Passive aggressive
Salaried troll Andrew Alexander dangles his maggot off the riverbank in the Mail today with a piece entitled "The truth about tobacco? It's lost in a smokescreen". Pop over there and have a read if you like, but it boils down to: "I like smoking. People say it's bad for you but boo, wurrrrrgh, nur-nur-nur-nur-nur." Well maybe not quite, but:
An outright lie is also included in the anti-smoking campaign.
Tobacco manufacturers have to warn purchasers that, among other things, 'smoking kills'.
If one said that prussic acid kills, it would be true. A more honest statement would be that tobacco can kill. Only the illiterate or mentally idle will fail to see the difference.
I wouldn't criticise the illiterate and mentally idle if you're writing for the Mail, Andrew, as that's kind of alienating your core readership; but still, it's a fairly flimsy bit of hair-splitting. You could say: "Jumping off a cliff might kill you. Only the illiterate or mentally idle would think it definitely does." Which would be literally true, but realistically ridiculous.
Alexander again:
Second-hand smoke is claimed to cause many deaths and is the basis for tyrannical curbs on offices and pubs.
This figure is arrived at by guesswork, inspired by hysteria, and masquerades as scientific 'proof' - a process which characterises our age.
I wonder which sort of publication might run articles about the dangers of passive smoking?
Naturally I'm not saying all of those articles are entirely correct, given where they're appearing and the subject they're talking about. And of course there's nothing wrong with Alexander calling his own publication 'hysterical' and deciding not to read what it's had to say about the subject before writing his ill-informed bollocks. Nothing at all. Indeed, I would encourage a similar approach. Let's hope we see a Mail columnist talk about their immigration stories as 'guesswork' and 'hysteria' which is 'masquerading as proof'; that certainly would be refreshing. Though I wouldn't hold your breath.
Alexander also says:
Sensibly, I returned to the habit. Pipe-smoking is a very ruminative process. It creates the right spaces and pauses for a writer.
Pity you didn't do any actual research instead of lighting your pipe and thinking about what complete cobblers to write about this week, Andrew; your article might have been better. Searching out facts is also quite a ruminative process, you might discover.
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December 9th, 2009 - 16:24
Great article! Like your style.
December 9th, 2009 - 18:44
Jumping of a cliff is extremely unlikely to kill you. Landing at the bottom probably will, though…
December 9th, 2009 - 23:21
Heh, such ignorance!
"This figure is arrived at by guesswork, inspired by hysteria, and masquerades as scientific 'proof' – a process which characterises our age."
TRUE! The '92 EPA report which started this all has been discredited and a look at their methodology highlights that it has no validity – a 90% CI for a start!
Largest ever study on passive smoke found no risk (Enstrom and Kabat). WHO's study on passive smoke found no risk, and a 22% decreased risk of lung cancer for children with smoking parents.
December 10th, 2009 - 10:13
The sentence "Smoking kills" is ambiguous. It means both "Smoking will kill" and "Smoking can kill". So, yeah, the Mail guy is being disingenuous, but he isn't denying that smoking can kill people.
December 11th, 2009 - 14:25
@Richard
False.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/07/blowing_smoke_over_secondhand_smoke.php
You may disagree on policy, but scientists and doctors are not in the habit of just making things up.
December 12th, 2009 - 21:21
@Armchair dissident.
So what bit was false? And, uh, yes, they DO make things up. Seen the latest on welsh heart attacks? Official figures show an increase, but a paper reports a decrease – based on a study not yet conducted.
Science by press release is not science.
December 14th, 2009 - 16:20
@richard
Sorry, I see my link got mangled in the posting process. Copy and paste:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/07/
blowing_smoke_over_secondhand_smoke.php
(If that's mangled again, do a Google search for "Respectful insolence blowing smoke over second hand smoke).
As for the Welsh study you mention, I've not heard of either the paper article you mention, nor the study (which you don't divulge), so I'm not in a position to comment. And yes, I am well aware that press-releases are not science, just as I am only too painfully aware that the media does an awful job of reporting science: indeed I would argue that the reason people keep buying in to the "second-hand smoke is not harmful" is largely due to the press mangling the actual science.
December 16th, 2009 - 21:46
The 2006 SG Report was political advocacy. Indeed, Carmona even made the bold statement that even 30 second exposure to SHS can cause heart attacks. Simply not true, and without foundation.
The article you cite is interesting but still wrong, because it simply works from the premise that because these studies exist they are right. False. The author even notes the RR is less than 1.3 – which is not statistically significant. They also note that there is a dose-response regarding risk, and even Sir Richard Peto acknowledged that a non-smoker will inhale, through SHS, between 0.1 and 1% of a cigarette. In a year of living with a smoker they will inhale up to 8 cigarettes. Simply not enough to cause a risk for lung cancer. Moreover, there are over 30 factors for lung cancer and over 300 for heart disease, yet the studies never take into account more than a handful. Plus, they rely on recall, asking people how much smoke they were exposed to 30 years ago. Note that this method of retrospective studies were rejected from the 1964 SG report for being too unreliable; it's worrying that what was unscientific 50 years ago is now accepted.
The Enstrom & Kabat study mentioned has false claims in the article. The study was funded intitially by TRDRP and ACS, but when the initial results came in and showed no risk they pulled funding. Only then did they accept money from an organisation funded with tobacco money. Pay careful attention to the fact that the original funding bodies revoked funding when the results showed no risk.
And even if we ignore that one, there's still the WHO's study, which had a huge population and was anxiously awaited as the definitive study. Results? The only statistically significant finding was that children exposed to SHS had 22% less chance of getting lung cancer as adults.
Today I attended a talk by Dr Basham of the Democracy Institute for his new science paper Are Smoking Bans Necessary? which I highly recommend, you may be able to obtain a copy online or, if not, i will be scanning it and putting it on my website once i have cleared it with the author.
December 16th, 2009 - 21:48
Sorry i also forgot to mention about the welsh heart attacks – the reason i didn't include a stufy reference is because there isn't one. That was my point – they have their conclusion and their press statements before the study is even conducted. That is bad enough, but what is worse is that the anti-tobacco advocacy is based on that method. And it begs the question 'if they have all this evidence, why resort to lies and trickery?'