incidents with his own projected model of what should have happened. Look at this figure:

[I think that you can click to enlarge]

The chart is for asthma consultations in children up to 14. What do you immediately see? You see ‘medium, high, low, low, high, medium, higher, low, high, high, high, low’. That pattern only relates to chance variations year on year. No conclusion of trends can reasonably be drawn from such a chart.

But, somehow or other, the learned Prof (quack) and Doctor (quack) has managed to torture a short-term situation immediately after the ban into confessing to a ‘statistically relevant’ deduction.

But, surely, the esteemed Prof (quack) and Doctor (quack) is unimpeachable? Let us just take a glance at this esteemed academic:

“I moved to the UK from Australia in 1994 after obtaining a social science degree from the University of Sydney.”

He is clearly an eminent mathematician and statistician, then, and qualified in epidemiology and medicine. But none of that matters since it is ’who you know, and not what you know’ – like Andrew Black, an Australian, who is big in Tobacco Control in the DoH, and Simon Chapman, another sociologist from Australia. Note also that a prime mover in this current hogwash is Stan Glantz (or Grantz, or whatever his name is) from America.

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We know that there is no doubt that there is an international conspiracy in action. I would not be surprised at all if this latest abomination is intended to be in support of the Irish smoking ban in cars – “Growing body of good evidence”, the likes of Arnott say.

The above is just a summary. ‘Velvet Glove, Iron Fist’ (see sidebar)’ has a much more accurate description.

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