Re: Why Do Researchers Tell Lies About Smoking and Health?

On May 26, 5:09 am, markw...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

[..]

This is the same disingenuous bull that tries to sloff off the self-
evident relation between the lung disease of those who inhaled the
dust of the falling World Trade Center towers as something other
than what even a monkey had enough brains to (correctly) know.

Nobody disputes that inhaling mineral dust, such as asbestos and
volcanic ash, damages health. Trying to compare that with tobacco
smoke is disingenous, if anything.

Science (i.e. epedemiological research) are for things you DON'T
already know or that are not already as plainly obvious as (for
instance) the fact that putting your hand on a hot skillet will
cause pain.

Not everything people think they "know" as self-evident is
necessarily true. I agree that some scientific studies seem
fairly superfluous, but sometimes they throw up surprises.

When people deny the obvious (that breathing smoke from a fire is
going to cause damage from smoke inhalation), you have to begin to
wonder who or what's really speaking? (i.e. is it the addiction
speaking or the enabler of an addict).

I don't dispute that smoking to excess can't be harmful - If you
chain-smoke sixty Capstan Full Strengths a day then, yes, you'll
end up with a hacking cough and sooner or later most likely more
serious problems. But the same is true of practically anything
taken to extremes - Someone in the UK died of water poisoning
the other month. After gulping down ten pints in a club over
the course of an evening, no doubt congratulating himself on
taking scientific advice to drink plenty of water and avoid
dehydration, the poor guy keeled over stone dead!

BTW, my salary's paid by the Medical Research Council (who,
I am assured, *are* interested in getting the science right).

The UK issued the official announcement linking lung cancer to
cigarette smoking 51 years ago -- well before the US.

There was no excuse even for this delay. Your body, alone, already
tells you clearly that this is not something to engage in: the first
time you smoke, you practically choke.

Ditto the first time you take a slug of spirits; but in moderation
these are actually healthy - In the UK, the Queen mother lived to
be 101 and it's well known she put whisky in her tea. (Maybe you'd
argue she'd have reached 110 if she hadn't touched the evil stuff!)

Those mechanisms were not built into for show. They're you're
body telling you to stop doing that.

Most people take a mouthful of water and splutter the first time
they try swimming. So I guess you'd claim that means it must be
harmful, and we should close down all pools and discourage or
ban swimming.

Also, most kids hate vegetables the first time they eat them.
So would you suggest we stop eating those noxious things and
stick to fruit and meat?

Anyway, one breath of fumes belching from a passing diesel bus
is probably far worse than passive smoking a dozen packs of
cigarettes, and the fumes are in a more dangerous particulate
form. So why haven't diesel engines been banned? The answer
is because modern-day puritans get more of a kick campaigning
against some moreorless harmless pursuit which people enjoy!

Incidently, that's another argument for ignoring anti-smoking
campaigners, or indeed almost any busibody campaigners come to
that, because campaigning is what they do, what gives purpose
to their meaningless little lives. So even if they succeeded
beyond their wildest dreams and had smoking banned entirely,
they would immediately start on some other "health and safety"
issue, perhaps some harmless hobby of yours..


Cheers

John R Ramsden

.

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