Tonight’s post is going to be short because I want to get on with the reading. I am certainly turning up some very interesting facts.

Ever wondered where the idea of “No such thing as a safe cigarette” came from? The matter came to light in this case.

What happened was that, for reasons best known to themselves (although they are revealed in the case), tobacco companies (John Player in particular) decided not to contest the statements of Health Zealots, including the government. When asked, they agreed that smoking could cause serious illnesses; they agreed that tobacco could be addictive; they agreed that there is no safe cigarette. Doesn’t that seem strange? Why should they agree?

It seems that there was method in their madness. They decided not to contest the health warnings which Government required putting on cigarette packets. Does anyone remember the statement: “Message from HM Government: ‘Smoking may damage your health’? You see? “Message from HM Gov” – not from the tobacco company. Since then, the “Message from……” has disappeared and we get “Smoking Kills”  on its own. But the basic reasoning of tobacco companies was sensible: Why get into disputes with the Government? If the Government wants a message on a packet, put it on.

In the case, the CEO of Imp Tobacco was asked about the agreement of the company, and he said that, while they agreed, they did not know. They put the messages on that ‘Smoking Kills’, but they did not know. They agreed that there was statistical correlation, but that did not mean causation. They did not know. So…when they agreed, they were agreeing to the statistical correlation, but not causation.

But can we see how ASH ET AL have tried to rescue something from the disaster of the Judge’s decision? They have majored on the tobacco companies agreement that no cigarette is safe. So they can now shout that message from the rooftops, because tobacco companies have agreed.

But we see why tobacco companies are reluctant to fight. In the same way that CAUSATION cannot be proven by ASH ET AL, neither can CAUSATION be disproved – at the moment. I suspect that tobacco companies have been playing a waiting game.

There is some fascinating stuff. For example, reference is made to animal experiments where animals were forced to ‘smoke’, and other animal experiments. These experiments failed. Various ‘excuses’ were made for these failures – the animals’  lifespans were too short; their breathing mechanisms were different.

Chris Snowdon (‘Velvet Glove, Iron Fist’ – see sidebar) says that we have not made the best use of this case, and that is true. But it occurred a long time ago, with the judgement only appearing in 2005, two years before the ban in England and Scotland. Who knew anything about it?

Meanwhile, ASH ET AL have ignored the learned Judge’s opinion completely. They continue, with complete disregard for accuracy, to scream  ”SMOKING CAUSES CANCER, SMOKING CAUSES HEART DISEASE, SMOKING CAUSES DEATH.

But I must get back to my reading – it is fascinating stuff.

At some point in the fairly near past, ASH (aka the RCP) gained enormous funding. As a result, Chief Executives and Staff appeared. Where did this funding come from? It cannot have been from ‘members’, because members, even now, contribute little in the way of income.

And so it is very easy to see the meaning of the ‘ET AL’. The ‘ET AL’ is a collective name for all those shadowy groups who fund ASH. Not only that, but it incorporates, by implication, CRUK, the WHO, and the EU and all the other megalomaniacs.

But it is also clear that ASH (ET AL) is no more than a mouthpiece. Others decide what ASH should say. Thus, ASH has become very, very skillful in OBFUSCATION.

What is the real science involved in smoking and lung cancer, to take but one? Where are the specimens, one of which is from a non-smoker and the other from a smoker which CLEARLY INDICATE THE CHANGES WHICH CAN ONLY HAVE OCCURRED AS A RESULT OF SMOKING? As far as I know, there are none. Some who have been reading this blog will remember that, a few days back, we talked about the Mrs Margaret McTear case, where this lady tried (and failed) to claim damages from a fag company because her husband died from lung cancer. Where, in the records of the case, were specimens of his lungs produced and elements of the smoke which caused the cancer pointed to? Why were such specimens not produced and the indications of tobacco smoke pointed to as conclusive proof that his lung cancer was caused by smoking? After all, the propagandists are quite happy to show schoolchildren bottles containing ‘healthy’ lungs and comparing them with ‘blackened, disgusting, filthy, stinking’ lugs supposedly taken from smokers.   

ASH ET AL tried to change the burden of proof from the PHYSICAL evidence to EPIDEMIOLGICAL evidence. Fortunately, the Judge in the case saw through that argument and insisted that you cannot go from ‘the general’ (statistics) to ‘the specific’, without a great deal more ‘specific’ evidence. Thankfully, we still have some really good Judges in this country, as compared with the Judges in the USA.

Nevertheless, despite the outcome of that case in 2005, ASH ET AL have continued to destroy everything worthwhile about science. If ASH ET AL had been in charge 150 years ago, we would not now have electricity powering almost everything. Statistics and epidemiological evidence and surveys and studies would have been produced to show how dangerous electricity was. Thankfully, there was not then in existence a political system blinded by short-term, poll orientated, media driven sound-bites.

Do we have any Statesmen who can destroy those organisations which have been destroying the science upon which all our futures depend? Quacks took over the UN, quacks took over the Medical Profession, quacks took over the EU, quacks took over our universities. It would not be difficult to equate the quacks with a new aristocracy.

Where will it end?

We have talked before about the origins of ‘Public Health’, notably Dr Swan’s tracking down of the source of the cholera epidemic in Victorian London. We have talked about the Clean Air Acts of the 1960s. What did these events have in common? They were concerned with the health of all the people who lived in areas affected by the conditions appertaining.

‘Public Health’ is now a different entity. Rather than being coercion of, say, factory owner to stop emitting sulphur compounds in great quantities into the air, or water companies providing impure water, it has become coercion of individuals. We note especially the coercion of publicans and many others to ‘not allow’ smoking in their (private) premises under severe penalties. We note the attempts to force individuals to stop smoking in their own cars in the presence of their own children. Even worse, is the BMA demand that, children or no children, persons should be banned from smoking in cars at all. And why? For Public Health reasons! That is, the health of individuals has been transformed into the definition of ‘Public Health’. Is it possible to think of a more insidious idea?

The idea of ‘Public Health’ was pretty clear when the definition (unspoken) was about dangers to all the public and which could not be avoided. SHS would come into that category IF the dangers could not be avoided and IF they were sufficiently serious. In (private) establishments such as pubs and clubs, a person who wishes to avoid SHS can do so very easily by leaving, and, in the open air, the smoke is so diluted as to be almost non-existent.

We all know this to be true.

Yesterday, I compared Tobacco Control with a horse. In the beginning, the horse was walking, which equated to the ban on advertising in TV. Then the horse started trotting, which equated to the build up in adverse publicity about smoking. After that, I forgot my horse analogy! But that did not do the post any harm. I should have said that, when the smoking ban was passed, the horse broke into a gallop and is galloping faster and faster with the proliferation of bans. Only now are we starting building significant fences in front of the horse. Only now are we beginning to move the finishing line further away.

My thinking is now moving in the direction of making my own wine. I tried it once before, many, many years ago, with abject failure to produce anything palatable. I would assume that the ingredients and equipment are much improved since the 1970s! A palatable red wine would be much appreciated. I might even consider mixing my own produce with a proprietory brand, as I did with my own tobacco. If I manage to make a palatable red wine, then that is another denial of the State’s appetite for my money. Sod ‘em.

Resist! Resist in every possible way. Argue with officialdom, as Smoking Hot and friends have done regarding the import of tobacco products from the EU. Don’t give them an inch. Complain and complain. In 2000, EasyJet lost our luggage. They tried their best to wriggle out by suggesting that I must claim on my insurance. Erm….No….YOU lost my luggage. You must pay. They tried to suggest that £400 was the limit (as per EasyJet ‘instructions’). Erm….No…..International law says £800 plus expenses. I settled for £827. Last year, Jet 2 made a complete cock-up of arrangements for the transport of my wife’s disability aids. I persued them and we now have a free return fare to Majorca each.  No point in complaining to your MP about the persecution of smokers. Complain, as I have done,  to your doctor. Draw his/her attention to the harm that the Holy Zealots are doing regarding the trust that people have in the medical profession. Complain to nurses, as I have done, about the harassment and bullying. The change in the attitudes of the medical profession can only be made from the bottom upwards. That is the Achilles Heel of the quack professors and quack doctors who have taken over the Ministry of Health.

Many will remember the blitz of TV adverts leading up to that law. Jimmy Saville’s “Clunk, Click, every trip” springs readily to mind. There was also a plethora of TV programs showing cars being deliberately smashed into barriers and showing dummy bodies crashing through front windscreens while dummies restrained by belts did not. The blitz was constant and repetitive. Anyone who disagreed for whatever reason (including the rights of free individuals) was drowned out amid the noise. What was it about this particular law which required such massive propaganda? The answer is clear to me, even though I did not realise it at the time. The answer is that the motivation for the ban was hidden completely. On the face of it, it was ‘for your own good’, and many objected to being told what to do, but the real motivation was the reduction of NHS costs. The Minister of Transport said at the time, “20,000 lives will be saved”. Now, tell me,  why should the Minister of Transport be bothered that much about saving lives? Some 400,000 people were dying every year and there were wars going on all over the place. No, what the Gov was bothered about was simply THE COSTS. Thus, via the media blitz, the freedom of the individual was overturned in order to cut the costs of the NHS.

 We might think of Tobacco Control as a walking horse in 1965 when tobacco TV adverts were banned. Between then and around the year 2000, the horse began to trot. The World Health Organisation, having been infiltrated in a big way by Anti-tobacco, produced plans aimed at improving the health of the people of the world and to eliminate poverty, especially in the third world. At the time, the word ‘tobacco’ did not feature in the plans. However, as soon as the UN authorised the plan to improve health and eliminate poverty, Anti-tobacco swung into action. The first plan was ‘The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control’. No other massive plan emerged except that. But no mention of tobacco appeared in the original documents. Incredibly, over a hundred and fifty nations signed in agreement with the Convention. Did these nations know that a multitude of Non-Government Organisations had already been set up within their countries ready and financed to go to work? Or was it more likely that the passage of time between steps in the Tobacco Control Plan ensured a continuous procession of politicians through ministries and that Tobacco Control Zealots simply took advantage of the ignorance of ministers as they came and went? My betting is on the later. And when everything was in place, where did the war on poverty and disease begin? In healthy, wealthy Europe!

The success of the seat belt law in taking away individual freedom, ostensibly ‘for your own good’, but, in reality, to save NHS costs, must have registered strongly with Tobacco Control. What was the key strategy? The media blitz. It is clear that ‘partnerships’ with TV companies (especially the BBC) and the main newspapers had already been arranged by Tobacco Control. The blitz was to be merciless and prolonged. And so it was. Anyone who spoke for freedom of the individual to, for example, permit smoking in his bar, was castigated and silenced on threat of massive fines and loss of licence. Also, false ‘studies’ and ‘surveys’ were produced showing that the public were just waiting for the ban in pubs before flooding in – part of the propaganda blitz. And so the ban in ‘public’ places (which were not public places at all) was enacted, first in Ireland and then throughout the UK. The statements from surveys that people would flood into pubs was found to be totally false, and pubs and clubs and bingo halls started to close down in droves as smokers started to stay home where they could enjoy a drink and a cigarette in comfort. This would apply especially to elderly people who would not wish to stand outside in the cold of winter. Many of the people who most valued the companionship of the pub would be older people, but their needs were never even considered. Loneliness kills.

But the problem that we have now is the question: WHERE WILL IT STOP? Tobacco Control Zealots have been appointed to senior positions in every hospital, every health care authority, every local authority. This infiltration has been going on for a decade or more. We can see how the infiltration could have been organised. First, Godber appoints only Zealots to fill senior positions in the Health Dept, followed by Donaldson with the same plan. These appointees then appoint only zealots into lower positions, and so on down the line. In the end, only zealots hold positions in the Health Dept, and then on into every facet of Health. Of course, not everyone needs to be a zealot – just enough to hold sway.

And so we come to the crux. Is there any option for MPs except to accept the instructions of the ‘experts’? How can they resist? Can the Minister of Health (Lansley) resist?  Does he want to resist? Milton (one of his deputies) is hand in glove with ASH. How was it that she an arch-zealot got appointed? Who swung the position her way? And if Ministers cannot resist, how can ordinary MPs? They are far too busy to actually read the legislation in front of them, but in any case, there is no point – they are obliged to vote as they are told by the whips, apart from the odd one who dares to risk being de-selected. A few anti-ban MPs can be tolerated provided that a majority is in place anyway. In any case, it is useful to have a few dissenting voices since it gives an impression of a ‘full and frank’ debate.

MPs failed to understand what they were doing when they first assented to coercion. Now they are set on a path which is out of their control. They started along the path of persecution and denormalisation of people who enjoy tobacco and their stigmatization. Stigmatization is the purpose of the Display Ban – it has nothing to do with children. ‘Plain’ (in reality, ‘standardised’) packaging is clearly pointless.

I fully expect the Government to introduce a Bill. Having permitted the infiltration of the Health Dept by anti-tobacco, they have no way back. MPs are powerless.

But there are limits. You can only stretch a piece of elastic so far, and every attempt to stretch it further meets greater resistance. The greatest resistance will begin when there are no publicans to punish severely, no bingo hall owners to accuse, no corner shops to close down. The resistance will become powerful when only individuals can be punished. A law to ‘ban smoking in cars with children present’ (or, better still, a ban on smoking in cars at all) will hit that limit. We are already aware that no one takes any notice of ‘public place’ definition of the cabin of a commercial vehicle. That part of the law is already defunct. Every time an incident of a person being fined for eating a piece of chocolate or taking a drink of water while driving brings the law into further disrepute. We observe that few people take any notice of the law against using mobiles in cars. When did any smoker take any notice of the fact that the Highway Code describes smoking as ‘a distraction’. Is looking in the rear-view mirror a distraction from keeping your eyes on the road ahead?

At some point, Parliament must rebel, although it is difficult to see how, as I have described. And yet it might come sooner than we think. Health Sec Lansley is under immense pressure. Wo knows what conversations are going on behind the scenes? A little cabinet re-shuffle could see the end of Lansley and Milton, and the introduction of a sceptical Minister and sceptical Junior Ministers. Even Cameron must be aware that the public have stopped worrying about flu. Hardly anyone has taken up the option of flu jabs this winter because the pandemics fail to occur.

In the case that I was talking about the other day (about the failure of ASH ET AL in court), I came across a statement which surprised me. It seems that any one individual is unlikely to experience true flu more than once in their lifetimes. So why do we have massive Government campaigns to get people to have flu jabs? Like the hidden reason for the seat belt law (reduction of NHS costs), the hidden reason for the flu jabs propaganda is TO KEEP PEOPLE WORKING.

Members of Parliament must WAKE UP and realise that it is THEIR DUTY to protect the people from zealots of all kinds. Is that possible? Have they NO OPTION but to comply?

I try to think of people who might be visiting here for the first time, and wonder what it is all about. All I can do is point them to the sidebar where I am keeping a diary of the process of seeding, growing, curing and finishing tobacco. For a reasonably comprehensive explanation of the whole process, people should read last year’s investigations. Remember, though, that the system is only suitable for cigarette tobacco – pipe and cigar smokers need different plants, and I cannot speak for the best methods in those cases. All I can say is that the system I describe work fine for me.

Anyway, for the last time this year, I’ll show the two pics of the bowl again:

 There’s the bowl with 20 fibre pots. The gaps between the pots are filled with sand. The idea is to stabilise the pots in their positions and to provide a reservoir of water. The pots are porous and will leak water without something to retain it.

The bowl is covered with a hot, wet hand towel which I re-wet once or twice a day. The whole thing is sitting on a shelf in the kitchen which is over a radiator. It is important to keep them warm until they have germinated. After that, it doesn’t matter – ordinary room temperature is sufficient.  After five or six days, the seeds will germinate.

All my posts about progress this year to date are in the diary. I decided that this would be the best way to provide easy access for anyone interested.

It is a little odd that Dave has mentioned this case now because the case concluded in 2005. I would guess that Dave has mentioned it because, a) the Judge concluded that there was no reasonable proof that the cause of lung cancer was smoking in that particular case, or, indeed, in general,  and, b), that the McTears were coached by ASH ET AL, and that the evidence of the McTears was affected by the coaching.

Dave provides a link to the Judge’s ‘Opinion’:

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2005CSOH69.html

It is very long and ‘messy’, and I have not read all of it at the moment. Frankly, unless you are interested in the detail of court cases, which I am, you would probably find it very boring. Suffice to say, at this moment, that the McTears were put up to taking on this court case by ASH ET AL. ASH ET AL must have thought that they were onto a sure-fire winner with this case – it had lots of ‘tear-jerking’ aspects (Mr McTear had been on TV when he was dying from lung cancer, saying that he wanted to warn youngsters about smoking), and he had suffered a lot. But it turned out that Mr McTear was not the clean-living ‘innocent’ dupe of the Tobacco Companies at all. He was a rogue and a vagabond, a drunk and a criminal, a thief and a liar.

As I said, I have not read all the Judgement, but here is a quote therefrom:

“Mrs McTear said that she saw a newspaper article in which it was stated that ASH were looking for test cases in which lung cancer victims were prepared to sue tobacco companies for their suffering. She told her husband about this, he was quite keen about it and they got in touch with ASH. ASH put Mr McTear in touch with Mr Fyfe of Ross Harper. They met Alison Hillhouse, the Director of ASH (Scotland) at that time, on a number of occasions, at ASH headquarters in Edinburgh. There were times when Mr McTear appeared on the radio and on television and was interviewed in the newspapers. This was usually arranged by Mr Fyfe or by ASH. When he was interviewed, Mr Fyfe and Ms Hillhouse would be there. She always went with him. It was not until later that he was quite poorly. She did not remember the sort of things that Ms Hillhouse said to her husband. She remembered that he was told that the nicotine in cigarette smoke was addictive, more addictive than heroin. She remembered Ms Hillhouse telling them about tobacco manufacturers advertising so that they would attract young people to smoke, and that they denied that there was any health risk to smoking, when all the time they knew that it was dangerous to smoke, and that smoking was addictive. Mr McTear had a “wall of death” at home, with newspaper cuttings about cigarettes, lung cancer and death. She was not aware that her husband was campaigning for ASH.

[4.166] When Mr McTear was diagnosed with lung cancer, he was given only a few months to live and was determined to do what he could to prolong his life. He gave up smoking at once and was not drinking at that time. Mrs McTear agreed that ASH must have known that Mr McTear would die and that she would continue with the present action. She did not, however, feel like a champion of the anti-smoking cause. She did remember saying that she felt that if one person stopped smoking because of the publicity about the case, then her husband’s death was not in vain. “This became his purpose, I hope that it will become his greatest achievement.” She remembered her husband appearing on television to launch a campaign to get the Government to act against tobacco and that ASH were campaigning with Mr Fyfe’s firm to get lots of victims to raise actions. She remembered Ms Hillhouse saying that this action would be the end of the multinational tobacco industry as they knew it. She remembered Mr McTear telling a newspaper that when he started smoking thirty years earlier, John Player had failed to warn him about the dangers. She remembered him saying on radio that he was bringing this action just to get tobacco done away with, “in the hope that the young people do not have to go through the same course that I went through due to tobacco.” After her husband died she started doing interviews, arranged by ASH and Mr Fyfe. In one interview, in late 2001 or early 2002, she said that she now knew that the tobacco companies were fully aware of the risks “but did nothing to warn us”. During 2003 it was reported that she was looking for funding to support her in paying the court dues. As far as she knew, there had been no response. She remembered that her husband’s position, as stated in an interview in July 1992, was that when he started smoking, that was the thing. He stated:

“If you were a man about town or something, you smoked the best cigarettes [...] and you really did not think about these warnings, because, I mean, you had been smoking for that long and it just never did you any harm.”

[4.167] In re-examination, Mrs McTear said that her husband felt quite strongly about the matter and wanted to proceed with an action even though he was ill. She decided to continue with it after his death for the same reason that he started: to let young people know of the dangers of smoking so that hopefully they would not smoke. She was not very happy about the length of time the action had been in court, because it was very difficult for her to remember back. She applied unsuccessfully for legal aid and her legal team agreed to proceed on a “no win, no fee” basis. ASH provided her with information but there was no question of their paying for her case. At the end she was quite proud of her husband for doing this and thought that this might be the achievement of his life.”

In his post about this matter, Dave mentions that there was much talk about the P53 gene and such. I have not got to that yet. Tomorrow, I may get time to read further. I do not expect it to be easy reading.

For years, I have been buying my fags abroad. I remember a time, not all that long ago, maybe twenty years, when I regarded bringing home 200 fags from a holiday abroad  as a sort of bonus. (The question as to why we in this country pay maybe four times more than people in other countries never really entered my mind. Perhaps we were all thoroughly indoctrinated to regard being an Englishman as being privileged) But for the last several years, herself and I have been buying all our fags from Spain. As best I can remember, I used to pay around a third of the UK price. Now, the price is more nearly a half, or perhaps a little more than a half. As I recall, the last price that I paid in was about €38 for 200, but they may have gone up – I cannot remember. I bought fags from Prague last March at about £2.50 per 20, and I have recently bought them for €4 for 19 in Belgium.  

Let us take a simple sort of average of the cost of 20 fags in the EU - say, £3.50. Let us say, for simplicity, that they cost £7 in the UK. That means that if I buy 30 cartons x 200 at home, it would cost me £2100, whereas the same purchase in Spain/Prague/Belgium would cost me £1050, thus saving me £1050.

Wonderful! And it is.

But now let us consider the home production costs. I paid £6 for 3,000 seeds. I didn’t need to buy them because I still had some from last year, but I thought that I would try only one variety this year, which is Virginia Gold. I bought 96 fibre pots for about £6. I also bought some new compost which I have not yet opened. I may not actually need to this year. So the costs to date are pretty negligible.

Assuming that I get a good crop, how will that work out financially?

My practice last year was to mix my own with ‘Coronas’ tobacco. Coronas is the name of the Spanish fags which I buy in Spain. They are perfectly good fags made by Japan International. They are cheaper than, say, Benson and Hedges because B & H are over-priced in Spain because brits are a bit stupid and fearful, and scared of trying other brands.

Commercial fags tend to be weak in taste. They are made with specific tobaccos which are ‘light’. That is because most people like them that way. Homegrown stuff tends to be stronger. I had the idea of mixing my own with commercial stuff and thus ‘weakening’ the taste. I cut a ‘coronas’ in two and used the tobacco from a half coronas mixed with my own stuff and made one kingsized fag. It worked well. I was quite happy with the taste.

Only yesterday, I thought about the economics of growing my own. If the cost of one cigarette in the UK is 30p (£6 per 20), and if I grow enough of my own to make one cigarette, then that is 30p in my pocket and not in the manufacturer’s pocket, and the retailer’s pocket and the government’s  pocket. The 30p has stayed in my pocket. If I grow enough to make 1,000 fags, then £300 stays in my pocket. If I can make 3,000, then £900 stays in my pocket. Not only that, but I also save all the costs of travelling abroad, which itself cost some £500 in travel costs alone. Thus, to some extent, I not only do not contribute the Government which is persecuting me, I also do not contribute to foreign Governments which also wish to persecute me.  

Thus, there is more to growing you own than meets the eye initially. You may not have much room to grow plants, but that does not matter. Every fag that you produce from your own plants is money in your pocket and a denial of money in the Government’s pocket. It is a classic double whammy.

(Remember that the numbers are per 10,000 population. The population is a little over a million)

Year…………….admissions per 10,000 pop.

2003………………….35.2.

2004………………….31.5.

2005…………………30.6……….Ban implemented 5th March 2005.

2006………………….28.1.

2007………………….25.2.

2008………………….25.4………………..?…..An increase!

2009………………….23.1.

The calculation is extremely weird. It is so weird that it is hard to explain it clearly, even though it is simple.

The smoking ban was introduced there on 5th March 2005, right? Now you would think that any reduction in heart attacks resulting from the ban would start at that date, right? How can such a reduction start earlier than the date on which the ban was introduced? Oddly enough, as regards the 28% figure, the researchers have decided that the decline in heart attacks started in 2003! – two years before the introduction of the ban! Also, again oddly, they did not calculate through to the end of 2009. They stopped at the end of 2007.

Here are the calculations:

Number of admissions through 2003……………..35.2.

Number of admissions through 2007……………..25.2.

——————————————————————

Difference………………………………………………….10.0.

We now express 10 as a percentage of 35.2. That is, 10 divided by 35.2 mutiplied by 100……… 10/35.2 x100. That calculation produces the figure 28.40909….. recurring. That is how they produced the 28.4%.

So, somehow or other, the smoking ban which was introduced 5th March 2005 started to influence heart attacks in 2003 –  two years before it was introduced! 

Cleverly, the report itself did not mention any such decline (the 28%). In fact, it did not mention any percentage figure for the decline at all. It only mentioned percentage declines in the costs of treating heart attack patients.  The 28% figure appeared only in the press release. Thus, the authors of the study are absolved of all blame.

That, my friends, indicates the sort of chicanery that we are faced with.

http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/

Dr Siegal used to be a rabid anti-tobacco zealot, but he seems to have mellowed somewhat. Although he is still seriously anti-smoking, he is not very keen on the hysteria about the effects of SHS (Second Hand Smoke) science-wise. He seems to have voiced concerns among fellow zealots in Tobacco Control a couple of years ago, and was promptly denounced and ostracised. Since then, he has been taking the propaganda apart.

Today, he talked about an announcement of a new heart miracle – in Rhode Island, USA. Researchers examined hospital records for heart attack admissions before the smoking ban there and then afterwards. Surprise, surprise, the researchers found a drastic reduction – 28%.

Dr Siegal takes their claims apart. It seems that, as in the UK, heart attack admissions were already on a downward trend in Rhode Island. Unfortunately, according to Siegal, there is no information about trends for earlier years than immediately prior to the ban, which makes it difficult to  know what the downward trend was in, say, the five years before the ban. The only info about the trend is for the year before the ban came into effect. Siegal points out that, in the year before the ban, the fall was 10%, but, after the ban, was an average of 5% (per annum). Anyway, I am going to copy some figures into a table. The figures are taken from the actual report itself.

Year…………….admission per 10,000 pop.

2003………………….35.2.

2004………………….31.5.

2005…………………30.6……….Ban implemented 5th March 2005.

2006………………….28.1.

2007………………….25.2.

2008………………….25.4………………..?…..An increase!

2009………………….23.1.

I don’t know why it is, but these researchers seem to be totally unable to be clear about dates and time periods. The researchers do not say what their base is when they work out their percentages. The figures above seem to suggest that the number of admission for the period throughout the whole of 2004 was 31.5 per 10,000 population (which is where the decimals come from, along with the wretched, unnecessary ’age adjustment’ rubbish).  The implication is also that the figure for 2005 is that for the whole of 2005. If that is the case, what allowance is made for the actual date of the start of the ban in 2005 – the 5th March?

But, reading the report (which very short), I get the impression that what they have done is this:

1. Take the decrease between 2003 and 2004: 35.2 – 31.5 = 3.7 .

——————————————————————————

2. Take the decrease between 2005 and 2006: 30.6 – 28.1 = 2.5.

3. …………………….”…………….2006 and 2007: 28.1 – 25.2 = 2.9.

4. ……………………”……………..2007 and 2008: 25.2 – 25.4 = -0.2.

5. ……………………”……………..2008 and 2009: 25.4 – 23.1 = 2.3.

Total decrease since 2005:…………………………………………..7.5 (per 10,000). The decrease of 7.5  as a percentage of the starting figure in 2006 of 30.6 works out at 24.5%. Of course, one could just have taken the final figure of 23.1 without doing the year by year thing, but it amuses me to take the long route!

Having done all that, it beats me how the press release arrived at 28% – I can see no figures which equate to that – but, never mind, 24.5% will do.

Can we see the Tobacco Control fraud in this study? The fraud is in the methodology. First, to have any chance of accuracy, you have to some sort of exact base. A correct study would have identified an admissions figure for the year ending 5th March 2005. It would then have backtracked to the 5th March 2004 and established a correct figure for the year ending 5th March 2004. Similarly with the year ending 5th March 2003. Projecting forward would need to be established likewise. If it was not possible to be so exact, then perhaps a month end would have been accurate enough, but certainly not a vague base figure which is somewhere around something or other in 2005. The reality is that there is no base figure at all with which to establish percentages. The study is useless – totally useless – and, to make it even more useless, it does not establish any previous trend, as we have already discovered.

Anyone interested should see the study. It is very short – one page, essentially. Here is the URL:

http://www.rimed.org/medhealthri/2012-01/2012-01-23.pdf

But there is something odd about the study. It uses the incidence of appendicitis as ‘a control’. The reasoning of the study is that appendicitis is not considered to be affected by smoking. Erm….is there any logic in that idea? If appendicitis is not affected by smoking, how can it be considered to be any sort of control? The incidence of appendicitis will be whatever it will be. It is irrelevant.

But another thing comes out of this study (useless though it may be) and that is that, throughout the whole period of the study, asthma admissions did not decrease. In fact, they increased. They went from 11.3 per 10,000 to 13.5 per 10,000. So, according to this study, the decrease in smoking as a result of the ban caused an increase in asthma!

Here is the weirdest thing.

I quote from the actual study:

“As with any study there are limitations to the data. Rhode Island’s Hospital Discharge Data do not include biomarkers for exposure to secondhand smoke or whether patients admitted to the hospital are smokers.”

And yet the ‘Discussion’ section of the report states:

“At least three policy and practice implications are relevant given the demonstrated effectiveness of statewide smoking bans on cardiovascular disease outcomes. First, physicians should advise all patients with cardiovascular disease, and especially those with coronary heart disease, to avoid indoor areas that permit smoking. Second, with hookah bars becoming more prevalent in Rhode Island, physicians should warn patients and educate decision makers of the cardiovascular health dangers caused by active smoking and second-hand smoke in these indoor establishments.

 Finally, managers and residents of both private and public multi unit housing should join the growing movement in Rhode Island to pass comprehensive smoke-free housing policies, as achieved by the Providence Housing Authority in the spring of 2011.The results of our study add to the growing number of other studies showing concrete cardiovascular health benefits and potential health care cost savings gained by implementing a statewide ban on indoor smoking. Our findings may prompt other states to join the growing list of 35 U.S. states benefiting from smoke-free laws.”

It is hard to understand how such shit can be published. It really is. But, that apart, we must ask about the expertise involved in this study. Here is a list of the ‘researchers’:

Cynthia Roberts, PhD, is the Program Evaluator for the Rhode Island Tobacco Control Program, Division of Community, Family Health, and Equity at the Rhode Island Department of Health.

Paul Jordan Davis is a Master of Public Health student is the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Program in Public Health.

Kathleen Taylor is a Principal Human Services Policy and Systems Specialist at the Center for Heath Data and Analysis.

Deborah N. Pearlman, PhD, is Research Faculty in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Program in Public Health.

So there we have it then – a student and a bunch of female Holy Zealots. No  wonder that the ‘study’ is obscenely nonsensical. But, no doubt, it will become one of the ‘hundreds of studies’ which show a connection between SHS and heart attacks.

Wow! Don’t you just love the US of A?

And now, six days later, 15th Feb, we have germination!

One seedling is prominent at the top. The others are the white dots in the middle.

Here’s another pot:

In another couple of days, they will be about 1cm tall with little leaves. Once the seedlings have reached that stage, I’ll start bowl three. So I now have a total of 39 pots on the go, with 20 more to go. Excellent! All going to plan – so far.

Yesterday, I thinned out bowl one. Each pot has two, three or four seedlings, depending upon spacing. I’ll leave them for a couple of weeks and then decide whether or not to thin them further.