TICAP, The Hague, March 15th 2010

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

Read this quite complicated article by John P. A. Ioannidis.
You could say its heavy going but at least we know someone's onto it.
Also I've found the PLOS - Public Library of Science - Top Site!

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Monday, August 29, 2005

Lung Cancer on the Increase

Despite reducing incidences of smoking and passive smoking lung cancer rates are increasing especially in non-smokers. This clearly doesn't rest easily with the anti-smokers views and suggests perhaps we understand little about the aetiology of this horrible disease. Lets forget the distraction of the anti-smokers and concentrate on elucidating the facts.

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Saturday, August 27, 2005

The Ten Biggest Lies about Smoke & Smoking

The Ten Biggest Lies about Smoke & Smoking
By Robert Hayes Halfpenny

Read this on SmokersClubInc Website

THE LIE: Cigarette smoke and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) or Second Hand Smoke (SHS) Causes cancer.

THE Truth: Simply stated there is no known cause for any type of cancer. With all the testing that has been done with every type of chemical, gas, inert matter, and substances that have been altered through exposure to heat or chemical reaction, nothing has been proven to cause cancer. NOTHING! In some instances specific substances, in massive quantities, have been administered to laboratory rats. In these cases many of the animals might have developed a cancer. These sorts of tests may be considered Junk Science in that they have no relationship to a real life scenario.
The World Health Organization ran one of the most exhaustive tests on SHS ever done. After years of meticulous record keeping of all the data, their ultimate findings showed no measurable relationship of SHS to any form of cancer or other illness. The only measurable fact they did discover was that of all adult children who came from homes where both parents smoked had had a 22% better chance of NOT contracting lung cancer than did adult children who came from homes where both parents did not smoke. The W.H. O attempted to hid these facts from the public until several astute reporters forced them to make their facts public.

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Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Smoke Free South Yorkshire

A heavily quoted MORI opinion poll commissioned by the above group of hysterics.
They telephoned 1000 people standardised for various things except whether they had a telephone! They asked them some questions and published the results on the MORI website.
The quote you hear is that 84% supported a ban on smoking in enclosed public places. This question wasn't actually asked. These are some of the actual results amongst others...

84% agreed all employees should have the right to work in a smoke free environment.
Who wouldn't agree with that!

73% would support a law to make all enclosed workplaces, including public places, smoke free.
Smoke free doesn't mean no smoking, it could mean air conditioning.

67% would prefer Pubs and Bars not to be completely smoke free!!!
That's a contradiction isn't it..rather a big flaw in an opinion poll.
Perhaps the polled didn't realise the interpretation of smoke free was a ban.

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Saturday, August 20, 2005

Risk Analysis 2001

This is an abstract from an article by Robert Nilsson, published in the journal "Risk Analysis", that scoffs at the "evidence" for "Passive Smoking".

Volume 21: Issue 4
Environmental Tobacco Smoke Revisited: The Reliability of the Data Used for Risk Assessment
Robert Nilsson

Abstract
Several epidemiological studies have found a weak, but consistent association between lung cancer in nonsmokers and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). In addition, a purported link between such exposure and coronary heart disease (CHD) has been of major concern. Although it is biologically plausible that ETS has a contributory role in the induction of lung cancer in nonsmoking individuals, dose-response extrapolation—supported by the more solid database for active smokers—gives an additional risk for lung cancer risk that is more than one order of magnitude lower than that indicated by major positive epidemiological studies. The discrepancy between available epidemiological data and dosimetric estimates seems, to a major part, to reflect certain systematic biases in the former that are difficult to control by statistical analysis when dealing with risks of such low magnitudes. These include, most importantly, misclassification of smoking status, followed by inappropriate selection of controls, as well as certain confounding factors mainly related to lifestyle, and possibly also hereditary disposition. A significant part of an association between lung cancer and exposure to ETS would disappear, if, on the average, 1 patient out of 20 nonsmoking cases had failed to tell the interviewer that he had, in fact, recently stopped smoking. In the large International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) multicenter study even lower misclassification rates would abolish the weak, statistically nonsignificant associations that were found. In the former study an apparent significant protective effect from exposure to ETS in childhood with respect to lung cancer later in life was reported, a most surprising finding. The fact that the mutation spectrum of the p53 tumor suppressor gene in lung tumors of ETS-exposed nonsmokers generally differs from that found in tumors of active smokers lends additional support to the notion that the majority of tumors found in ETS-exposed nonsmokers have nothing to do with tobacco smoke. The one-sided preoccupation with ETS as a causative factor of lung cancer in nonsmokers may seriously hinder the elucidation of the multifactorial etiology of these tumors. Due to the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease in the population, even a modest causal association with ETS would, if valid, constitute a serious public health problem. By pooling data from 20 published studies on ETS and heart disease, some of which reported higher risks than is known to be caused by active smoking, a statistically significant association with spousal smoking is obtained. However, in most of these studies, many of the most common confounding risk factors were ignored and there appears to be insufficient evidence to support an association between exposure to ETS and CHD. Further, it seems highly improbable that exposure to a concentration of tobacco smoke at a level that is generally much less than 1% of that inhaled by a smoker could result in an excess risk for CHD that—as has been claimed—is some 30% to 50% of that found in active smokers. There are certainly valid reasons to limit exposure to ETS as well as to other air pollutants in places such as offices and homes in order to improve indoor air quality. This goal can be achieved, however, without the introduction of an extremist legislation based on a negligible risk of lung cancer as well as an unsupported and highly hypothetical risk for CHD.

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Friday, August 19, 2005

Maude & Mabel


Two old ladies are outside their nursing home, having a drink and a smoke, when it starts to rain. One of the old ladies pulls out a condom, cuts off the end, puts it over her cigarette, and continues smoking.

Maude: What in the hell is that?
Mable: A condom. This way my cigarette doesn't get wet.
Maude: Where did you get it?
Mable: You can get them at any drugstore.

The next day, Maude hobbles herself into the local drugstore and announces to the pharmacist that she wants a box of condoms. The pharmacist, obviously embarrassed, looks at her kind of strangely (she is after all, over 80 years of age), but very delicately asks what brand of condom she prefers.

Maude: "Doesn't matter Sonny, as long as it fits on a Camel."

The pharmacist fainted.

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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Dr Ken Denson

I had the pleasure of swapping emails with this charming scientific genius. He has published widely on the "confounders" found in ETS epidemiology. Here are just a few of the wise words he sent to me. He invented the INR and discovered Factor X! I am privileged to have heard from him. RESPECT!!

"Smokers across the board have a higher intake of total and saturated fat, lower HDL cholesterols, a lower intake of poly and mono unsaturated fat, fruit, vegetables, folate and fibre, and take less exercise (p<0.00001)..."

"In the British doctors study, women doctors who smoked less than 14 cigarettes per day had no increased risk for heart disease or lung cancer, and in the cornerstone Framingham study people who smoked less than 10 cigarettes per day had no increased risk for heart disease..."

"Then there are the geographical studies where some 300 million people in Japan and Southern Mediterranean countries have a lower incidence of heart disease, lung cancer and COPD and yet the highest incidence of smoking in the developed world..."

(after a long intellectual anecdote)"I relate this anecdote because it required some thought, unlike the efforts of the academic pygmies who jump on the anti-smoking bandwagon..."

"Smokers have the most atrocious lifestyles, but otherwise healthy smokers in my opinion live longer than non-smokers. What a terrible mistake the medical establishment has made."

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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Balanced View On Passive Smoking

How about this for a proper scientific view on Passive Smoking. It really is refreshing. You don't have to agree with everything Robert Davies says but that applies to what the anti-smokers sprout also. This is also an opportunity to browse the United Pro-Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter in case you havn't heard about them! Happy browsing.

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Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Disaster Emergencies Committee

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