Pseudoscience and anti-tobacco activism
Monday, December 10, 2007 
Few people are interested in the fine detail of the smoking issue. And that's part of the problem. The anti-smoking lobby is winning the propaganda war on tobacco because media-friendly slogans like "passive smoking kills" are difficult to refute in a short press release or a 20-second soundbite.
Three years ago Forest commissioned and later published a substantial 52-page document - Prejudice & Propaganda: The Truth About Passive Smoking - that countered, in painstaking detail, the argument that "passive smoking" is proven to be a serious threat to non-smokers. It included a comprehensive list of studies on the subject and no-one who read it could fail to appreciate that - at the very least - the anti-smoking industry has seriously over-estimated the impact of secondhand smoke.
We launched the report with a briefing at the House of Lords to which we invited MPs, peers and journalists. A PR company was recruited to help 'sell' the event. Three peers (personal friends of our late chairman Lord Harris) turned up, but not a single journalist or member of parliament.
Tens of thousands of people have downloaded the report from our website, but few (if any) were the people who mattered - MPs, civil servants and health and safety officials. We sent them printed copies but I doubt they gave it more than a cursory glance. Why would they? It doesn't support their preconceived prejudice that passive smoking kills thousands of non-smokers every year.
Anyway, my attention has been drawn to a website called Epidemiologic Perspectives and Innovations. It includes some fascinating commentaries and papers which I hope that anyone with a genuine interest in the smoking issue will take the time and trouble to read. Titles include:
- Warning: Anti-tobacco activism may be hazardous to epidemiologic science (Carl V Phillips)
- Is the tobacco control movement misrepresenting the acute cardiovascular health effects of secondhand smoke exposure? An analysis of the scientific evidence and commentary on the implications for tobacco control and public health practice (Michael Siegel)
- Defending legitimate epidemiologic research: combating Lysenko pseudoscience (James E Enstrom)
The above were published in October and are currently the top 10 most accessed articles on the site for last 30 days. If you haven't got time to read all three, I urge you to at least read the article by Carl Phillips. Click HERE. To download Prejudice & Propaganda: The Truth About Passive Smoking, click HERE.
Reader Comments (4)
Now you know Simon why we desparately need a television programme which will help bring down the guillotine on these myth peddlers. Do you know anybody that can do this for us?
Time is running out...the review on the smoking ban by the Government will take place after 1year - this according to my MP Paddy Tipping.
If it were possible for a well advertised programme to be shown just before this review then it could have a positive impact.
Our cause has to be aired in the main stream media...without this our voices will never be loud enough!
A programme maker or an agent would need to be found to discuss this project...and quickly!
In the meantime smokers and tolerant non smokers should contact their MPs, and let them know how this vindictive ban has destroyed their social lives...and do this more than once.
Simon -
Many thanks for posting such an excellent report. I shall be sending a copy of both that and Joe Jackson's marvellous piece of counter-propaganda to both my (Labour) MP and the saintly Alice Sheffield (anyone remember HER ?) - currently residing in the David Cameron Bunker.
Naturally, I shall publish any replies on this site.
Holding my breath, and counting...............
Chris -
You are absolutely right, of course.
Surely - given their commendable track record in tilting at Fashionable Windmills (eg Global Warming), the 'Dispatches' team at Channel 4 would be the most likely candidates ?
How I would LOVE to see Deborah Arnott and 'Sir' Liam Donaldson pulled to pieces by someone like Christopher Booker or Richard North.
Sadly, I've given up all hope of such a programme's appearing on the Beeb (the infiltration by PC Lady-boys has gone too far).
Dum spiro, spero....................
After reading the Epidemiologic Perspectives &
Innovations commentary, I was amazed at the apparent level of vindictiveness and sheer hatred shown by the anti smoking lobby. It's almost unbelievable. As a smoker I'm aware that I'm about as socially acceptable in mainstream UK as a leper. But WHY do people work so hard to destroy research into the effects of passive smoking unless that research tends to support their own narrow minded and vicious viewpoint that passive smoking is potentially worse than the Black Plague?
Answers please on a postcard!