TobaccoTactics Wiki Stats Debunked - UPDATED with Awesomeness

[This post was originally published at 12:08 p.m. on Friday, 10 May 2013. It has been updated with further awesomeness and republished accordingly. See Updates 1 and 2 below.]

With all of the half-truths, distortions of fact, misdirection and flat-out lies that the tobacco control industry ejaculates on a hourly basis, sometimes the lies are so fantastical that the mind boggles.  I suppose we're used to it, or at least we expect it. Even so, you would think they would at least be clever enough to lie about something that no-one could ever prove false.  This is not the case it seems.

On the main page of the University of Bath's TobaccoTactics wiki, under the heading "Is TobaccoTactics.org meant for me?" and in sub-section "Visitor Statistics" is one such falsehood that can be proven false.  It reads:

Since it was launched in June 2012, the website has received 1.4 million hits, with over 800,000 pages served with a daily average of nearly 6,300 hits! These April 2013 statistics, along with positive feedback from users of the site, reflect its success and popularity.

Here's a screen-capped image, just to confirm the above:

Over 1 bazillion served! We would we lie to you? (Don't answer that.)

Really?  C'mon, pull the other one, ladies. 1.4 million hits from web viewers all over the world in 10 months' time is a huge number of hits for a brand new web site that doesn't have stolen images of nude celebs or Lolcats.  But the statistics the editors of TobaccoTactics have put on their main page do not seem to be true or accurate.  I know this because Tyler knows this the site's own statistics show an entirely different story.  Have a look:

Click to enlargify - see highlighted text

Those statistics shown above are screen-capped from the TobaccoTactics wiki statistics page on 9 May 2013. You can view the current stats here via this link.

The truth according to the wiki software, which is designed to keep track of this kind of stuff, is that the wiki has had only 409,826 views as of this writing.  That's a far cry from "1.4 million hits and 800,000 pages served."  And of those views, how many were generated by the wiki's editors and didn't come from outside of the University of Bath?

But it's worse than that.  Because apparently Anna Gilmore (the Queen of Junk Science) and Eveline Lubbers not only suck at lying, they might also suck at maths, too. The Visitor Statistics statement on the main page says they get "a daily average of nearly 6,300 hits."  OK, 6,300 is an average, a median, so some days the wiki would get less and some days more, but it's impossible for me to know what the highs are and lows are without having access to daily stat information.  We'll just have to go with their bullshit figure of 6,300.

So let's completely waste our time by doing some basic calculations.*

Let's put the date of the launch of the wiki at 1 June 2012 (it was actually around the 5th, 6th or 7th of June, I can't recall which day, but I'll give them a few extra days).

The statistics they gave were taken from 1 June 2012 to 30 April 2013, or eleven months, or 334 days.

1,400,000 divided by 334 =

4,192

But Eveline Lubbers wrote that the daily average was 6,300.  OK, let's calculate for that:

Let's multiply 334 by 6300.

We get  2,104,200 hits.

So the figure they gave is 1,400,000 hits, which is 704,200 hits fewer than the result calculated for an average of 6,300 hits daily.  Something isn't right.  I mean, sure it's possible that they they could have 20,000 hits in single day to come up with such a high average, but that possibility is extremely unlikely.

None of that matters, though.  Because the statistics page's View Statistics says they've only had 409,826 proper hits.  That's a difference of 990,174 hits, even after nine extra days have passed from the end of April.

The statistics page also says that "Views to non-existing pages and special pages are not included."  Is it possible that the special pages of the wiki, an area that few people would bother to look at or even knew existed, received a whopping 990,174 hits, more than twice the number of actual content page views?  Anything is possible in the fairy tale land of tobacco control, as we all know, but in this case probably not. The only possible explanations I can think of are spammers inundating the site with referral link spam all day long, or a few hundred web-crawlers (such as Google or Bing) indexing the entire site per day. Even those are beyond the realm of probability.  Another explanation is that the extra views are generated by the editors as they edit and upload files to the wiki.  If the latter is the case, it's incredibly disingenuous to count those as page hits on your main page. One last explanation I can think of is that maybe, just maybe, the statistics page is broken or was reset, but I think that is also unlikely.

So what do we know? We have 409,826 "proper" page views or all-time content page hits by 9 May 2013.  What's the real average?  Let's calculate from 1 June 2012 to 9 May 2013. That is 343 days.

409,826 divided by 343 =

1,195 (avg)

You know, 1200 hits average per day is not shabby. It's a decent figure. It's not huge; it's not tiny. It's a fair amount of hits for an anti-smoker hate site set up to attack bloggers and anybody that disagrees with the tobacco control industry. Sure, the wiki is not overwhelmingly popular by any stretch, but what anti-smoker site is? Regardless, why do they feel the need to state an average figure that is five times higher?  Why do they claim they have received almost 3.5 times more hits overall?

Well, maybe the answers to those last two questions is the tobacco control industry cannot help but make shit up to give the appearance of massive support. This is a public relations confidence trick. Tell people you have a huge fan base, and you hope that people will believe you are a force to be reckoned with. The truth, however, is that their support is marginal.

The truth is that we can never trust any person or organisation in the tobacco control industry. We certainly never trusted Anna Gilmore in the past, so no reason now to start trusting her or sidekick, Eveline Lubbers, either.

*If my maths are incorrect or if I missed something, please let me know in the comments so I can correct -- I had "indulged"with a few drinks last night whilst writing this post.

UPDATE (10 May 2013, 21:20) : I have just received a message that the TobaccoTactics wiki is updated with evidence of from their server logs or something. I haven't checked myself because I'm in the middle of something right now, but in the in interest of fairness I wanted to put a quick note on this post that they have responded. I will check later and certainly I will update this post further after I have looked at what they've posted. -- Jay

UPDATE 2 (11 May 2013, 00:20):  I have now had a chance to review Eveline's web statistics.  I thank Eveline Lubbers for having the courage to post them up.  I am pleased to say that my post above remains a more accurate picture of the traffic the TobaccoTactics wiki receives. I will explain below.

But first this very important message to Eveline Lubbers:

Look, Eveline. I don't know you, and I don't mean to be cruel, but you know absolutely fuck all about the Internet (using Google, Twitter and editing a wiki does not make you an expert) and you know even less about correctly interpreting web statistics. There must be hundreds of capable IT persons at the University of Bath.  I would strongly advise you to consult with any of them, and after that kindly update your wiki's main page accordingly. Or you could hire me.  My fee is twice the amount they are paying you. The upside to hiring me is that at least you know I would be honest and fair (if not a bit foul-mouthed at at times). The downside for me is that I'd have to spend time with the Tobacco Control Research Group and I cannot think of anything more horrible at present (excluding Karen -- she's a cutie). And if you think for one second that I enjoy writing about this shit, you're wrong. I'd rather be doing anything else, but there's no way in hell I'm going to sit back and let the tobacco control industry deceive everybody.  I certainly don't need to teach you how to analyse data. But hey, if you want a propaganda war, I will beat you at it every time -- I will "pwn" you.  I think you should stick to being an author or whatever you do best, and this gig with Anna, no matter how well paid it is for you, it is not for you. I hope we are very clear, Ms Lubbers. I'm sorry I have to tell you these things. You're ruining your reputation every day you work for the tobacco control industry. 

OK, so let's begin analysing the wiki traffic stats.  This is the image that Eveline posted up on the wiki to show their traffic:

Click to enlargify Source: TobaccoTactics

So I know that looks impressive -- 1,527,557 "hits" -- but hits are misleading until you understand what they really mean.  For now, let me highlight the only two important columns in your charts you need to concern yourself with to understand your "true traffic" stats.

The only data you should look at is "Visits"

See there?  The visits column is what you want.  And over the last eleven months you got 227,649 visits.  This is, unfortunately for the TobaccoTactics team, even worse that what the wiki statistics show and what I wrote above.  But here we have real data to look at and to do some maths on.  So I will.

The first thing to do in complete fairness, however, is to toss out the June stats, because I think the TobaccoTactics team didn't start their web traffic analysis until the last week or so of June, based on the stats.  June's stats appear to be very, very low.  So, as you do with statistics, we're eliminating them from the calculations (I'll add them back in later by assuming that the 2,345 is one week's worth of data). Likewise, I will exclude May's statistics, since we're only 10 or 11 days in, but will not add that in.

Here is a screen cap of my calculations based on the above data:

Jay's super awesome calculations in Excel

So from July 2012 to April 2013, you have had a total of 216,756 visits, with (and this is naughty, because averaging averages is absolutely rubbish maths, but the hell with it, the results are mostly identical for figures this small) an average of 713 visits per day during this time period.

That is respectable traffic. That is nothing to be ashamed about.

But I want to be fair. So I'm going to include June's data, and I'm going to have to adjust June's stats because the data provided above looks like an aberration. I will assume that the June data of 78 views and 2345 hits is only one week's worth of traffic. It could more, it could be less.  But I don't know, and neither do you, it seems.  So, I will multiply the Monthly visits by four, or 2,345 x 4 = 9,380.  I admit this seems a bit low, but... give me more and I'll fix it.  Here's an adjusted spreadsheet:

We should have left June out of the calculations

Right. The TobaccoTactics traffic is actually better off by excluding June altogether as you can see (and see how fair I am to you guys? I'm Mr Fairness. Definitely fair. So fair that ... eh, never mind).

If we count June, then we have an overall average of 677 visits daily and a total of 226,136 visits during those eleven months.  This isn't shabby either.  It's better than what I get on my blog -- granted, I haven't been posting much lately, but I digress.

So you're probably wondering why the crackers "hits" don't matter.  That's because one page view can generate 4, 5, 6, a dozen or more hits. Why? Because it does. It's a quirk of how the Internet works. But I don't want you to take my word as fact, so I've found this guy, whose job it is to analyse this stuff, to explain it to you:

Source: Elbel Consulting Services, LLC

See? I'm not making it up.  You might also want to read this page from that guy which explains how to interpret web stats much better than I ever could.

So, there you have it.  And now you know why we will never trust any research or data that comes out of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath.  Because ... well, my friend Bucko The Moose put it most succinctly in his tweet this afternoon:

I favourited this tweet for its awesomeness.

Can you update your fucking wiki with the proper visitor stats now, please?  Thanks.

UPDATE 3 (11 May 2013 17:50): Grandad weighs in here with his post 9.2 million hits. Nice one.

UPDATE 4 (12 May 2013 18:12): Simon Clark of FOREST also wrote this piece called "Stats life – welcome to the fictional world of tobacco control."

Quotes From a Study on NRT and Harm Reduction

In the tobacco control industry, the bar for what constitutes research or a study appears to be set rather low. Take twenty stakeholders in tobacco control and Big Pharma, and ask them what they think about nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and nicotine-containing products (NCPs), and voila, you have a "qualitative study."  That is not to say the study is not useful. Indeed, it's a wonderful insight into the perceptions of the key players in the tobacco control industry.  I think the authors may come to regret publishing it.

The study I have referred to above is titled:  Regulatory Issues Concerning the Development and Circulation of Nicotine- Containing Products: A Qualitative Study.  It was co-authored by Catriona Rooke, Ann McNeill, and Deborah Arnott, and published on-line by the Oxford Press at the Oxford Journals Nicotine & Tobacco Research web page on 5 November 2012.

Here is a capture of the abstract, and honestly, you will know all that you need to know just by reading only the abstract:

Source: http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/11/03/ntr.nts235.abstract

So I have read the entire paper, and I'm totally not surprised. It's a doozy. My take on the whole affair is that the tobacco control industry -- even after 50+ years of doggedly demonising people who smoke and trying to get them to quit -- still does not understand smokers and the reasons why people smoke. Certainly, some people smoke purely for the pleasures of nicotine in their bodies -- some of those people may have proper nicotine addictions. Yet this is only but one factor to consider when exploring the reasons why people smoke. They don't get it at all -- they see nicotine as the end-all experience of smoking, but they're just missing the point (albeit, they do mention in the study that there is more to consider, such as "is it inhaling the smoke?").

Before I delve into and write further about the study above, I'm going to do the tobacco control industry a huge favour. I'm going to help you morons understand why people smoke. An important caveat, however: this is not all-encompassing. Because the reasons why people smoke are far too numerous to list them all, and each person is a unique individual.  What follows are generalisations.

Smoking for many is a ritual. It's a habit. An extremely enjoyable habit with a host of factors at play. Each person's habit is uniquely their own. For instance, setting down knife and fork when finished with a meal and lighting up a cigarette or cigar immediately thereafter is one of the most pleasurable times to smoke.  But it goes deeper than even that.  It's the act of smoking, inhaling deeply or shallowly per one's preference, and in my case, exhaling the smoke is a huge part of the pleasure of smoking. I love the act of smoking. And I love to watch people smoke, because everybody does it a little differently. Absolutely fascinating to observe someone's smoking style, as it were.

Going even deeper, for those who smoke tailor-mades (machine-made cigarettes), the ritual could start with "packing" the packet -- tapping it several times on a table or your palm, then peeling off the cellophane strip, opening the flip-top box, carefully removing the foil, and for the true connoisseurs of packet opening, inhaling the gloriously tempting odours of your freshly-opened packet of cigarettes, all before finally teasing a cigarette from the packet and lighting it.  That first draw, the warmth of it, the slow exhalation... all of it, together, forms the ritual.

For those who roll their own cigarettes, the ritual is different but equally important.  The paper choice, the filter (if used), opening the tobacco pouch and inhaling the scent of your tobacco, pinching a portion of tobacco from the pouch, separating it and carefully distributing the tobacco evenly along the length of the paper, capturing any bits that may have escaped and returning it to the pouch, rolling the paper up, gently licking the the paper, sealing it with a slow and precise motion, tapping the freshly-rolled cigarette on a table or a the flat side of a lighter, removing any loose strands from the tip, and finally, satisfied with your rolling efforts, placing the cigarette into your mouth and lighting it.

It's the whole act -- the ritual that keeps people smoking, and if one element of the ritual is broken, the others suffice or a new element is added. Smokers adapt to their environments, and the elements of the ritual are not inextricably linked. We use different rituals for each environment, and if you take away one from us, we take our rituals to the next environment. You cannot stop that. You cannot change that. There is nothing you can do about it, no matter how hard you try.  You are running a fool's errand by attempting to legislate a person's lifestyle choice.

Let's take it one step further.  For some, it's not just the act of smoking, it is (certainly in these times with display bans and high taxes) the act of obtaining your cigarettes or tobacco.  Indeed, the one thing that the tobacco control industry has consistently failed to understand over all of these years is this one very important thing:

The more difficult something is to obtain, the greater the reward one receives for merely obtaining it.

That is a fact.

Make something harder to get, and the person who does get it feels a greater sense of satisfaction from his or her efforts.  Make it more expensive, and the person who buys it feels a greater sense of pleasure from obtaining it, like any luxury product.  It's like art.  Most paintings are beautiful eye-candy, but the one that cost you £25,000 -- that one is very special, far more special than the glossy print you bought for £10 from Asda.  But if tobacco becomes too expensive, some buyers will seek out alternative illegal sources, and a new pleasure mechanism takes root for purchasing illicit goods. Could there be any greater pleasure than giving the government and its minions in Public Health two fingers by depriving them of the duty they all so desperately need to fund their careers?  So all of the tobacco control industry's efforts at making cigarettes unobtainable are having an opposite effect on those who seek out tobacco products.

Think about it, you insipid, prohibitionist morons in tobacco control.  Think for just five seconds about the children who are unable to legally buy cigarettes.  What sort of reward might they feel when they are able to get a hold of a sneaky cigarette or a whole packet that had been legally denied to them?  Nobody is saying we should give cigarettes to kids. I'm simply asking you to think about the rewarding feeling one gets from obtaining the unobtainable.

It's bloody magic, is what that feeling is. When I was a kid... oh, yeah, just getting the cigarettes added to the delight and ritual of smoking.  Oh, those were days! I remember being disappointed when I was finally of legal age.  Same for alcohol, come to think of it.  The mystique, the wonder, the magical pleasures of merely obtaining my vices, had faded. But the other rituals, these remained.

But you don't get it, tobacco controllers. Because all you see is nicotine-induced misery in a cigarette. You see only a cancerous death as the end result of a person's decision to smoke. This pseudo-religious belief blinds you from the realities of why people do what they do. You are so hell-bent on saving everyone from themselves that you fail to see the obvious: everything you do and have done will save no one who does not wished to be saved.  Each person must save themselves, and it is their own choice to do so or not. You are fooling yourselves if you honestly believe in your cause.

So let's go back to the study.  Let's look into the minds of the tobacco control industry's key players and see what they really think about their place in the world.  Fair use prevents me from using very much of the study, so I'm going to use two select quotes only for the dual purpose of educating my readers and for criticism.

The first quote validates everything people have been saying about Big Pharma's influence in the anti-smoking movement:

This is really the heart of the matter, isn't it?  It's about competition, and the hoops one industry must jump through compared to another. It's like a school yard politics, or perhaps squabbling siblings.  "If Liam doesn't have to do it, why should I have to? It's so unfair, mum!"   But one key thing to note in that passage above is that it's about "control."  Big Pharma hates that e-cigarette companies are not under the same controls that pharma companies are.  So Big Pharma is aggressively lobbying everyone in governments all over the world to shut down the e-cig companies, or failing that, to put them on the same playing field as pharma companies.

This isn't about health. This has nothing to do with health. IT HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT HEALTH! It's about money, and who is allowed to make money.  And if you cannot stop your competitors from making money by using politicians to pass laws to shut those companies down, then you can sure as hell make it as difficult as possible for your competitors to make money.  That's Big Pharma's role in the NCP market.  They know that their NRT products fail to satisfy the ritual of smoking.  A nicotine patch is no patch at all on the pleasures of smoking. The inhalers taste awful and are nothing at all like the deliciousness of a full-flavoured cigarette with a cup of coffee, or a pint of bitter.  Despite Big Pharma's best intentions, nobody gets addicted to NRT products, because they suck. And if nicotine were so addictive as the anti-smokers claim, then why aren't people addicted to NRT?  Because it's the ritual of smoking that forms the pleasurable habit. It's not just about nicotine.

And those simple facts makes Big Pharma extremely jealous of e-cigarette companies, who are several orders of magnitude closer to the ritual of smoking than any NRT product could ever achieve. It grates at Big Pharma, annoys them, like an unseen mosquito buzzing away in a dark bedroom on a warm late-summer evening. You know it's there, and you know it wants to bite you. It senses your breath and hones in on you, goes quiet and lands on you. You feel nothing until after it's already bitten you and ingested a quantity of your blood. It flies away, unscathed, pleased and thrilled from engorging itself. And you, Big Pharma, are left with an itchy, stinging sore that keeps you awake for hours, and scratching barely provides any relief.

For the final confirmation that Big Pharma is in the nicotine supply business and ultimately sees Big Tobacco as its direct competitor (along with anyone who supplies NCPs), here's one last quote from the study.

The jig is up. You tell me who is more honest about what they sell.  Big Pharma, or Big Tobacco?  One is trying to save you from yourself by selling you products that do not work as they claim.  The other is trying to sell you a product that you already want to buy, a product that you are already aware comes with health risks for using.

Do read the whole study. You may need to register to get access.  Come to your own conclusions about what you read.  And note, I have barely scratched the surface of what's in this paper. I could probably write 20 blog posts about it.  

But I've made my point. And I rest my case.

The 4000 Club

I remember a game-cum-experiment in one of my classes in school.  The game illustrated how information can be corrupted as it passes from person to person.  One kid (the source) was given a simple sentence or two and she whispered it to the next kid, who in turn whispered to another, and so on.  By the time the information had been passed to the very last kid, it did not even remotely resemble the source's information. It was wildly inaccurate.

The same goes for anti-smoker propaganda.  I will leave the task of defining chemicals, their actual hazards to the body, and debunking any of the information presented below to people like Dave Atherton or Carl Phillips, both of these gentlemen are far better placed to do so than I am.  All I want to do here is show you that few of these groups actually agree on their own figures.  The figures are distorted either accidentally or purposefully by each group to suit their agendas.  And I am reminded of the saying that "if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth."  Except that every cop and prosecutor knows that liars don't always remember all the details correctly each time they tell and retell a story...

So what is the actual truth?  Which of the below quotes are the truth, if any?  Who do you trust?  Granted, different studies produce different results, but even so the results vary wildly in some cases.  Have a look below at a very small sampling and see how the information is distorted or perhaps simply made up from out of the ether as it passes through various groups (emphasis added in all cases):

http://www.idph.state.il.us/cancer/factsheets/cancer.htm

Cigarette smoke contains more than 3,800 individual chemicals, and more than 40 are carcinogenic (cancer causing).

http://smoking.ygoy.com/smoking-statistics-general-facts/

Cigarette smoke contains 11 chemical compounds that are known to cause cancer.
More than 4,000 toxic or carcinogenic chemicals have been found in tobacco smoke.

http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/smoking-and-smokeless-tobacco/overview.html

Tobacco also contains more than 19 known cancer-causing chemicals (most are collectively known as "tar") and more than 4,000 other chemicals

http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com/whatsinit.htm

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins.

http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagescm/1003/$File/chemicalconstituentscigarettespriorities.pdf

It has been estimated that there are over 4000 chemical constituents in tobacco smoke (British Columbia Ministry of Health, 1998). Of these, about 400 have been measured or estimated in mainstream and sidestream smoke (Cal/EPA 1997). Of the 400, a significant amount of toxicology data exist for less than 100. In all, 95 chemicals in cigarette smoke were identified. These 95 chemicals include 45 known or suspected carcinogens, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and many other chemicals with non-cancer adverse health effects.

http://www.stop-smoking-programs.org/chemicals-in-cigarettes.html

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 different chemicals, at least 50 are known to be carcinogens (cause cancer in humans) and many are poisonous.

http://www.intellicare.com.ph/medical_smoking.asp

Of the 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 250 are known to be harmful ... more than 50 have been found to cause cancer.

http://www.endthehabit.com/content/health_canada2.htm

It is estimated that there are more than 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke and at least 50 of them have been proven to cause cancer.

http://www.breathecalifornia.org/healthinfo/tobacco.html

Tobacco products can contain up to 4000 chemicals, 200 of which are deadly and 60 of which can cause cancer.

http://www.ct.gov/dph/lib/dph/hems/tobacco/tobacco_products.pdf

More than 4,000 different chemicals have been found in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are more than 60 chemicals that are known to cause cancer.

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/whatsinacigarette/smoking-and-cancer-whats-in-a-cigarette

But when it burns, it releases a dangerous cocktail of about 4,000 chemicals including: more than 70 cancer-causing chemicals; hundreds of other poisons; nicotine, a highly addictive drug, and many additives designed to make cigarettes taste nicer and keep smokers hooked.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/smoking_health_effects.shtml

Cigarette smoke contains about 4,000 different chemicals which can damage the cells and systems of the human body. These include at least 80 chemicals that can cause cancer...  

http://thedukecigaretterollingmachine.com/retail-vs-hand-made-cigarettes

Retail cigarettes contain 4,300 different chemicals in their smoke, including 43 known to cause cancer. (ed note: This is a site that sells rolling machines... WTF?)

http://www.smoking-facts.net/

cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cessation

Of the more than 7,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 250 are known to be harmful, including hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, and ammonia (1, 4). Among the 250 known harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 69 can cause cancer. 

http://www.smokingstinks-aaco.org/fastfacts.htm

Cigarette smoke is toxic and poisonous to the human body. It contains about 7,000 chemical agents, including almost 70 that cause cancer.

So, as you can see for yourself, the figures go from a few hundred fewer than 4000 chemicals to up to stunning 7000 chemicals, and somewhere between 11 and 80 of those gazillion chemicals can or might cause or have been proven to cause cancer.  Again, this is a very small sampling. Do your own searches, and you'll find even more variations on this theme. I didn't even bother to use the reader comments on newspapers and blogs -- those are even better.

As always, I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. 

Journalism And Fun With Stats

Few journalists independently verify "facts" and figures these days, and many fail to seek out contrary viewpoints . Perhaps they never have done so, because honestly who has the time?  Journalists often work under extremely tight deadlines, they are usually working on several dozen pieces simultaneously, and they rarely have support staff to assist them in finding out information. Out of necessity, journalists rely on trusted contacts, insiders, university and college published studies, and publicly-available government statistics to present the "facts" of any given story.  In other words, anything you can find on the Internet these days.

Moreover, to write a good article for public consumption, it needs an air of sensationalism to it to grab the reader's attention.  It does seem to me that people prefer to be entertained by their news much like they want to be wowed by their fiction, so editors and journalists are eager to find some calamity or Armageddon angle to oblige their readers.  The news has always been sensationalised, and it is inaccurate to suggest otherwise.  "If it bleeds, it leads." 

It will be no surprise to any regular reader here that I despise the mainstream media. I rarely read the news unless I'm searching for something specific, because honestly I do not trust the media.  It's not the sensationalism.  I expect that, although it does annoy.  No, it's the presentation of opinion as if it were fact.  It's presenting bollocks estimates of figures as though they are entirely accurate without seeking independent verification. Hey, I know you media guys don't have much time, but come on, couldn't you at least try to be fair and honest for the sake of your readers and viewers? Could you at least include a line that says you didn't bother to check these things out fully and completely for the sake of your own integrity? I could be happy with that.

All of this brings me to a recent plain packs article by Michael Skapinger, columnist for FT.com.  Now, I am vaguely familiar with Mr Skapinger. Three years ago he wrote a pretty fair opinion piece about smokers in the workplace from his viewpoint as a non-smoker.  The gist of that article was that smokers are more social at work, are better at networking with colleagues, and therefore benefit from their smoke breaks despite any of the harm smoking may cause. I think he even felt bad for smokers being forced to stand outside once the ban came in.  So, I have to admit that I when read this latest article by Skapinger, titled "Tobacco companies versus the plain truth," (note: registration may be required) I was a bit stunned to read this (emphasis added):

"So when Alison Cooper, chief executive of Imperial Tobacco, says that forcing tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packets is not about health but is just anti-business, every other business person should tell her not to taint them with her death and disease-ridden trade."

This sounds a lot like Glyn Moody's hack piece on trade marks, doesn't it?

Even so, I will concede that Skapinger has a right to an opinion like anyone else. What I take issue with is his presentation of "facts."  He cites a UK government report (DH report) as the basis for saying that smoking kills more people than "drink, drugs, road crashes, all other accidents, suicide and preventable diabetes combined."

Well, this is quite selective in itself by limiting it to only these other causes of death, but it doesn't actually represent the full picture of UK mortality rates and leading causes of death .  In the DH report, it claims that 81,400 people die from smoking-related disease.  The report derived that number from an NHS document, "Statistics on Smoking: England, 2010; NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care" (NHS report).  The DH report even gives you the handy graph below to work it all out how they came to the 81,400 figure.  Simple, right?

But, no, it's not so simple at all.  Because "attributable to smoking" is not the same thing as "definitely caused by smoking."  Now we need to go to the NHS report and see how they came to those figures, where we learn in the introduction to section 4 pg 76, that "These figures are estimates of the numbers of admissions and deaths in England which were caused by smoking."  OK, we have estimates only.  If you were to peruse the NHS report, you would see a whole lot of "can be caused" but nowhere do you see any real data on the actual cause of death by smoking.  Why?  Because the NHS doesn't keep track of that information.  So a statistician estimated it based on -- "In 2009, there were a total of 448,230 deaths of adults aged 35 and over in England, 81,400 (18%) of which were estimated to be attributable to smoking."  There you go.

And how did the statistician derive the estimate for 18%?  I'll tell you.  It is currently estimated that between 18 to 23% of the UK population are smokers. This estimate includes occasional smokers, you know that very friendly girl who bums fag after fag off you at the pub after she's had three vodka Red Bulls. Of course, it's all estimates. Nobody really knows the actual number, so it's an assumption. It is, quite possibly, unknowable.  So you take the low end of the estimate (although using a mean may have been preferred from a tobacco control perspective) and you tally up the deaths, split it among women and men smokers, and away you go to your nicely round figure of 81,400 deaths per year attributable to smoking.

Bollocks?  You bet, yet it is good enough for tobacco control's lies, the NHS, and for journalists apparently.  But let's have some fun with bullshit and completely inaccurate representation of facts, because I'm not going to drill down to precise causes of death -- indeed, who has time for that?  If they can do it, so can I.  For this exercise, I will use the 81,400 figure (for illustrative purposes, because it's handy) along with the mortality figures from 2010 (MS Excel).  I recommend downloading the Excel spreadsheet, because it's quite fascinating, particularly the number of "unknown causes of death."  Anyway...

We will focus on only two tables in the spreadsheet, table 5.2 - Neoplasms (all cancer types) and table 5.9 - Diseases of the circulatory system; both of these are the primary sources for determining smoking deaths and I've rounded the percentages up a bit. 

In 2010, there were 493,242 total deaths of all ages, not just 35 and over, but all ages.


29% of all deaths are due to neoplasms (all types of cancer). Total neoplasms / cancer deaths = 141,116.

32% of all deaths are due to circulatory diseases.  Total circulatory disease deaths = 158,084

So we know that 61% of all deaths are due to cancers or circulatory diseases.  Total deaths = 299,232

Obviously, not all of these deaths could be attributed to tobacco use, but again, time is a factor so I haven't isolated particular causes of death.  Anal cancer is included in these figures, but do not be alarmed, smoking causes ALL CANCERS!  That's what they tell you.  Moving on...

Using the DH's 2009 figure of 81,400 (again it is an estimate only and not accurate), only 27% of the 61% of cancer and circulatory deaths are "smoking-related."  So, roughly 1 in 4. Right?  That means about 73% of non-smokers, or approx 217,832 people died in 2010 from these two types of "smoking-related" diseases somehow.  So you really cannot say that "smoking is the leading cause of preventable death" because it just isn't (and there is no such thing as premature death or perhaps even preventable death. It is just death).  Still, how do you explain the other three quarters? Why are they dying from cancer or heart diseases?  Which makes you wonder what is really causing all these deaths... it couldn't be getting old could it?

Furthermore, if we use the 81,400 figure against the overall death, we see that "smoking deaths" hover around 16.5% of all deaths annually (less than the estimated percentage of smokers), compared to the 61% of all cancer and heart disease deaths combined.  So what is going on here?  Shouldn't non-smokers be living forever?  Why are more non-smokers dying of smoking-related deaths than smokers?  This just doesn't make sense to me.  But, hey, like anyone, I'm just having fun with statistics, picking and choosing what I like, mixing up the years, and presenting all of it in a particular way to support my viewpoint.  If they can do it, so can I.  So who is more accurate?  Them? Me?  Does it really fucking matter?  We are all going to die, some of us quite horribly, it is very sad to say.  Nothing can stop death. It comes for all of us.

But I would expect journalists to exercise a little due diligence when presenting figures as facts.  They should fact check and look to see how the data was derived all the way to the original source, and not just be witting or unwitting mouthpieces for tobacco control and hateful government agendas. They should provide independent verification of figures, even when figures are derived from reports supplied by the government, or at least admit they haven't done any of this.  But they don't. Maybe they cannot due to time, or maybe they simply cannot be bothered.  After all, why let facts get in the way of a good story.  Hmmm...?

(For further study you may also wish to view the Leading Causes of Death by age group in England and Wales (MS Excel), which is incredibly illuminating.  Also, a good reference starting point for future research is here.)

Penn & Teller on Second Hand Smoke

Don't know how long this vid will remain up on YouTube, but it's good.   One moron says, "If they're telling me it's going to cause cancer, I'm going to believe them."  Evidence is not required.  Short summary, harm from SHS (or ETS) is Bullshit!

Thanks, gentlemen.

H/T: Silke

Enjoy:

On Superheroes and Villains

Heroes

I tend to view people who discover or work towards discovering cures for illnesses and disease as heroes.  How many millions upon millions of lives have been saved by penicillin alone?  Alexander Fleming is usually attributed to discovering penicillin back in 1928, for which he is a hero, but even so there were others before him who realised that a strange mouldy substance had antibacterial properties.  Later, using Fleming's earlier work, others made penicillin into a proper medicine and lives and limbs were saved in huge numbers.  Heroes, all of them.  No, they are superheroes.

So that's my view on researchers and scientists.  It's important to mention that from the start because when I think about the good work in cancer research that Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has done, the good work that they can continue to do, I view many of the people working for them as heroes.  Someday, somebody (or many somebodies) will make a huge breakthrough in properly curing one of the many forms of cancer, and countless lives will undoubtedly be saved.  And they will be heroes.

Yet despite my views I am in the awkward position of also believing that CRUK, which is so utterly capable of being a superhero, is doing an equal amount of harm to people as it seeks to enforce a particular agenda on the population rather than doing what it should be doing, which is working towards curing all cancers.

An Ounce of Prevention

You know the saying, just as I do.  "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."  All of the so-called health charities are now actively lobbying government for preventative tobacco control policies, such as plain packs, display bans, or just outright prohibition of tobacco.  CRUK is at the forefront of that lobbying and activism.  Without CRUK's financial support, many of these "charities" would simply disappear.  And so the familiar saying perhaps requires some modification:  "An ounce of prevention is worth millions of pounds."

I have no issue with any person or organisation trying to educate people on the risks of tobacco use, because I believe that people need to be properly informed of the facts in order to make decisions, or at least understand the possible impact of those decisions.  Knowledge is paramount.  What I take issue with is any person or organisation who would seek to legislate my personal decisions through prohibition or behavioural modification, to legislate my lifestyle via high taxes or bans, and to that end to put out patently false propaganda to sway the "gullible" feeling-not-thinking public into taking up their cause in order to protect children, who didn't really need any protection at all it seems.

If Hitler Were on Twitter & YouTube It Would Probably Look A Lot Like This

The latest video by CRUK is a travesty of research and integrity, it is blatant sensationalised propaganda, just like the propaganda that Hitler would have used.  You could have given those kids pink dildos and got the exact same response.  Because CRUK has for years consistently disregarded the facts in order to achieve their goal of prevention, because they are promoting a vile, hateful agenda of anti-civil liberties and prohibition, the good work of their honest researchers and scientists is tainted.

I cannot support any charity or organisation that lies, produces false research, or promotes hate against a group of people in order to achieve some "noble" cause.  While CRUK's intentions to save lives are probably good, they have become the classic arch-villain who is blind or uncaring to the damage he is causing because he can only see the ends.  Undoubtedly, there are many good people within the organisation working towards the very noble goal of curing cancer, and I do not wish to trivialise their fine work.  Despite all of the good they have done or could do, Cancer Research UK has grown into an arch-villain of epic proportions. By creating a legacy of deceptive propaganda and hate, they are undoing all of honest and good work of those who work for them.  They have disrespected each and every one of the good people who have contributed money to them.  They are not superheroes in my opinion.  They are villainous.

The question now is:  how far will they go?

If You Ever Had Any Doubt . . .

Mike Daube knows what's best for you.  He wants to make tomorrow better. "Who the hell is Mike Daube?" you ask.  Good question.  He seems to genuinely care about people drinking and smoking, but if you would ask me, I think Mike Daube is a hater.  He hates everything. He's a high-magnitude nannying twat.  He's on par with the Root of All Evil. Indeed, these two bumtards are like two gnashing bed bugs nestled up in the wrinkles of your duvet cover, endlessly feeding on the flesh of all of your vices, whispering their hateful fucking agendas into your ears while you sleep at night, unaware of the evil that has befallen you.

Mike Daube has made his career on telling you and your governments that you're too stupid to make your own choices.  Mike Daube wants you to know that tobacco companies and alcohol companies are evil.  If you ever had any doubt that alcohol is next on the list for the nannies, then you only need to read almost everything this guy has written.  He's quite happy to use the tobacco control template to protect the young, gullible children in the world. Here's a fine passage from this editorial he wrote for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health:

Tobacco is now recognised as a pariah industry. Descriptions such as ‘evil’ and ‘merchants of death’ are commonplace; it is the world’s least reputable industry and there is broad acceptance of the principle that governmental dealings with tobacco companies should occur only if unavoidable and while holding one’s nose.

Millions of tobacco industry documents accessible following the US Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) show that the companies are even more cynical and dishonest than their critics had thought. Nobody could now argue credibly that tobacco companies should be part of policy-making processes, can be trusted with voluntary agreements on advertising, or should run public education programs.

The alcohol industry is different – or is it?

(2012 vol. 36 no. 2, pp108-110)

Read the whole thing above.  It's short.  Only a few pages of drivel, I promise.

Let's peek a little more into the life of this particular neo-puritanical, soft-spoken tyrant.  ABC News Australia writes this about him:

Mike Daube is Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University, where he is Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute and the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth. [...] He recently completed two terms as President of the Public Health Association of Australia, and is President of the WA Branch and convenor of the Alcohol Special Interest Group. From 2001-05 he was Western Australia's first Director General of Health and Chair of the National Public Health Partnership. Since moving to WA in 1984 he has held a number of chief executive and senior positions in government and NGOs. Before this he was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Community Medicine at Edinburgh University, and described editorially in the British Medical Journal as "probably Britain's leading health campaigner."

Now, pretty much every piece ABC Australia does on smoking and health is written by the antis for the antis.  You almost never see ABC offer up a contrary view in rebuttal -- they do occasionally, but not often enough; sometimes they surprise you.   Think what you like, but the Australian media is so far up the asses of Chapman and Daube, that it's no wonder that the Australian public have believed all of the bullshit and wants the government to the nanny them (no different than the UK or US media, I suppose). This has taken years of campaigning by people like Daube to make happen.  Look at this gem from Daube on ABC's site:

Big Tobacco will fight any action that might reduce its profits, and even here in Australia, where so much has been achieved, we must ensure that there is continuing action. One might in retrospect wonder why it all took so long - why did Cancer Councils, the Heart Foundation, the AMA and other health organisations have to campaign for so long? Why did governments not even respond to far-sighted calls to protect children in enclosed spaces such as cars as soon as the evidence on the dangers of passive smoking came through? If we have learned one crucial lesson it is that we cannot afford any sense of complacency: smoking is still our biggest preventable killer.

We need further developments to maintain the momentum, and to ensure that there is a continuing focus on disadvantaged groups. There are also of course other challenges for prevention - notably alcohol and obesity, although these will require some different approaches and a judicious mix of carrots and sticks.

Don't worry, ABC is happy to give the health nazis some momentum.  Look at this recent article.  Do you see any contrary views at all?

So where was I?  Right. Daube. What a dick.  Below is an excerpt from his own pet newsletter where he writes about how to target children to socially engineer them into believing all of his bullshit.  And you thought tobacco companies were targeting kids with shiny artwork on cigarette packs.  Please. These fuckers are the kid-targeters. These are the evil fucking bastards in the modern era.  Parents are too stupid to raise their own children. Do not forget that.

The target audience
Initial plans are to target the young, web-savvy population of WA. This group of Western Australian’s are regularly online: 72% go online to send and receive emails, 60% want internet access anywhere, anytime and 50% believe that technology gives them control over their life. Such research indicates this group is receptive to an online social change campaign that places the emphasis on the audience.

Now ask yourself, who during WWII targeted children. Eh? And check out this video, which at the time of this writing has only 33 views -- four of which are probably mine.

He seems so nice, doesn't he?  Don't believe it, fatties. He's coming for you, too.  This man really hates everyone and everything that isn't the picture of perfect health.  Does Oz really need an institute for advocacy?  Christ on a bike, no wonder it's all gone tits up down under.

H/T to Dick Puddlecote for posting about this nannying tyrant for years.  I'm really not copying you, Dick. Honest. 

The Consultation

The plain packs consultation is up here: http://consultations.dh.gov.uk/tobacco/standardised-packaging-of-tobacco-products/consult_view

I've only had a brief chance to peruse it, so I will come back later and give my thoughts on it.  I did notice a couple of leading questions, and the whole preamble looks like it was written by tobacco control. 

Non-Smokers Die Every Day

The tobacco control dickheads would like you to think that you're going to live forever.  You will hear them cry about premature deaths, preventable deaths, smoking-related deaths, and more deaths attributed to tobacco use so often that you would think that only smokers are capable of dying.  It's not true.  I know that.  You know that. Hell, even ASH knows it, but they'll still try to convince you otherwise. 

Let's consider the case of the late David Taylor MP, former chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health.  If you missed the word "late" in the previous sentence, let me tell you now that David Taylor is dead.  He died in 2009 of a heart attack at only age 63, which is a far cry from living forever, but to be fair 63 isn't all that young either, in the sense that it's not really an "early death."  It's almost the average life-expectancy figure for men in the entire world, which is 65.  I can't find any evidence that Taylor was a former smoker, an ex-smoker, or a reformed smoker.  By all the accounts I've read, he led an active life, even exercised and stuff.  Maybe it was anti-smoking stuff that killed him...?  Is it possible?  I don't know.

So Taylor died suddenly while out for a walk.  He had a heart attack.  Tragic.  He was only 63!  How could this happen?  Better yet, how could the BHF let this happen? 

It happened because shit happens to non-smokers like shit happens to smokers.  Bill Hicks once said, "Non-smokers die every day."   Non-smokers die every day of the same diseases that smokers get. More non-smokers die each day than smokers. 

Naturally, people are always looking to blame someone or something for unexpected and expected deaths.  You've heard the mantra of the anti-smokers: "You're killing me with your smoking."   You could be trapped inside a burning building, with no chance to escape at all and only a few minutes before the flames and smoke will overcome you, and if you then decided to light up one last fag as your parting salute to this fucked-up planet, you can bet that the anti-smoker trapped with you is going to complain about it.  "You're killing me!"

And now, after years and years of anti-smoker hysteria provided by the likes of ASH and Simon Chapman, people actually believe that if they don't live to be 100, it's because at some point in their life, they were around a smoker.  Never mind ovens, grills, cars, factories, your work environment, your genetic predisposition to certain diseases, household cleaners, insect bites (yes, they can lead to immune deficiencies, which will open the door to a host of "preventable" diseases), STIs... I mean, the list goes on and on.  But no, it's smokers that are causing millions of deaths of non-smokers.

It's not true, no matter what you've been told or read. 

So, what's really happening here?  It's social-engineering and brainwashing by activist hate groups.  If you say something often enough, if you hear something often enough, it becomes true for you.  Because, hey, you're smart and intelligent. You read the papers, watch the news.  You don't need actual scientific proof to know when something is true.  You just know it, because someone told it to you.  Someone you trust to be reliable. Like the media!   Yeah, OK.  I know...

Pay attention:  They are playing on your natural fear of death to convince you to live a lifestyle that won't guarantee you any more time on this planet.  They are playing you, just like the global warming alarmists, and just like all of the politicians who enact stupid laws that restrict our liberties under the guises of protecting children or protecting us from terrorists.  And just an aside here, who is going to protect me from your children?  That's what I thought.

Did you know that the Dreadful used be a smoker?  She smoked Silk Cut.  She quit in 2003.  I don't know why.  But I can guess as to why she's an evil cow:  Self-loathing.  She probably hates herself more than she hates other smokers.  I wouldn't be surprised if she still sneaks a crafty one now and then.  And then she hates herself even more, and the cycle repeats and to atone for her sins of self-loathing, she attacks the tobacco industry, smokers, and anyone who would dare to speak out against her.  She should hate herself, not because she's a reformed smoker, but because she's a cunt.

I guess since we're talking about her and we're on the business of plain packs, we may as well extract this quote from that Guardian article I found when researching this post; an article where Dreadful explains why young kids start smoking.  Ready?  OK, here it is (emphasis mine):

"That's because [smoking is] still something that's attractive to young people, because it's still cool. If you talk to 8-, 9- or 10- year-olds, they'll be very anti-smoking. Puberty is when it happens: you're independent, you want to be cool, and you're not sure what do with your hands when you're talking to people of the opposite sex."

That's her words, in February 2010.  Nothing to do with pack designs there, it's all about what do with your hands. I'm pretty sure that pack designs didn't magically change into marketing monstrosities since then.  Let's repeat what she said:  "You're independent, you want to be cool.  You're independent and you want to be cool.  You're independent and you want to be cool.  You're--"

Wow. I feel independent and cool.  Time for a smoke, I guess.

Reproducibility Not Required

Reason's Ronald Bailey asks,  Can most cancer research be trusted? 

Here's a telling quote from his article (emphasis mine):

"We went through the paper line by line, figure by figure," said Begley to Reuters. "I explained that we re-did their experiment 50 times and never got their result. He said they'd done it six times and got this result once, but put it in the paper because it made the best story. It's very disillusioning." Sadly, Begley explains in an email that they cannot reveal which studies are flawed due to the insistence by many researchers on confidentiality agreements before they would work with the Amgen scientists. So much for transparency. 

And there's this:

Over 10 years, Amgen researchers could reproduce the results from only six out of 53 landmark papers.

And this (emphasis mine, again):

So what is going wrong? Neither study suggests that the main problem is fraud. Instead they conclude that the scramble for funding and fame (which are inextricably linked) has resulted in increasingly lax standards for reporting research results.

It's a fantastic article, so do read the whole thing when you have a few free moments -- if you're into this sort of thing that is.

If you're wondering whether the studies and research performed by our favourite hate groups can be similarly classified, the answer is a resounding "YES!"  Tip: Scroll down to the very end and read the "Safeguarding the Future" bit.

Smoke Drift Petition Down Under

Know thy enemy.

It's interesting what you can learn from trawling the hateful bastards' sites.  For instance, on the ASH Australia Facebook page, a woman utterly duped-by-the-fASHists cries out for help attention (note, see UPDATE at the end of this post):

"Any guidance on who is lobbying (Vic) Government for smoke free housing laws - we have neighbours (2 adults) smoking immediately over the fence which fills our home with smoke drift. Have sent them a letter by registered post, they are still smoking, we fear this smoke is affecting our health and our children's - is there anything more we can do ?"

Yes, Melissa.  In order to completely protect yourself from those dangerous toxins in the air, you will first need to block all automobile traffic from your community.  You also need to turn off your BBQ, your oven, your home heating and air-conditioning, and just to be safe, buy some of these lovely bubbles and put those little tykes in them.  Oh, and send as many registered letters as you like, because your neighbours really don't give a fuck about you believing in that second-hand smoke kills myth.  I'm sorry, what?  You started a petition, too?  Well, let's have a look then.

The Petition:

Right to breathe fresh air free from neighbours (sic) second hand smoke" by loveurlungs (is this you Melissa? Did you write this?)

"We all have a right to breathe clean air but families and children throughout Australia currently dont (sic) have this right..."

OK, Melissa, I don't know if you wrote that petition, but if you did here is a Pro Tip:  Learn to fucking punctuate.  See all of those buttons on your keyboard with the fancy characters and symbols just there beneath your fingers... yeah, right there.  Fucking use them.   So anyway, if "we all have a right" but "...Australia currently don't have this right" (ed. note: I fixed that for you) then how can "we all" possibly be correct?  Which is it?  All or everyone but Australians?  You're not making sense, darlin'.  If you want more than the 4 signatures you've got, you need to be at least semi-literate. 

 "Second hand cigarette smoke from neighbours is impacting on the health of families and children in many ways. With urbanisation we are all living closer together with only walls, fences or small yard spaces that separate us."

Is smoke drift or even second-hand smoke impacting your health?  Truly?  It's never been proven.  It's a lie created by people who are incredibly hateful and intolerant. And you believed them.  Let me guess, right now your children are coughing their lungs out because of that smoke drift.  They are crying themselves to sleep because your evil neighbours are killing them with each whiff of smoke drift. Because of this your kids will never go to college!  Oh, noes, Melissa!  Their precious, little lives are ruined by smokers! The horror!

You know, I can't even bother with the rest of the petition.  It's ludicrous.  You are ludicrous, Melissa.  But for now the Aussie government is more or less on your side.  Once they lose that general election in 2013, and that evil slag Nicola Roxon goes away, they won't be so much on your side any more.  Or maybe they will, because here in the UK we thought the Tories would help us.  They didn't.  The Tories are just making it worse.

So, good luck to you, Melissa.  I hope you live forever.

Yours truly,
Jay

UPDATE:   The comments noted above on ASH Australia's Facebook page have since been removed.  I don't know why yet, I've only just noticed it.  I sincerely hope that no one tried to contact her directly, because if you did then that is not cool and I do not condone it at all.  We can and should challenge people's public comments in public forums, where everyone has a chance to argue their side.  Perhaps she deleted her own comments after seeing this blog...?  Who knows?  If I find out why, I'll let you know.

UPDATE 2:  It seems the "LoveURlungs" has a brand new Facebook page.  Woo-hoo!  Someone ought to explain to LoveURlungs that this image makes absolutely no sense.

Third-Hand Smoke Even More Dangerous Than Second-Hand Smoke

The tobacco control fanatics in America are lying again.  I stumbled onto this gem of an article via the completely fucking bullshit Tobacco Control Facebook page, which maybe you should avoid if anger is likely to increase your blood pressure.  Naturally, I've bookmarked it for future reference.

So, Maryland's ABC7 reporter anchorwoman Pamela Brown tell us that:

"Experts say second hand smoke is six to 12 times more toxic than smoke directly inhaled by a smoker."

Really?  Only six to twelve times more toxic?  Wow.  Non-smokers must be dropping like flies, Pamela.  That's OK, though.  I'm glad you fact-checked that stat.  What?  You didn't?

"[...]third hand smoke - the nicotine residue that clings to surfaces and never leaves." (emphasis mine)

Yeah, because who bothers to clean their fucking houses any more?  Is this what passes for journalism these days?   (Answer: Yes, of course it is.)

Wait.  It gets better.  Not satisfied with merely espousing the mantra of the neo-puritanical slags like Deborah Arnott and assholes like Simon Chapman, ABC7 carried out their own experiment.  What was that experiment?  Read for yourself:

"First, we wiped off a non-smokers windshield and it came back clean. Then we tried it on a long-time smoker's car – and the results show what the doctors have stated."

That's it. That's the confirmation that this mythical and poorly-named substance called third-hand smoke kills people.  A dirty windscreen.

The only thing we do know for certain is that the smoking owner of the car that ABC7 checked can't be fucking bothered to use a little Windex once and a while.

We also know that Pamela Brown is pretty sexy. 

Don't you dare move that hand down lower, mister! (Source: http://www.meiwahrestaurant.com)

Perhaps her editors made her say it.  Yeah, that's it.  They tied her up and ...

Well, who wouldn't?