Health Secretary

It'sabout time Hewitt or Blair did something right. I suggest Patty resigns and Tone accepts her resignation. Alternately Tone could just sack her.

She has made so many gaffs now, surely even in the new era of bomb-proof ministerial positions enough is enough.

Her arrogant voice is bad enough but everything she says and everything she does is wrong.

She has orchestrated the first and massive medical staffing crisis for August. She has overseen a farcical online job application system (MTAS) which has broken data protection laws. She has admitted it's a mess and apologised for some of her balls ups.

She has overseen chaos in the health service.

She has criticised our noble lady forces iranian hostage for smoking in her time of most need.

She is responsible for misinformation on a scale never surpassed before relating to the science of passive smoking.

She has spent millions of health service money on pathetic media campaigns on smoking and passive smoking. She has to go.

Blad's most excellent offering shows her current position. Someone pull the chain.

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The Loonies Hit Holland

Holland, a country famous for its liberal and tolerant attitudes, looks like it too will be succumbing to the smoking ban bandwagon. However, this will not affect the famous coffee shops where customers may legally smoke cannabis. Smoke dope good, smoke tobacco bad, that's the message and ignored is the fact that cannabis smoke is no healthier than tobacco smoke except in the mythical minds of the hip.
Still, I'm tolerant about these things and therefore don't mind that punters in Amsterdam will still be able to enjoy a joint in comfort. However, in order that customers in coffee shops will be able to smoke cannabis without rolling it with tobacco, alternatives have been suggested including old socks.

See:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/dutch-coffee-shops-say-cannabis-smoke-here-to-stay/2007/04/23/1177180529828.html

This prospect is quite unique, but the thought of our antismoking brethren rushing home to wash the smell of foot odour out of their hair and clothes is indeed a most welcome one...Pass the Mycil someone!

Blad Tolstoy

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Funding Drives Alarmism

Visit this blog site to read Prof Richard Lindzen's thoughts on alarmism as a method of attracting research funding. Blog link...

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Nutty Luke Asks The Leprechauns For Help.

Thanks to the Irish press, the LVA and even the Irish department of tobacco control, we know that the Irish smoking ban is not a success at all but a fiasco. So let's remind ourselves of what's really happened and the damage as a result of the ban:

Over 1,000 pubs closed and the process is accelerating (even The Times picked up on that one);
25,000 jobs lost;
More smokers than there would have been without a ban and they can't keep track;
More young people smoking;
Gallaghers have announced profits up for two years running;
R.J. Carroll have also announced profits up;
A booming black market; and
Smokeasies, lock-ins and secret back rooms for smokers - likewise lavish outside areas to enable pubs to survive.

For Dr Luke Clancy and ASH Ireland this has posed a conundrum for one hand they want to say their ban is a success but on the other hand they know it isn't so old Luke has been demanding a car smoking ban and yet further increases on the price of cigarettes. We also know that Luke, also known as Nutty Luke, has become so desperate that he's even asked the Little People for help...Only trouble is, he's already had three wishes and someone should have told him that a fourth will be unlucky because that's the way the Leprechauns treat the greedy. Well there you go Lukey boy, don't say you weren't warned!

Blad Tolstoy

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Well Said Graham Norton!

In this Telegraph's Weekend supplement (21/4/07) TV presenter and comedian Graham Norton has been serving as agony aunt for the Wellbeing column. A reader wrote him the following letter:

Dear Graham,

My grandchildren object to my husband (86 and full of vim) smoking his pipe. Brainwashed by their parents, they say that it is a filthy habit and that my poor husband, whose only vice is the occasional puff in his library, is 'killing' himself. The other day, when we were on Marlborough High Street, my five year old grandson tugged at my sleeve, pointed at a complete stranger and said: "Granny, please tell that man to stop smoking." What makes the young these days so self-righteous and intolerant? In my day we believed that what didn't hurt us was none of our business.

Patricia L, Wiltshire

Graham's reply was blunt and succinct and here was what he said:

Dear Patricia,

There is no one quite as priggish and full of self-certainty as a child. I suspect it has always been thus, but what has changed are the attitudes of grandmothers. Don't try to reason with the Nazis in nappies, just tell them to shut up and give them bags of snacks with E-numbers in them to keep their parents awake for several days. Have a bit of backbone. Your husband didn't live to the ripe old age of 86, smoking his pipe, only to spend his twilight years being hectored by objectionable children. Your argument is really with your offspring. They should be instilling in their children respect for their elders. Failure to do this is a far greater danger to society than passive smoking.

Next time your grandson mouths off about someone in the street, remind him that the person he is talking about doesn't still wet the bed, is allowed to stay up late enough to watch South Park and is big enough to go on all the rides at Alton Towers. Remember, there is no law stating that you have to like your grandchildren. It is possible that they are simply not very nice little people.

WELL SAID GRAHAM AND SO SAY ALL OF US!

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Ovarian Cancer & HRT

Ladies on HRT are 20% more likely to get ovarian cancer. That's the widespread headline. Let's just look at the numbers.

Group 1 The Control Group Not taking HRT
Group 2 The HRT Group Taking HRT

Group 1 22 cases of ovarian cancer per 10,000 women
Group 2 26 cases of ovarian cancer per 10,000 women

Group 1 0.22% incidence of ovarian cancer
Group 2 0.26% incidence of ovarian cancer

Abolute increase of 4 cases per 10,000 women
18% Increased risk in HRT group of developing ovarian cancer
Relative risk ratio 1.18

Epidemiology is not able to prove such a small difference but this study is still published and is sensationalised on every media possible and occupies plenty of prime time TV.

Imagine if the numbers were inaccurate by one in each group.
23 cases in Group 1
25 cases in Group 2

Of course, conveniently forget the fact that thousands of women's lives are made so much better by taking HRT.

Whatever! Bovvered, face bovvered!

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Free Cigarettes

Free cigarettes when you visit this shop and cheap cigarettes too!

Got ya! Excuse my little experiment, but I thought I'd see what effect an attractive suggestion like this might have on my site visitor figures. I apologise for the disappointment but hope you might take the time to have a browse whilst you are here. I could start a links page to all the cigarette selling websites I can find. Let me know if you think that's a good idea.

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Calling Mental Smokers

We need to locate a family who have a relative in long care Mental Health Care who smokes. HMG have gone back on their pledge to exempt the long term mental patients. They have allowed an exemption until July 1st 2008. If you have a medical or psychiatric friend who is prepared to comment on the effects such a ban will have please can we know. Time is now pressing.

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Stanton Glantz

"Another shill gets rich from tobacco control. Oh he looks so healthy too!"

You can view an excellent bio of The Glantz here.

Blad's back!

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Smoking, Depression & The Heart

I was intrigued when I read in The Sun that "depression makes people 5 times more likely to have a heart attack". It was reportedly said by a Dr Carmine Pariantes of the Medical Research Council. I thought I'd look into it and just a simple google search revealed that there was a tremendous amount of so-called evidence supporting this statement.

Now I may be simplifying things a bit, but thats me, pretty simple! But I know that it is a psychiatric conundrum that more patients with mental illness and particularly depression smoke than the random population. It is however not known whether the smoking or the depression are the egg or the chicken. It probably is not as simple a relationship as egg laying and chicken sex anyhow!

What is very simple though is the gentle hop, yeah not a jump at all, to the idea that this may be the biggest confounder in any epidemiological endeavour to identify links between smoking and disease. It doesn't take too clever a mind to see that depression with its 5 times link to heart disease could certainly slightly fuck up any study into "passive smoking" and heart disease that was trying to demonstrate a 1.25 times link.

I almost feel like I'm stating the obvious here.

It also makes you think a little about the 2-4 times link between actual smoking and heart disease. Does it not beg the question, did these epidemiologists allow for the 5 times link depression in their groups?

I'm not saying that I've stumbled on the biggest scientific revelation since Archimedes willy bobbed up and down in his bath, but surely this could be a big hole in any study. I notice that one of the authors in the depression and heart disease studies specifically attempted to exclude smoking as a confounder. This was very worthy indeed but how many of the smoking and passive smoking studies have allowed for the confounder of depression?

All I did was put "depression makes people FIVE TIMES more likely to have a heart attack" in Google's search bar. You too could make similar or perhaps more refined enquiries, whilst I take my antidepressants and have a fag or two.

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Absurd & Ridiculous

Breaking news from the Bureau of Statistics, Fantasy, Media and Corrupt Big Pharma. Top doctors have said that blonde women should be encouraged to undergo gender reassignment and permanent black hair colouring. A survey published in The Walt Disney Journal of Mickey Mouse Studies today has revealed that woman have at least 50 times more risk of developing breast cancer than men. The cost of woman to the health service has been phenomenal for decades said Patrick Hewless, The Minister for All That is Right for People's Health (95), and the tax on tobacco will no longer support this scandal.

The Independant Committee of Finiancially Interested Parties will report next week on the actions needed to correct this decline in the nation's health. It is thought that the forthcoming ban on women will be phased in with all women being offered free beards and being encouraged to have dicks strapped to their waists. Women only areas in pubs will be closed.

Non-smoking, lesbian, size 10 women, who do not eat burgers, are planning a protest claiming that they should at least be able to eat with their partners in Nottingham on the grounds that their tits are very small.

It has been suggested that being blonde increases the risk of being a women although the study quoted has not been found yet. It is proposed therefore to allow blonde women to colour their hair black as long as they ensure no-one sees the pubic hair.

Health campaigners ARSE have said women should be banned and have proposed mass extermination with environmental tobacco smoke as the only option.

Additionally the immediate ban on red meat will now be unnecessary as women will no longer be present to eat it.

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