tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35850286255074740932024-03-18T18:28:42.296+00:00Velvet Glove, Iron FistWhen politicians start regulating private behaviour they find it hard to quitChristopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.comBlogger3034125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-11641049516848868062024-03-18T12:25:00.000+00:002024-03-18T12:25:27.312+00:00Prohibition, problem gambling and playing with words<p>Australia's umpteenth attempt to ban e-cigarettes has been warmly applauded by the renowned wowser and imbecile Simon Chapman. Nicotine-containing vapes have always been illegal in Australia. Importation of these products for personal use was banned a few years ago and now the government is banning all e-cigarettes regardless of whether they contain nicotine or not. </p><div style="text-align: left;">As dozens of tobacconists are being literally firebombed, the devastating yet predictable consequences of prohibition (for vapes) and neo-prohibitionist sin taxes (on cigarettes) could not be more obvious to Australians. (There's an excellent article by two criminologists in <i><a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-restrictive-vaping-and-tobacco-policies-are-fuelling-a-lucrative-and-dangerous-black-market-225279">The Conversation</a></i> that is well worth reading.) But Simple Simon not only refuses to take any share of the blame for the consequences of the policies he spent his life lobbying for, he refuses to accept that what is happening to vapes is prohibition. Why? Because vapers will (in theory) be allowed to get e-cigarettes on prescription.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">How Australia's extremist vaping advocates have tried to frame prescription access as "prohibition" when 223 million prescriptions in 2021/22 for all other prescribed drugs are of course also all "banned". La La Land <a href="https://t.co/B9vCQNP5D0">https://t.co/B9vCQNP5D0</a></p>— Simon Chapman AO https://bsky.app/profile/simoncha (@SimonChapman6) <a href="https://twitter.com/SimonChapman6/status/1769113892226257236?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2024</a></blockquote><p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> </p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Note the way in which he portrays those who think e-cigarettes should be sold as consumer products like they are in normal countries as 'extremists'. Note also that he is using a photo of an anti-Prohibition rally taken during Prohibition in the USA. This is, of course, the example that comes most readily to mind when people hear the word 'prohibition'. Chapman is keen to distance himself from that kind of prohibition because it was such a notorious fiasco.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">However, if he weren't such an ignoramus and didn't suffer from <span class="ILfuVd" lang="en"><span class="hgKElc">Dunning-Kruger syndrome, he would know that alcohol was available on prescription during Prohibition (Winston Churchill famously got a <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2016/05/winston-churchill-gets-a-doctors-note-to-drink-unlimited-alcohol-in-prohibition-america-1932.html">doctor's note</a> when he visited the USA). Indeed, the Volstead Act was softer on drink than the Aussie government is on vapes. Ordinary people were never arrested for mere <i>possession</i> of alcohol whereas <a href="https://colinmendelsohn.com.au/thirteen/">people are already being arrested for the possession of vapes and vape juice in Australia</a>.<br /></span></span></div><p></p><p>So if Chapman doesn't think the ban on vapes is prohibition, he must think that Prohibition wasn't prohibition either. <br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">Back in Britain, the anti-gambling lobby's rising star Matt Gaskell has also been playing with words.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">We should discourage the use of stigmatising language by the media & within the field…. e.g. problem gamblers, problem gambling, addict, pathological gamblers, disordered gamblers etc. <br /><br />Language & framing matters.</p>— Matt Gaskell (@mgaskell12) <a href="https://twitter.com/mgaskell12/status/1768908208851034193?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The problem here is that most of these phrases are technical terms with scientific definitions. The exception is 'addict', but the only people who use that word about problem gamblers are anti-gambling activists and the media. Problem gambling does not necessary involve addiction, but problem gambling is definitely a thing. It is recognised by clinicians and researchers around the world and is diagnosed with the <a href="https://responsiblegambling.vic.gov.au/for-professionals/health-and-community-professionals/problem-gambling-severity-index-pgsi/">PGSI test</a>. PGSI stands for <b>Problem Gambling</b> Severity Index.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A similar but distinct test is the DSM-V. This refers to the fifth edition of the <span><span>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</span></span>. It is the diagnostic test for the recognised condition of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t39/">'<b>gambling disorder</b>'</a> which, in the previous (fourth) edition, was called <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t39/">'<b>pathological gambling</b>'</a>. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Matt Gaskell is <span>the Clinical Lead for the NHS Northern Gambling Service which is part of the NHS's </span><a href="https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/services/mental-health-services/addictions-and-substance-misuse/national-problem-gambling-clinic">National <b>Problem Gambling</b> Clinic</a>
<span>. When it opened in 2020, <a href="https://www.gmmh.nhs.uk/news/nhs-gambling-addiction-service-for-north-of-england-3379/">he said</a>:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p></p><blockquote><p>"<b>Gambling addiction</b> is a new public health crisis. It’s causing
serious harm to thousands of people across the UK. This includes mental
health problems, serious debt, breakdown of relationships, loss of
employment, crime, homelessness and, tragically, sometimes suicide.</p>
"Through my work in mental health and addictions treatment over the
years I’ve seen the harms that <b>problem gambling</b> can cause people.
However the chances of recovery from <b>addictions</b> like <b>problem gambling</b>
can be very good with proper treatment."<span> </span></blockquote><span></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Running a problem gambling clinic without uses terms like 'problem gambling' and 'gambling disorder' is like being an oncologist and banning the terms 'cancer' and 'tumour'. So why this sudden retreat from recognised scientific terminology that no one has had a problem with in the past? It all comes back to <a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/the-anti-gambling-house-of-cards/">what I was writing about last year</a> - the 'public health' takeover of gambling policy and research. Under the new ideology, everyone is at risk from gambling, every gambler is harmed and gambling is inherently dangerous. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Put simply, the existing literature
correctly sees problem gambling as a complex mental disorder (“gambling
disorder”) that is best dealt with by clinicians and augmented by harm
reduction policies. By contrast, the “public health” approach is to
stigmatise gambling, demonise the gambling industry and use
tobacco-style regulation to deter as many people from gambling as
possible. The difference between the two approaches is that the former
is based on evidence and works whereas the latter is based on wilful
ignorance, creates negative unintended consequences and fails.</span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The new wave of anti-gambling activists take issue with anything that implies that the psychological condition of gambling disorder only affects a relative handful of people (which it does) or implies that individuals can do anything about it (which they can). It's going to be difficult for people who treat problem gamblers to maintain this conceit because the first step to recovery is getting people to admit that they are responsible for their actions and can change their behaviour, but I'm sure they'll manage it.<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-28686484647862295522024-03-14T11:39:00.000+00:002024-03-14T11:39:06.178+00:00The menthol cigarette ban - another 'public health' win!<p>Menthol cigarettes were banned in the EU in May 2020 and, as usual, the UK government decided against using its new freedoms outside of the bloc to allow more freedom to people in the UK.</p><div style="text-align: left;">A study in the junk journal <a href="https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2024/02/29/tc-2023-058390"><i>Tobacco Control</i></a> by the usual career anti-smokers (Linda Bauld etc.) now claims victory because...</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p id="p-59"></p><blockquote><p id="p-59">The current study shows no increase in illicit purchasing 3
years after the ban in GB and is an important contribution to the
literature assessing the longer-term impact of menthol cigarette bans;
it is another example of how the industry’s oft-predicted surge in
illicit cigarette purchases as a result of tobacco control measures did
not materialise.</p></blockquote><p id="p-59"></p><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">Big Tobacco in the mud! Take that!<br /></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">However...</div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">Despite being banned in 2020, one million adults continue to smoke
menthol cigarettes in GB. The prevalence of menthol cigarette smoking
only decreased slightly and non-significantly among adults who smoke,
from 16% at the end of 2020 to 14% at the beginning of 2023.</div></blockquote><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">Oh dear. Still, let's not allow the total and utter failure of the policy to achieve its goal distract us from Big Tobacco being wrong about the illicit trade. They're in the mud!</div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">According to the authors, people who smoke menthol cigarettes were no more likely to buy from illicit sources than those who smoke normal cigarettes, although that's not what <a href="file:///Users/chrissnowdon/Desktop/tc-2023-058390-inline-supplementary-material-1.pdf">their own data</a> shows (see table below).</div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7z-gQ8Y1cfNuu7OljHuxgFGBvZoEFxy0qeS8NlRHuJjStkFht2Ip_G5Go2Gdsblz408X05K9CI6fJffIZ7R2l03qe2H2KUJEfyzqZ52wN84hkovOsDon6kaDcxkdmIrwAPmlCzOa0AUjIOhGyg3pUcePb_DKgGV_4Y96yqh2gYHr_ZppYDg-lEsPI7U/s764/illicit%20metholds.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="764" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7z-gQ8Y1cfNuu7OljHuxgFGBvZoEFxy0qeS8NlRHuJjStkFht2Ip_G5Go2Gdsblz408X05K9CI6fJffIZ7R2l03qe2H2KUJEfyzqZ52wN84hkovOsDon6kaDcxkdmIrwAPmlCzOa0AUjIOhGyg3pUcePb_DKgGV_4Y96yqh2gYHr_ZppYDg-lEsPI7U/w400-h256/illicit%20metholds.png" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">Nevertheless, it is clear that a lot of people have been buying menthol (or menthol-ish) cigarettes from legal sources. The authors explain various ways in which this can be done, all of which could have been predicted by someone who is a genuine expert on the tobacco market rather than a rent-a-gob prohibitionist.<br /></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">There are several reasons why people in the UK may continue to smoke
menthol cigarettes despite the ban. First, it is possible to buy
factory-made cigarettes or roll-your-own tobacco with menthol flavour in
countries without a ban and bring them back to the UK either within the
legal limits for personal use or through illicit means. Second, people
can purchase menthol accessories, such as filters or capsules inserted
in a hole in filters of factory-made cigarettes, infusion cards for
cigarette packs to spread menthol aroma and flavour or menthol-flavoured
filters for use with roll-your-own tobacco.
These accessories are not covered by the ban and some of them seem to
have been placed on the UK market in direct response to the ban.
Another tactic that the tobacco industry used to circumvent the ban is
to produce cigarettes that may be perceived as mentholated, while the
manufacturers claim that the flavours are not characterising and are
therefore allowed.</div></blockquote><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">So the reason there has not been a booming black market in menthol cigarettes is that the legislation was so badly drafted that a black market wasn't necessary. And this is supposed to be a win??<br /></div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div id="p-59" style="text-align: left;">Incidentally, all the data used in this study starts in October 2020 and ends in March 2023, despite the ban taking effect in May 2020, so it doesn't tell you anything about what happened when the ban was introduced. <i>Tobacco Control </i>really will publish any old rubbish. <br /></div><p></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-25907719070284720102024-03-13T10:54:00.001+00:002024-03-13T10:54:22.308+00:00Follow the money in the campaign against GambleAware<div style="text-align: left;">The 'Good Law Project' has suddenly started going after the dull but worthy charity GambleAware. Why? As I explain in this article for <i>The Critic</i>, it looks like a case of follow the money.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A levy on gambling companies is imminent
and is expected to raise at least £50 million a year. The money will be
earmarked for “research, prevention and treatment” and there are a lot
of potential recipients who will be fighting like rats in a sack to get
their hands on it. The House of Lords called for a gambling levy in June
2020 and the government consulted on the matter later that year. Since
then, problem gambling NGOs have been sprouting up all over the place.
Among the organisations that have already received </span><a href="https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-businesses/guide/destinations-of-regulatory-settlements-previous-years"><span style="font-weight: 400;">grants from the Gambling Commission</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">
are Gambling Harm UK (founded in 2020), Deal Me Out CIC (founded in
2020), the Epic Restart Foundation (founded in 2021), GamFam (founded in
2022) and the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (founded in
2022).</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Having been founded in 2018, Gambling
with Lives is a relative veteran and has received £600,000 from the
Gambling Commission so far. It is likely to be in the running for
further grants when the levy takes effect, alongside such recently
formed organisations as The Big Step (founded in 2019), Clean Up
Gambling, the Coalition Against Gambling Ads, Bet Know More, Action
Against Gambling Harms (all founded in 2020), Tackling Gambling Stigma
(founded in 2021) and GamLEARN (founded in 2022).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">GambleAware, founded in 2002, is the
daddy of them all and has an income of nearly £50 million a year,
virtually all of which comes from the gambling industry. These donations
will cease when the statutory levy is introduced. The levy will
effectively nationalise industry donations, with decisions about how the
money is spent made by bureaucrats rather than businesses. When the
donations dry up, GambleAware will have to bid for the pot of money
marked “prevention”. With 20 years experience of running educational
campaigns and helping problem gamblers, it will be the favourite to get
the contract, unless its name is sullied in the meantime. If GambleAware
becomes politically toxic, there are plenty of pressure groups ready to
accept the money who will argue that the most effective form of
“prevention” is tobacco-style regulation.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The difference between helping individuals and the 'public health' approach is that the latter doesn't work. It is a political stance to make people within the extended bureaucracy feel virtuous. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;">You can see the new ('public health') approach most clearly in Manchester where the local authority has got into bed with Gambling With Lives to create <a href="https://www.chapter-one.org/">this website</a> which is straightforwardly anti-gambling. </span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;">It has links to places where problem gamblers can get help, but if you click on the National Gambling Helpline, you will be effectively warned off it by an ad hominem statement. </span><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNSAEvyBTBbZVnyYFJsbtJcTeu6gQ8-Ds7BOGFhdJ1wMf9ZKdz8o5888ZpD6m3yPEjUGwN2ev-hMTyvMdaIJllLkvrvUdagAiaCx8odRsKRnm2I3T5NwAs2HxsQlYVdomEkxMhkdpQhlvX2t8UuGlYPoewkzO6gZiY8_n_Hwu8DiAf3u3RWbdfpWxKJ8o/s741/GIdtlvrXAAAjQ8f.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="741" data-original-width="609" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNSAEvyBTBbZVnyYFJsbtJcTeu6gQ8-Ds7BOGFhdJ1wMf9ZKdz8o5888ZpD6m3yPEjUGwN2ev-hMTyvMdaIJllLkvrvUdagAiaCx8odRsKRnm2I3T5NwAs2HxsQlYVdomEkxMhkdpQhlvX2t8UuGlYPoewkzO6gZiY8_n_Hwu8DiAf3u3RWbdfpWxKJ8o/w329-h400/GIdtlvrXAAAjQ8f.png" width="329" /></a></div> <br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;">So you have a charity subtly dissuading problem gamblers from ringing a problem gambling helpline. This should be a "are we the baddies moment?"</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="css-1qaijid r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0 r-poiln3" style="text-overflow: unset;"> </span></div><p><br /></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-19241059074780472472024-03-08T12:48:00.007+00:002024-03-08T12:51:16.351+00:00Fighting Scotland's sockpuppet state<p>Annemarie Ward, CEO of the addiction recovery charity FAVOR doesn't hold back in <a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24169880.alcohol-addiction-scotland-obstacles-recovery/">this interview with <i>The Herald</i></a>. Unlike most Scottish health organisations, she is not funded by the state - and it shows.</p><p>Here are some of the choicest quotes...</p><div style="text-align: left;">On <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/02/28/meet-the-sock-puppets-waging-war-on-your-freedom/">Scotland's sockpuppet state</a>: </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p>“So many aspects of their approach need to change,” she says, “but if
I were to choose one then it’s this: get rid of all the addiction
quangos that have grown fat on public money.”
</p><p>
She begins to describe a lucrative, self-serving sector which is in
denial about the true nature of addiction and doesn’t really believe
that people can actually recover. And so they specialise in ‘harm
reduction’, which she says is “middle-class virtue-signalling at its
worst”. </p><p>... She begins naming the addiction quangos and says she’ll soon be compiling a list of them to show how crowded the field is.
</p><p>
This is where Scotland’s public sector gravy train can be seen at full
tilt, driven by a vast array of political actors who attend all the
right networking events; leadership seminars and lobbying dinners. </p><p>
“They’ve become a shadow state,” she says. “They’re policy actors with
at least one organisation employing 70-odd staff. There’s no equivalent
to them south of the border because England got rid of them years ago.
They simply de-funded them as part of a structural change leading to
more funding for front-line services.
</p>
<p>
“All of these Scottish quangos think they’re doing something, but
they’re little more than the government lobbying government for no other
purpose than to maintain funding levels.” </p><p>... “I’m willing to work with Labour. I want to contribute positively; I
don’t want to be the one who’s always screaming. But if they don’t get
rid of these quangos then I know they’ll just continue with the grift of
government lobbying government.”
</p></blockquote><p></p><p> </p><p> </p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">On minimum pricing:</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p>
In recent weeks, she’s become a harsh critic of the Scottish
Government’s Minimum Unit Pricing policy which seeks to discourage
people from buying alcohol. “It simply doesn’t work,” she says, “because
those making the policy have no clue about the reality of the lives of
those who are worst affected by alcohol addiction.” </p><p>... “I read 40 studies around this and only seven were looking at
health-based outcomes. Then I looked at who commissioned the research on
all the studies and the only one that was positive about MUP was a
researcher from Public Health Scotland. And it was Public Health
Scotland who were writing the report. So you wonder if there’s some
jiggery-pokery going on here. </p><p>
“These people don’t live in the real world. If they were, they’d
looking at the correlation in the rise in drugs deaths since Minimum
Unit Pricing was introduced in 2018. It doesn’t need a genius to work
out why. And in the meantime, I’m still burying my friends.” </p></blockquote><p> </p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">On alcohol advertising: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p><blockquote><p> “I don’t even see the problem with booze adverts. I don’t care about
‘the optics’ of a swimming pool sponsored by Tennent’s lager. The
Government thinks the people in these communities are stupid and that
we’re easily influenced. They’re obsessed with channelling ethics but
what they’re doing in facilitating the already vast profits of the booze
industry is grievously unethical.” </p></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Can I get a "hell, yeah"?</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">You can follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Annemarieward">here</a>. <br /></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-41372740664360391382024-03-06T18:07:00.004+00:002024-03-06T18:07:49.339+00:00The vape tax<div style="text-align: left;">So the UK is set to have one of the world's highest vape taxes to go alongside a ban on disposable vapes and the gradual (or not so gradual) prohibition of tobacco. I've written about the Tories' deranged scorched earth policy for <i><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/03/06/the-saint-tax-on-vaping/">Spiked</a></i>...<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p>Hear me out: is it possible that when Rishi Sunak became UK prime minister he set himself a <em>Brewster’s Millions</em>-style
challenge of getting support for the Conservative Party down to zero by
the time of the General Election? Does he have brainstorming sessions
in Downing Street late at night to identify the dwindling number of
people who might still vote for him and discuss how to alienate them?
‘We’ve already lost the people who use disposable vapes, but there are
still people who use refillable e-cigarettes’, you can just imagine him
saying. ‘How do we needlessly annoy them? I’ve got it! Let’s tax
e-cigarette fluid.’</p></blockquote><p></p><p> <br /></p><p></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-71820005625196029042024-03-06T09:45:00.003+00:002024-03-06T09:45:52.345+00:00Pipes and pipemen<div style="text-align: left;">There is an epidemic of kids smoking pipes and cigars, if you believe the people at SPECTRUM. As I explain in <i><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/sometimes-a-cigar-is-just-a-cigar/">The Critic</a></i>, you shouldn't. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As a rule of thumb, any sharp rise or
fall in a longstanding data series is due to a change in methodology.
When it comes to surveys, you reach different groups of people depending
on whether you knock on their door, phone them up or use an online
questionnaire. People may be more or less likely to confess to bad
habits depending on whether you ask them face-to-face, over the phone or
on a website. The abrupt rise in the number of people claiming to smoke
non-cigarette tobacco in this study is obviously the result of the
change in methodology and yet the authors refuse to admit this. Instead,
they put forward a bunch of unlikely explanations for why people
suddenly started smoking cigars and hookah in March 2020, including the
fear that smoking cigarettes increased the risk of getting Covid-19, the
ban on menthol cigarettes that was introduced two months later and
economic pressures that meant people could only afford to smoke cigars
(!). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You have to scroll down to the
“strengths and limitations” section before there is any acknowledgement
of the obvious problem. Although the authors claim that people tend to
give similar answers in substance abuse surveys regardless of whether
they are asked face-to-face or online, they admit that when they used
both surveys in a one-off test in March 2022, they found “the prevalence
of exclusive non-cigarette smoking was 1.24 percentage points higher in
the group surveyed via telephone than face-to-face (2.03 per cent [95
per cent CI = 1.42–2.90] vs. 0.79 per cent [0.48–1.31])”. This is clear
evidence that people are nearly three times more likely to say “yes”
when you ask them over the phone and yet the authors still insist that
the fivefold increase in non-cigarette tobacco consumption is real. </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></p><p></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-81428544424401072292024-02-22T14:00:00.001+00:002024-02-22T14:00:00.132+00:00Panama conversations<p>While I was in Panama recently for the Good COP conference, I met lots of interesting people. I interviewed two of them for the IEA podcast: <span class="style-scope ytd-text-inline-expander" id="snippet-text"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap" role="text"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color">David Williams, President of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and Prof Dr Rohan Andrade De Sequeira, </span></span></span><span class="yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color">a Consultant CardioMetabolic Physician from Mumbai, India. We talked about tobacco harm reduction and the damage done by the WHO's approach.<br /></span></span></p><p><span class="yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color">Have a listen. </span></span></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rIKm7seSrJ4?si=4OdBkfqVenGmODoq" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-27462437669233830732024-02-21T17:03:00.000+00:002024-02-21T17:03:04.391+00:00Normal for Tasmania<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEUJZ5NDGC7_c9evxSQs_3BUBVcSM4GEommt01OqwZuDKPzy1mnFd5vT_3d1PkB5_q78ZlqfO8wGastnAsrycbWqOaH9AW0FEbxNjSfcRP4WpqE_fzI-xMaRiur65lBqaPGGoX7BRscOyrARbBSQrBpqRXamVO4U8PElfdDH3PCS1kfREg4FwTGpFXOw/s2048/ecig%20cancer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifEUJZ5NDGC7_c9evxSQs_3BUBVcSM4GEommt01OqwZuDKPzy1mnFd5vT_3d1PkB5_q78ZlqfO8wGastnAsrycbWqOaH9AW0FEbxNjSfcRP4WpqE_fzI-xMaRiur65lBqaPGGoX7BRscOyrARbBSQrBpqRXamVO4U8PElfdDH3PCS1kfREg4FwTGpFXOw/w300-h400/ecig%20cancer.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;">A Tasmania anti-smoking activist called<span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/TassieThinker"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kathryn Barnsley</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> has made a grotesque banner lying about e-cigarettes and has been telling vapers to look forward to getting mouth cancer. It is based on a dreadful case report in <i>Pediatrics</i> that should never have been published and is a new low even by Australian standards, as I explain in <i><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/a-new-low-in-anti-vape-scaremongering/">The Critic</a></i>...</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The claim that e-cigarettes caused
the cancer in this instance rests solely on the fact that the patient
was a vaper. He was also a former smoker of cigarettes who took up
smoking marijuana after biting his tongue, but this gets short shrift as
an explanation from the authors. His alcohol consumption is not
mentioned at all. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Case reports of this kind can be
useful to medical practitioners but they were never designed to identify
the cause of illnesses and they are totally incapable of doing so.
Although vaping cannot be discounted as a risk factor for oral cancer,
any investigation should begin by asking whether there has been a rise
in young people getting oral cancer since e-cigarettes came on the scene
and whether oral cancer is more common among vapers who have never
smoked than among other nonsmokers. A case study of a solitary
individual tells us absolutely nothing and looks more like exploitation
of a personal tragedy than a serious scientific endeavour. </span></p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/a-new-low-in-anti-vape-scaremongering/">Do read it all.</a></span></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-26644188819553183212024-02-16T09:30:00.001+00:002024-02-16T09:30:00.128+00:00A depressing conversation with Christopher Snowdon<p>It was a pleasure to sit down with Amul Pandya recently for a thoughtful chat on his Meeting People podcast. We discussed the abuse of statistics, social media, Rishi's tobacco ban, low grade politicians, daylight saving time, face masks, obesity and much more. You can watch it below or (I assume) download the audio wherever you get your podcasts.<br /></p><p><br /></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qekQK5IPH1c?si=8MW00wCcen7TG5vc" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-32491657705570481162024-02-15T10:08:00.001+00:002024-02-15T10:08:00.131+00:00McCarthyism as a protected philosophical belief<p>Jim McCambridge, <a href="https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2021/10/anti-alcohol-cranks-call-for-academic.html">a 'public health' zealot whom we have encountered before</a>, is involved in a strange employment tribunal after York University found him guilty of bullying and harassment. He now claims that his dogmatic, anti-industry opinions are protected philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act.</p><div style="text-align: left;">I have written about this for <i><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/is-public-health-a-protected-belief/">The Critic</a></i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">McCambridge has taken his behaviour a
worrying step further at the employment tribunal by portraying
McKeganey’s association with York University as a real and present
danger to people’s health. His argument, </span><a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65c4f672cc433b000ca90ac1/Professor_J_McCambridge_v_The_University_of_York_-_6001997.2023.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400;">as summarised by the judge</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, is that:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The
impact of Mr [sic] McKeganey’s relationship with the University of York
would be to impact adversely on the health of some unidentified people
in society. This was explained in two ways: firstly, that Mr [sic]
McKeganey’s association with the University would improve his
credibility. Because he (allegedly) supports tobacco companies, an
improvement in his credibility will add greater weight to any support he
gives to tobacco companies, thereby increasing the risk that more
people will smoke and thereby impact on the health of those
(unidentified) people. Secondly, that an association with Mr [sic]
McKeganey by the university would undermine their criticism of tobacco
companies thereby increasing the risk that more people might smoke
similarly presenting an increase risk to those unidentified people.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Leaving aside the question of whether
the tacit endorsement of an obscure academic by York University is ever
likely to influence an individual’s decision to start smoking, this
takes no-platforming to a new level. The clear implication is that
anyone who might inadvertently increase the chances of an unidentified,
theoretical person to start smoking is a health and safety risk.
Furthermore, anyone who fails to ostracise such a person is also a
threat to public health. The same presumably applies to alcohol and any
of the growing number of adult activities that are now considered to be
“public health” issues. This is a recipe for blanket censorship and
cancel culture on steroids. </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/is-public-health-a-protected-belief/">Do read.</a><br /></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-3862727522212377922024-02-14T10:29:00.001+00:002024-02-14T10:29:11.207+00:00Ultra-processed food labels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwlcNFXrRtrWI7Bhp-muGWsF1Uk2d0HtZdPVgzr2JGfAm3j2obs2CuGwczDaZ7EwV2TFbZBaxZTW5aAgvoW9UZeXBuvdhFCp8M4bL95y3V-CP_Y0pYVhLM8BJ-cnedb27BGBLaLJ1FtWA7zHUQNNbW1uOxVHTzxlNlGENPe3bMZUcvt4ItIJytKl7-XaU/s713/skinner%20upf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="713" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwlcNFXrRtrWI7Bhp-muGWsF1Uk2d0HtZdPVgzr2JGfAm3j2obs2CuGwczDaZ7EwV2TFbZBaxZTW5aAgvoW9UZeXBuvdhFCp8M4bL95y3V-CP_Y0pYVhLM8BJ-cnedb27BGBLaLJ1FtWA7zHUQNNbW1uOxVHTzxlNlGENPe3bMZUcvt4ItIJytKl7-XaU/w280-h400/skinner%20upf.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><p> <br /></p><p>From <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68283921">the BBC</a>...<br /><br /></p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Ultra-processed food should be clearly labelled - study</b><br /></div><br />Ultra-processed foods should be clearly labelled, experts say.<br /><br />Scientists said the warnings were needed as some ultra-processed foods could fall into the "healthy" green category of the "traffic-light" system.</blockquote><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Is that a problem with the labels or is it the problem with inventing an excessively broad category?</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10"></p></div></div><blockquote><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10">UCL
senior research fellow and weight-management specialist Dr Adrian Brown
told BBC News he had looked at a "meat alternative", for example.</p></div></div><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10">"Generally,
it can be considered highly processed - but if you look at
front-of-package labelling for energy, fat, saturated fat and sugar,
they're all green, which would be considered healthy," he said.</p></div></div></blockquote><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10"></p></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">'Meat alternatives' offer a good opportunity to test the UPF theory. Run some trials to find out if they are associated with obesity and/or cancer. If they don't then the claim that UPFs are associated with obesity and cancer (which is made in the BBC article) is false.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The curious thing about the article is that no one is quoted saying that UPFs should be labelled and the only people mentioned consider it to be an open question as to whether UPFs as a category are bad for health. And although the headline seems to quote a study, the only study mentioned in the article has yet to be written.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10"></p></div></div><blockquote><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10">Dr
Brown's team at UCL have now begun a trial to see how healthy a
UFP-only diet can be, compared with a minimally processed one, and
whether guidance should be given to consumers.</p></div></div><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10">"We're
putting people on an eight-week diet which meets the government's
recommendations for salt, fat, sugar and energy - what is considered
healthy - and we're comparing the outcomes of them, related to weight
and other changes in terms of health as well," he said.</p></div></div></blockquote><div class="ssrcss-11r1m41-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0" data-component="text-block"><div class="ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1"><p class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10"></p><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;">Good stuff. Makes sure it's randomised and that people are given <a href="https://snowdon.substack.com/p/chris-van-tulleken-my-coco-pops-hell">different versions of the same meal this time</a>. Better still, change the methodology and give the control group a diet that is merely processed (not minimally processed or ultra-processed).</div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;">As for UPF's alleged relationship to cancer, it's worth reading <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666776224000292">this response</a> from some scientists to the authors of a study who made that claim recently...</div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;"><p id="p0025"></p><blockquote><p id="p0025">The authors conclude that “our results suggest that higher
consumption of UPF increases the risk of cancer and cardiometabolic
multimorbidity”, but their data only show that consumption of foods of
animal origin and sugary or artificially sweetened beverages is
associated with such a risk, which is not surprising.</p><p id="p0030">This
indicates that the association between UPF consumption and the risk of
multimorbidity would disappear if the data were adjusted not only for
the consumption of sugary or artificially sweetened beverages, but also
for foods of animal origin at the same time. <b>Indeed, in our opinion, the
article underlines the absolute need to return to the evaluation of
foods on the basis of their nutritional role (including their nutrient
composition, quantities consumed, metabolic effects, etc.) and not on
the basis of their degree of processing.</b></p></blockquote><p id="p0030"></p></div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;"> Amen.</div><div class="ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10" style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div></div></div></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-53293715555348899182024-02-12T15:13:00.000+00:002024-02-12T15:13:07.594+00:00COP 10 - what happened?<p>I got back from Panama City on Saturday after a great few days with <a href="https://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/cop10-experts/">some of the best people in tobacco harm reduction</a>. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance did a terrific job of running an alternative conference to the WHO farce and it was good to speak to so many journalists who had come from far and wide.</p><p>Inside the WHO conference, who knows what went on? The meeting is so secretive that outsiders can only feed off scraps. From what I can tell, there was no success in getting the corrupt and incompetent WHO to endorse products like e-cigarettes but nor was it able to toughen its stance against them. A whole bunch of public sector troughers got a little holiday in Latin America and very little was achieved. We can perhaps call it a defensive win.</p><div style="text-align: left;">This account from<i> <a href="https://www.eureporter.co/health/tobacco-2/2024/02/10/a-missed-opportunity-to-end-cigarette-smoking/">EU Reporter</a></i> is worth reading:</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p>The WHO’s tenth conference of the parties (COP10) to its Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control has spent the week in heavily defensive
mode. Like many journalists, I was refused accreditation but that made
little difference as the conference voted to exclude the press. That was
shortly after the organisers cut off the microphone of a delegate who
had the temerity to suggest that the priority should be harm reduction.</p>
<p> It might seem an obvious point that harm reduction -getting people
to stop smoking cancer-causing cigarettes- should be the focus but it’s
hard to overstate how heretical that view has become. Science has gone
out of the window and when another delegate posted a mocked-up picture
of a ‘cancer flavour’ vape it went viral. </p><p>The conference organisers took no action over this incident. They
were too busy getting the Panamanian authorities to stop consumer
activists handing out leaflets to delegates urging them to support
e-cigarettes and other non-combustible alternatives to smoking.</p></blockquote><p></p><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Panama itself tells you a great deal about what happens when countries embrace the neo-prohibitionist approach, as I explained in <i><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/the-reality-of-tobacco-control/">The Critic</a>...</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Panama has done everything the WHO
has recommended. E-cigarettes are not only illegal to sell, but are
illegal to use. Smoking is banned almost everywhere, including on roof
top bars and within two metres of buildings. No smoking signs are
invariably accompanied by no vaping signs. Tobacco is heavily taxed and
tobacco products come with graphic warnings.</span>
</p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Panama has a low smoking rate but it
had a low smoking rate long before it introduced any of these policies.
What it also has is an extraordinarily large black market in tobacco. 92
per cent of all cigarettes sold are counterfeit, a fact that is
bizarrely advertised by Panama’s health department on billboards. Single
cigarettes and cigars are sold by children on the street. Unregulated
vaping products are openly sold on street corners. Despite the sale of
e-cigarettes being illegal, I saw an advertisement for one in the middle
of Panama City. The laws on smoking and vaping in public are casually
and routinely flouted, especially in bars. On paper, Panama is a model
of neo-prohibitionist tobacco control. That is why the WHO decided to
come here. But outside the conference centre, the reality is very
different.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's worth remembering that the WHO treaty that spawned all these COP meetings is so ineffective that a <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2287" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">study published in the <em>British Medical Journal</em></a> in 2019 found “no evidence to indicate that global progress in reducing cigarette consumption has been accelerated by the FCTC treaty mechanism.”</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd8ANtVfIYeESddLRnR64wx0A2cFtP8hj4fR95heNIFCuM6V_ZTRmyKSn569qvyGBS7FLYBQt5h9DD2APxoDJ6B7ckCy6eIFYRDUWvosOiYDC_ep9mATYP9KSAX4cSHfwLTAyg0-AbOGK8jPBrjwWEMLiBhMUhfNPs_sIr2JEd3MdRKFidIOBklrIv0gA/s729/FCTC%20graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="729" data-original-width="673" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd8ANtVfIYeESddLRnR64wx0A2cFtP8hj4fR95heNIFCuM6V_ZTRmyKSn569qvyGBS7FLYBQt5h9DD2APxoDJ6B7ckCy6eIFYRDUWvosOiYDC_ep9mATYP9KSAX4cSHfwLTAyg0-AbOGK8jPBrjwWEMLiBhMUhfNPs_sIr2JEd3MdRKFidIOBklrIv0gA/w369-h400/FCTC%20graph.png" width="369" /></a></div>There's lots of content from the alternative conference <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=protecting+taxpayers">here</a> if you want to catch up or get a flavour. Regulator Watch also ran regular shows throughout the week. The one below is from the first day and features me towards the end.</div><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/elnB71EhCPU?si=j_N315jyfL7kJdcd" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-53949793239736024282024-02-05T07:30:00.002+00:002024-02-05T07:30:00.130+00:00Greetings from Panama<p></p><p data-pm-slice="1 1 []">I am currently in Panama as a guest of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance at their Good COP meeting, held as a truthful alternative to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Conference of the Parties (COP). Don’t be fooled by the word 'tobacco' there. These days, the WHO is all about suppressing e-cigarettes. </p><p>Also with me are the campaigners Mark Oates and Martin Cullip, and the researchers Konstantinos Farsalinos, Riccardo Polosa and Roberto Sussman, plus <a href="https://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/cop10-experts/">many more.</a></p><p> We will be broadcasting and podcasting throughout the week. See the <a href="https://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/cop10-program/">full programme</a> for details.<br /></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-9154278428937759052024-02-01T15:42:00.000+00:002024-02-01T15:42:26.082+00:00Times Radio interview with ASH man<p>I did a pre-recorded interview on Times Radio the other day with ASH's Nick Hopkinson about the forthcoming bans on disposable vapes and, eventually, tobacco. I'm grateful to ASH for posting it on YouTube because I never would have found it otherwise, but I don't understand why they've done it because I didn't think their man did very well and he made it fairly clear that they're going to go after vaping next. But you decide.</p><p><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rHJEdnESCO8?si=nZnNuwqJn6aLibG5" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><p><br /></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-11556628083741733252024-01-30T11:15:00.002+00:002024-01-30T11:18:59.166+00:00Tobacco and Vapes Bill moves forward<div style="text-align: left;">Yesterday saw the publication of the government's response to the smoking/vaping consultation and an announcement from Rishi Sunak that disposable vapes will be banned. Although it received less media attention, there are also plans for some form of plain (or plainer) packaging, some sort of display ban and restrictions on flavours. It has been reported that flavours will be limited to four, although the government hasn't officially said that. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Support for anti-vaping measures was not overwhelming in the consultation. A slight majority were opposed to any further regulation of flavours and it is far from clear that there was majority support for the other measures either. As I said on <a href="https://snowdon.substack.com/p/how-to-rig-a-public-consultation">Substack</a>, the consultation was full of leading questions and the response is written in such a slippery way that it is impossible to get to the bottom of some of the numbers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Even the generational smoking ban, which Downing Street thinks is hugely popular, was only supported by 63% of respondents. Since only 28,000 people responded, a concerted campaign to rally opponents to respond to the consultation could have swung it the other way and given the government more of a headache. <a href="http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2024/1/30/the-public-has-spoken-but-the-pm-isnt-listening.html">When people think through what the policy means, most oppose it.</a><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">69% supported banning disposable vapes. This seems to roughly reflect public opinion but, as I say in <i><a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/banning-disposable-e-cigarettes-wont-stop-kids-vaping/">The Spectator</a></i>, when only 24% of the public understand that vaping is much safer than smoking, a wiser government would not pander to the majority. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><p></p><blockquote><p>For the minority of Britons who understand that vaping is much less
hazardous than smoking and that e-cigarettes are proven to be the most
effective way to get people off cigarettes, banning a whole category of
vapes is a risky move. A study funded by Cancer Research UK concluded
that banning disposables ‘has the potential to slow progress in driving
down smoking prevalence and reducing smoking-related harm’. The pressure
group Action on Smoking (ASH), which usually shares the public’s love
for banning things, says that ‘the risk of unintended consequences is
too great for us to support a ban’. ASH’s former director, Clive Bates,
says the proposed ban ‘sinks further into empty gesture politics, goes
against evidence, does more harm than good, and makes everything worse’.
He has called on the Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, to resign for
publicly supporting it.</p></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Having always opposed a ban on disposables, I note that ASH are now cautiously welcoming it. Perhaps they don't want to bite the hand that feeds it (the Department of Health) or maybe prohibitionists are just inherently untrustworthy. They used to explicitly state that there were <a href="https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2023/10/when-ash-pretended-to-oppose-prohibition.html">'not trying to get tobacco banned'</a>, but that soon changed when the winning line was in sight.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I predict that this will be a nightmare to enforce and will not give the Tories any bump in the polls, although James O'Brien likes the policy so that's something for Sunak to cling to. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you want to understand why the public are so ignorant about vaping and you have a high pain threshold, try reading <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-ban-vapes-cigarettes-31992848">this garbage in the <i>Mirror</i></a>. 'Fleet Street Fox' (Susie Boniface) thinks that nicotine must be dangerous because it's a pesticide. Nicotine is a natural pesticide, which is why it is in the tobacco plant in the first place, but Boniface struggles with the idea that a substance can serve more than one purpose (caffeine is also a pesticide, for example). She then goes on a weird rant about neo-nicotinoids and calls for all nicotine to be banned.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Limit patches and vapes with nicotine to be prescription-only and
medically supervised to wean addicts off the stuff, like we do with
methadone, and give the nation its health and sanity back. <p>But he
won't do that, because for every single year since Brexit the UK
government has allowed the "emergency use" of neonicitinoid pesticides
on British farmland despite the fact expert committees, the COP summits
and everyone with a brain has yelled at them to stop doing so. Perhaps
it's related to the fact these pesticides are commonly used by sugar
beet farmers in East Anglia, home to the bluest of safe seats, and as
Brexity as Boris Johnson's underpants. If Rishi banned nicotine being
ingested by people, those same people might wonder why he's still
spraying it on Norfolk.</p></blockquote><p></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Slightly less insane, but equally ignorant is <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/01/29/nothing-unfair-about-stopping-people-self-harm-vaping/">this nonsense in the <i>Telegraph</i></a> in which Celia Walden confidently predicts, based on nothing whatsoever and contrary to 15 years of research, that vaping will one day be revealed to be "far more dangerous than smoking". </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">While doing the media rounds in the last couple of days, I encountered some misinformation face to face when a GP asserted that smoking and vaping were equally dangerous, although he backed down somewhat when challenged.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">“There is absolutely no evidence for that. There is a mountain of evidence to show the contrary…”<br /><br />Our <a href="https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cjsnowdon</a> addresses the widespread misconception that vaping is as dangerous or even more dangerous than smoking with <a href="https://twitter.com/petercardwell?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@petercardwell</a> on <a href="https://twitter.com/TalkTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TalkTV</a> 👇 <a href="https://t.co/fAA9evzxu6">pic.twitter.com/fAA9evzxu6</a></p>— IEA (@iealondon) <a href="https://twitter.com/iealondon/status/1751575916663189564?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 28, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p>This is what we're up against: an absolute tidal wave of lies and vibes from people who should know better.<br /></p></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-68647348893504416402024-01-28T11:14:00.003+00:002024-01-28T11:14:24.209+00:00Last Orders with Rob Lyons<p><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/starmers-nanny-state/">New episode here.</a> We discuss Labour's public health plans, large wine glasses and the sinister rise of Brummie bashing.<br /></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-74343358259139074262024-01-24T15:25:00.005+00:002024-01-24T15:25:45.950+00:00The MMR blame game<div style="text-align: left;">The usual people on Twitter were scoring easy retweets last week when the resurgence of measles was in the news.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Can't imagine why. <a href="https://t.co/R1tv9SF6bt">pic.twitter.com/R1tv9SF6bt</a></p>— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) <a href="https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1748463126209568962?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2024</a></blockquote><p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> </p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm as happy as the next man to take a pop at the <i>Daily Mail</i>'s health coverage (take the way <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12996999/Young-Brits-NEVER-smoked-use-disposable-vapes.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=social-twitter_mailonline">they're reported</a> this <a href="https://twitter.com/DrSarahEJackson/status/1750046096208888239">useful study about disposable vapes</a> today, for example), but it is a bit much to blame news articles from 20 years ago for the post-Covid decline in measles vaccinations, especially when there are better people to blame.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As I say in <i><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/the-disingenuous-anti-vax-blame-game/">The Critic</a></i>...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If we’re going hark back to 2002 to
find a culprit for the current situation, why not go back another four
years to where it all started in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Lancet</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">?
If Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent study linking the MMR vaccine to
gastrointestinal disease and autism hadn’t been published in one of the
world’s top medical journals, he may still have made a career for
himself as a celebrity anti-vaxxer, but it is unlikely that the
newspapers would have taken his claims seriously if he had been a mere
blogger. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One thing about the Wakefield affair
that isn’t talked about enough is that even if the study had not been
fraudulent it was unworthy of publication in a journal of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The</span></i> <i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lancet</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">’s
stature. It involved just twelve children, eight of whom had parents
who believed the MMR vaccine had something to do with their behavioural
disorders. As it transpired, the children had not spontaneously
presented themselves at a hospital but had been hand-picked by Wakefield
to create a narrative, but it was feeble evidence either way and
amounted to little more than hearsay. The decision of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Lancet</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">’s
editor Richard Horton to publish the study gave it far more publicity
and gravitas than it would have deserved even if it were an honest piece
of research. It should have come as no surprise when it led to an
international health scare.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">By 2004, the MMR-autism narrative had fallen apart and Wakefield’s </span><a href="https://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm"><span style="font-weight: 400;">financial interests </span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">in
the scare had been exposed, but Horton did not fully retract the study
until the General Medical Council struck Wakefield off the Medical
Register and described his conduct as “dishonest and irresponsible” in
2010, twelve years after it was published. </span><a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7001"><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to Brian Deer</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, who uncovered Wakefield’s fraud in the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sunday Times</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Horton was opposed to the GMC getting involved in the matter at all.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/the-disingenuous-anti-vax-blame-game/">Do have a read.</a><br /></div><p></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-42414896016633544802024-01-18T10:56:00.000+00:002024-01-18T10:56:05.030+00:00The tree burning racket<div style="text-align: left;">I've written a briefing for the IEA about the perverse incentives that have led to the UK importing millions of tonnes of wood pellets to burn to make electricity. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><p></p><blockquote><p>The negative externalities of greenhouse gas emissions leave more scope for political decisions and scientific judgements in the energy market than in many other markets, but this does not mean that governments should ‘pick winners’, nor does it mean that market forces are redundant. On the contrary, governments should set what Milton Friedman called ‘the rules of the game’ and allow the best solutions to prevail through ‘open and free competition without deception or fraud’. We need an institutional framework that is technology-neutral and open to all, leaving it to innovators to produce environmentally sound energy at the lowest cost.</p><p>Current carbon accounting practices create perverse incentives and allow governments to boast about reductions in carbon dioxide emissions that only exist on paper. It is difficult to imagine the British government permitting, let alone subsidising, the incineration of imported wood chips to generate electricity if the emissions were counted on its own balance sheet. Far from internalising the externalities, the current system allows governments to completely ignore the externalities of this form of electricity generation, thereby blunting the price mechanism and distorting the market. Without this distortion, it is unlikely that woody biomass would be part of the UK’s energy mix at all.</p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's a short briefing so if you want an easy explainer of the arguments for and against the supposedly carbon neutral biomass industry, <a href="https://iea.org.uk/publications/trees-for-burning-the-biomass-controversy/">click here</a>.<br /></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-74678729076713097492024-01-17T16:21:00.002+00:002024-01-17T16:51:54.158+00:00Are children getting smaller?<div style="text-align: left;">The claim that British children are shrinking due to malnutrition/austerity/ultra-processed food/Brexit won't go away. Devi 'zero Covid' Sridhar mentioned it in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/17/british-irish-world-beating-fruit-and-veg-eaters"><i>Guardian</i></a> today. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><p></p><blockquote><p>Data shows that <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/21/children-raised-under-uk-austerity-shorter-than-european-peers-study">children in the UK</a> are becoming shorter compared to other countries, and <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/labour-says-british-children-are-getting-shorter-under-the-tories_uk_659ea780e4b0bfe5ff656ff3">it’s been asserted</a>
that the average height of a five-year-old in the UK is likely to have
decreased because of rising child poverty and Conservative austerity
policies.</p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But, as I say in <a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/good-news-is-bad-news-for-public-health-experts/"><i>The Critic</i></a> today...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: 400;">Devi gets it right the first time
when she says kids are “becoming shorter compared to other countries”
but gets it wrong the second time when she claims that average height
has decreased. </span><a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/supplementary-information/2023/average-height-of-children-in-reception-and-year-6-by-sex-and-academic-year"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The fact</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">
is that British children have never been taller. They have grown by
about a centimetre on average since 2010. </span><br /></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Let's nail this once and for all. Some media have being saying that the UK has slipped down the rankings when it comes to the height of five year olds (true), but others have claimed that their height has decreased in absolute terms. <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-british-children-lag-behind-peers-in-height-league-table-fdzp78fbx"><i>The Times</i></a> used the graph below which seems to show a 2mm decline since 2013.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiEJNykjlDDKk0hnRQJhH8gFf2N0-hZxaeMdaNeIcke6x7GDUraXfkfKrLjakV50Op5EscQ97fgJks7GFI58-SUnye2kVX2moRtgvGCA9GIfT-349zkqeCN2jSX-lTDh5y5O-Kjqy2ejht6doEnWNPf4VB6-Y5MQoT8PMWnaGGMUp1LAmycnclF-qYsiQ/s585/Screenshot%202024-01-17%20at%2015.34.31.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="585" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiEJNykjlDDKk0hnRQJhH8gFf2N0-hZxaeMdaNeIcke6x7GDUraXfkfKrLjakV50Op5EscQ97fgJks7GFI58-SUnye2kVX2moRtgvGCA9GIfT-349zkqeCN2jSX-lTDh5y5O-Kjqy2ejht6doEnWNPf4VB6-Y5MQoT8PMWnaGGMUp1LAmycnclF-qYsiQ/w400-h331/Screenshot%202024-01-17%20at%2015.34.31.png" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">As you can see, the source for these figures is the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration. If you visit <a href="https://ncdrisc.org/data-downloads-height.html">their website</a>, their source is <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31859-6/fulltext#sec1">this study</a> from the <i>Lancet</i>. And if you look at the <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31859-6/attachment/379a3bc8-9b5e-4001-bf64-f08a27a75099/mmc1.pdf">appendix</a> of that study, you'll see that its source for the UK figures is the National Child Measurement Study. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">It could hardly be anything else. The National Child Measurement Study is the only piece of research that measures the height of the nation's school children. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The <a href="https://ncdrisc.org/data-downloads-height.html">figures</a> published by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration do indeed suggest a slight reduction in height in the last decade or so. The trouble is that the figures from the National Child Measurement Study do not. They are shown below and can be downloaded <a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/supplementary-information/2023/average-height-of-children-in-reception-and-year-6-by-sex-and-academic-year">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxEh7to9JXth8sM68huDTjlBi6uLdJUGZtLpS7cMD6eP6Sb9_t0fql9AkSMnnWff7ofa4bX7MuwKYOdYcxaQwxoRnZQQNM0RHlWMaCZNK5VSNzmO7LrCXF9SdPqYE0hXFkRK9MYQwurtFBvh-N3KMYodGHnNx2qmlYVDYq1exTpI1AlSNar1uQYUeQiJY/s641/Screenshot%202024-01-17%20at%2015.35.12.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="641" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxEh7to9JXth8sM68huDTjlBi6uLdJUGZtLpS7cMD6eP6Sb9_t0fql9AkSMnnWff7ofa4bX7MuwKYOdYcxaQwxoRnZQQNM0RHlWMaCZNK5VSNzmO7LrCXF9SdPqYE0hXFkRK9MYQwurtFBvh-N3KMYodGHnNx2qmlYVDYq1exTpI1AlSNar1uQYUeQiJY/w400-h319/Screenshot%202024-01-17%20at%2015.35.12.png" width="400" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: left;">These figures show that the height of boys and girls stayed much the same between 2009/10 and 2018/19, but has risen in recent years. On average, Reception age kids (aged 4-5) are nearly a centimetre taller than they were in 2012/13.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The figures between 2006/07 and 2008/09 are slightly higher than the figures in the years immediately after, but the researchers say that they "could have been affected by lower participation in the measurement programme." The figures for 2020/21 are unusually high because they were taken later in the school year than usual (and so the kids were bigger). The figures for 2019/20 were also affected by the pandemic and may not be comparable.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Excluding the anomalous year of 2020/21, the most recent years show that English children are, on average, taller than ever. As far as I can see, the figures from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration are simply wrong. For example, they give a figure of 112.5cm for five year old boys in 2019 which is a couple of centimetres taller than the figure above.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The NCD's figures are for the UK whereas the figures above are for England, but I seriously doubt that this explains the discrepancy. The NCD cites the Scottish Health Survey as an additional source but doesn't cite anything for Wales or Northern Ireland. It is implausible that the addition of Scottish figures could change both the data points and the overall trend so much.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I can't really explain why the NCD/Lancet figures bear so little resemblance to the figures in the source they cite, but they do seem to be wrong.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Don't forget to read <a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/good-news-is-bad-news-for-public-health-experts/">my piece in <i>The Critic</i></a>.<br /></span></p></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-51022188252305269572024-01-17T10:22:00.000+00:002024-01-17T10:22:00.128+00:00Last Orders with Lou Perez<p>This week's episode is with US comedian Lou Perez. <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/punching-down/">Have a listen.</a><br /></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-25529386165394334902024-01-15T17:32:00.002+00:002024-01-15T17:32:11.127+00:00The inanity of 'public health': gambling edition<p>The <i>British Medical Journal </i>has published another <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj.q16" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">little rant about gambling</a> from two academics of no fixed ability. It’s kind of fascinating watching the ‘public health’ racket try to get its grubby little hands on this issue. They clearly realise that <a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/the-anti-gambling-racket/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">there is money in it</a> and they instinctively hate the activity, but they know <i>nothing</i> about it and can’t be bothered to learn.</p><p>The article is titled ‘How we can solve the crisis in UK gambling policy’ but it contains not a single policy proposal, nor even a description of the problem (sorry, ‘crisis’) that they are supposedly trying to solve. Normally, the authors of opinion pieces like this have a particular policy in mind - usually a ban of some sort - and they cite a bit of modelling or some other quack science that suggests the policy will work. They will editorialise a bit about how dreadful a particular industry is and how weak the government has been and how everyone is going to die of liver cirrhosis or heart disease by 2030 unless something is done, but the article will at least have a purpose.</p><p>This one is rather different. Insofar as it has a purpose, it is to solidify the idea that <i>something must be done</i> and that people in ‘public health’ should decide what that thing is at some point in the future. But it is completely devoid of ideas, contains no insight at all and simply copies and pastes rhetoric used in similar articles about other lifestyle issues, most obviously smoking. As such, it is modern ‘public health’ academia stripped down to its essence, a load of empty waffle and pompous clichés. </p><div style="text-align: left;">The word ‘industry’ appears 24 times and it’s not a long article. That could be some kind of record. There is no acknowledgement that the gambling industry is really a group of competing industries (including, with the lottery, the British government) who produce very different products. To <i>BMJ</i> readers, the very word 'industry' has sinister connotations that grow stronger with repetition. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The authors want a revolution in the way gambling is viewed, one which gives know-nothing 'public health' grifters the top seat at the table.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><blockquote><p>The Gambling Act 2005 was harmful from its inception. Designed to make the UK the centre of the online gambling industry [<i>eh?! - CJS</i>], it defined people, not products, as the problem, and required the regulator and local authorities to “aim to permit” gambling. A public health approach cannot be “bolted on” to legislation that is based on completely opposing logic. A public health approach requires a transformational shift.</p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">And what would that look like in practice? The authors spend the next ten paragraphs not telling us, but it seems to involve giving 'public health' academics lots of money and burning the existing literature on gambling disorders.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p><blockquote><p>Concerning gaps can be found in the evidence base around gambling, including a lack of research focusing on characterising the true nature, scale, and cost of harms to those affected and society. These lacunas, favourable to industry, are products of a system where, for decades, the industry has been the dominant funder. Research programmes are fragmented and much of the output continues to focus on individuals and not the industry. Until the silo of gambling research is breached, and academics are required to compete alongside other areas of public health for funding, it is likely that the same conditions will endure.</p></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Notice how many bald assertions appear in that paragraph. We are told that "the true nature, scale, and cost of harms" associated with gambling have been deliberately overlooked. Even if that were the case, how would a better estimate help form better policy rather than help activists get publicity? They complain that "much of the output continues to focus on individuals and not the industry". What would be the optimal amount of research focusing on individuals? None? How would it help to focus research about a psychological condition on "the industry"?<br /></div><p>The authors then lay out “four critical areas”. They have already mentioned three of them: how industry funding supposedly shapes gambling research, how problem gambling shouldn’t be seen as an issue of personal responsibility, and the alleged problems with industry-funded research (again). They do not provide any evidence that these are genuine problems and I would like to see them in a room with academics such as Mark Griffiths and Jonathan Parke who have been studying gambling for years (sometimes with industry grants) and see if they will tell them to their faces that they are corrupt - which, when you boil it down, is what they’re insinuating.</p><div style="text-align: left;">Finally…</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><blockquote><p>Which brings us to our fourth and most important point. If, in the absence of industry derived funds, the NHS cannot afford to manage the burden of harm caused by the way we regulate gambling then the solution is not more funding, but a change to the regulations. </p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">"Industry derived funds" refers to the forthcoming gambling levy which the real headbangers in 'public health' are theoretically opposed to because, as the <i>BMJ </i>authors see it, it "entrenches the dangerous idea that the industry can grow without limits, as long as it pays for the harm it causes". We shall see whether these reservations prevent them from taking money from the gambling levy pot when the time comes. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The idea that the NHS cannot afford to manage the "burden of harm" related to gambling is nuts. Gambling isn't really a health issue at all and the wowsers have had to go to great lengths to present it as one.If everyone stopped gambling tomorrow, the impact on the NHS would be too small to measure.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But they claim not to want more funding. Instead they want "a change to the regulations". Very well. Which ones? What new regulations need to be introduced and why? Again, they don’t say. Instead they say...</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><blockquote><p>It is extraordinary that we welcome industry funding for “problem gambling” clinics. Imagine if instead of adopting effective tobacco control policy, including measures to protect policymaking from industry influence, we had praised tobacco companies for funding cancer treatment services.</p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Everything comes back to tobacco with these people. They are incapable of seeing an issue through any other prism. But gambling is an activity not a substance. Problem gambling is a psychological disorder not a physical disease. The vast majority of gamblers do so enjoyably and without developing a problem. Even among problem gamblers, only a fraction get into serious money trouble and only a <i>tiny</i> fraction suffer ill health as an indirect result. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">In any case, we <i>do </i>tax tobacco to pay for the negative externalities. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><blockquote><p>If we, as health professionals and policymakers, fail to call for a new Act, and allow the current approach to gambling regulation to be preserved under the guise of “public health,” we are part of the problem, not the solution.</p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">But you’re not really health professionals or policy-makers, are you? <a href="https://www.gold.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/r-cassidy/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">One of you</a> is a social anthropologist and <a href="https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/view/creators/phsrmvan.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the other one</a> writes identikit articles about alcohol/smoking/gambling/Brexit that read like they were written by ChatGPT (look at the state of <a href="https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/4660944/1/1-s2.0-S2468266717300142-main.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this</a>, for example). </div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">It's difficult to know what else to say about an article that doesn't say anything. There have been a lot of these recently. On the odd occasion when the people who write them suggest some policies, <a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/25/no-gambling-is-not-a-public-health-issue/">the policies are preposterous</a> and only confirm that they don't know what they're talking about.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><p id="p-15"></p><blockquote><p id="p-15">We thank Mark Petticrew for his thoughtful and insightful feedback during the drafting of the opinion piece.</p></blockquote><p id="p-15"></p><div id="p-15" style="text-align: left;"> </div><div id="p-15" style="text-align: left;">Imagine asking for input from <a href="https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/search?q=petticrew&max-results=20&by-date=true">Mark Petticrew</a> and finding it insightful.<br /></div><div id="p-15" style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Apparently, the <i>Lancet</i> is publishing something about gambling soon. That should be a laugh. The authors have just had a two day workshop. I wonder when any of them last placed a bet?<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">The end of a brilliant 2 day workshop, finalising the recommendations for The Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling- coming in 2024! Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLancetPH?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheLancetPH</a> for hosting and our amazing commissioners for flying in to make it happen. <a href="https://twitter.com/GlaGamRes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GlaGamRes</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UofGSocSci?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UofGSocSci</a> <a href="https://t.co/jrowbCQkC6">pic.twitter.com/jrowbCQkC6</a></p>— Heather Wardle (@shwardle) <a href="https://twitter.com/shwardle/status/1745828377120927975?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-38012411859215433632024-01-15T10:21:00.004+00:002024-01-15T10:21:33.671+00:00Stunted<div style="text-align: left;">The Labour Party has put forward a mixed bag of 'public health' policies for children, including some sort of national tooth-brushing scheme. It was launched with a bunch of half-truths and falsehoods about British children being stunted and fat which I have examined for <i><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/12/labour-is-lying-through-its-teeth-about-childrens-health/">Spiked</a></i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p>Labour <a href="https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/labours-child-health-action-plan-will-create-the-healthiest-generation-of-children-ever/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">wants to create</a>
a ‘national supervised toothbrushing programme for three- to
five-year-olds’ to be paid for by taxing non-doms. Some people will
argue that teaching kids to brush their teeth is the responsibility of
parents. Others will argue that some parents are stupid and feckless.
Still others will ask how the <a href="https://www.rsmuk.com/insights/tax-voice/do-labours-plans-to-abolish-the-uks-non-dom-tax-regime-leave-a-2bn-tax-black-hole#:~:text=Labour%20has%20previously%20referred%20to,income%20tax%20and%20capital%20gains" rel="noopener" target="_blank">relatively small sum of money</a> that will come from abolishing non-dom status is able to cover an endless succession of spending pledges.
</p><p>Learning to brush your teeth is more useful than a lot of things
young children are taught at school. And Starmer is right to identify it
as the best and perhaps only way to prevent tooth decay. His scheme is
only going to cost <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67943548" rel="noopener" target="_blank">£9million</a> a year and it won’t infringe on the rights of adults, so I don’t really care either way. I am more concerned by <a href="https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/labours-child-health-action-plan-will-create-the-healthiest-generation-of-children-ever/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Starmer’s support</a>
for the incremental ban on smoking and the ban on so-called junk-food
advertising. I am also concerned that Starmer appears to believe that
British children are a bunch of podgy, stunted troglodytes with rotten
teeth, as this is simply not true.</p></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/12/labour-is-lying-through-its-teeth-about-childrens-health/">Do read it all.</a><br /></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-14729655486259560222024-01-12T13:52:00.006+00:002024-01-12T14:01:51.727+00:00Vaping and heart attacks<p>Junk science veteran Stanton Glantz is excited about a study that purports to show that vaping causes heart attacks (myocardial infarction). The study was published in November last year but appeared in the obscure, low status (and possibly <a href="https://www.sla.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Predatory-Journal-Publishing.pdf">predatory</a>) journal <i><a href="https://www.emeraldcityjournal.com/2016/08/some-strange-goings-on-at-cureus/">Cureus</a></i> and, thankfully, the media never picked it up.</p><p>The author, Talal Alzahrani, had previously produced a widely criticised <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30166079/">study</a> claiming that e-cigarette use is associated with heart attacks which included dual users of vapes and cigarettes and therefore could not isolate the effect of smoking from the putative effect of vaping. Glantz was a co-author. Glantz himself has had a study claiming that vaping causes heart attacks <a href="https://retractionwatch.com/2020/02/18/journal-retracts-hotly-contested-paper-on-vaping-and-heart-attacks/">retracted</a>. The new study, written by Alzahrani alone, seeks to avoid the earlier problem by looking only at vapers who say that they have never smoked. </p><div style="text-align: left;">As Glantz says on his <a href="https://profglantz.com/2024/01/10/e-cigarettes-associated-with-heart-attacks-in-never-smokers/">blog</a>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p>To get enough adult e-cigarette users who never smoked, Alzahrani
combined data from the US National Health Interview Surveys from 2014
through 2021, which yielded 1237 never smoking e-cigarette users. <b><i>After
controlling for other risk factors for heart attack, he found that
current e-cigarette users had 2.6 times the odds of having had a heart
attack as non-e-cigarette users (95% CI 1.44-4.77) compared with never
smokers who did not use e-cigarettes</i></b>.</p></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">This is not far off the risk associated with smoking and is highly implausible from the outset since vapes do not contain many of the substances in cigarettes that are known to cause heart disease. The most suspicious thing about the study is that it does not show how many heart attacks occurred among the vaping and non-vaping groups. All we are given are the adjusted relative risks.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And there must have been some <i>huge</i> adjustments because everything about the vaping group implies that they would suffer <i>fewer</i> heart attacks.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">A total of 139,697 subjects were never users, and
1,237 subjects were current e-cigarette users. The data analysis showed
that current e-cigarette users were significantly younger than never users. E-cigarette users were less likely to be female (40% vs. 60%, p
<0.01), or have diabetes (3% vs. 10%, p <0.01), have hypertension
(11% vs. 32%, p <0.01), hypercholesterolemia (8% vs. 27%, p
<0.01), have or be overweight or obese (56% vs. 65%, p <0.01)
compared to never users.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The average age of the vapers was 28 whereas the average age of the control group was 50. Heart attacks are very rare among young people and there were only 1,237 never-smoking vapers to study. If you can find the data from the US National Health Interview Surveys, you may be able to confirm or deny, but I would bet the following:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Firstly, that there were a tiny number of heart attacks among the never-smoking vapers. I would be very surprised if there were more than ten.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Secondly, that a larger proportion of the controls had a heart attack than the never-smoking vapers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thirdly, that the claimed association between vaping and heart attacks is purely the result of adjustments made to the data that defy logic.<br /></div><p>Why else would he not show the unadjusted figures? Why else would he not submit his study - which, if its findings were true, is incredibly important - to a decent journal? </p><p><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullius_in_verba">Nullius in verba</a></i>.<br /></p><p></p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-42817872144810781692024-01-10T13:39:00.003+00:002024-01-10T13:39:17.080+00:00Another Simon Chapman zinger<div style="text-align: left;">Following Becky Freeman's <a href="https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2024/01/australias-vaping-train-wreck.html">gob-smackingly stupid comments</a> about e-cigarette prohibition in Australia, her old mentor Simon Chapman has since outdone her.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>Professor
Simon Chapman of Public Health at the University of Sydney said vapes
needed to be strictly regulated, and objected to calling the reforms a
‘ban’.</p><p>‘Vapes are not being banned but strictly regulated like
they always should have been. Anyone who says they are banned probably
also believes that every prescribed drug in Australia is by the same
argument also banned,’ Professor Chapman told media. </p></blockquote><p>Prohibition can’t fail if there’s no prohibition! Checkmate libertarians!</p><p><span>Needless
to say, alcohol was available on prescription during Prohibition in the
USA and yet no one was in any doubt that alcohol was, er, prohibited.
Laughing gas was </span><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nitrous-oxide-to-be-illegal-from-november" rel="">banned</a><span>
in the UK last year, but is still available for medical use. Opiates
are banned but can be obtained on prescription. So, yes, it is
reasonable to describe any substance that it only available under
medical supervision as being ‘banned’. </span></p></blockquote><p><span></span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Read more on my <a href="https://snowdon.substack.com/p/e-cignorance">Substack</a>.<br /></div>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585028625507474093.post-40203603757895343802024-01-09T15:40:00.002+00:002024-01-09T15:43:22.030+00:00Libertarian activism on the streets of East Grinstead<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNAIwDrn-CbIl45Igw4E8XZlqhnEqS_x2zXAYFBzt_Df_gNB9_4DfF3YxyCM8NycT4YXx9nnCsimpq6RZY3CK-v3GkwJGOlY5m3DaIUHafqEVUlkQB1jmDG4LRpN-Yru2Hgd9mRpg7PeL-fgft2XXfBy23_DNturIOGi5PhzghB9nMt6FYqDc3usI2mNo/s1456/2b47911c-d5cc-43a8-8fc6-e59b41c2798c_2016x1512.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="1456" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNAIwDrn-CbIl45Igw4E8XZlqhnEqS_x2zXAYFBzt_Df_gNB9_4DfF3YxyCM8NycT4YXx9nnCsimpq6RZY3CK-v3GkwJGOlY5m3DaIUHafqEVUlkQB1jmDG4LRpN-Yru2Hgd9mRpg7PeL-fgft2XXfBy23_DNturIOGi5PhzghB9nMt6FYqDc3usI2mNo/w400-h300/2b47911c-d5cc-43a8-8fc6-e59b41c2798c_2016x1512.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Libertarian Charlie Amos took to the streets of East Grinstead at the weekend to rally some opposition to Sunak's tobacco ban. As you might expect, he got a mixed reception. You can read his amusing account <a href="https://themusingindividualist.substack.com/p/the-battle-against-the-tobacco-ban">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><p></p><blockquote><p>When it comes to those who favour the ban the central reason given for
it was smoking is bad. A medical professional simply said ‘People are
stupid’ and when I asked an older lady whether she would like to sign
the petition she said ‘I’m a doctor’ and walked off as if that was
reason enough.</p><p>... I am pleased to report though there remains a strong contingent of
liberals within Britain. A few quotes should illustrate this: ‘Why ban
anything’, ‘I am against smoking, but it should be a free choice’,
‘They’ve got no right to tell us what we can and can’t do’, ‘They should
allow everything’ and ‘People should have the right to choose’ and ‘I
think people should be free to smoke crack’. After explaining how
although I thought smoking was bad, but people should be free to do bad
things to themselves, to a young shop assistant, I managed to convince
her to the cause too (although given she was a smoker ‘on the edge’ this
may not have been that hard). Orwell’s name was spontaneously mentioned
as was the ‘nanny state’ and ‘Big Brother is watching you’ as well –
reassuring facts. <br /></p><p>... A side note here is the two people I spoke to who put forward the
idea the World Economic Forum is trying to take over the world and
control everyone actually favoured the tobacco ban, such is their
commitment to freedom. How someone who quotes ‘You will own nothing and
be happy’ at people and not be against the tobacco ban frustrates me,
because, it shows their opposition to authoritarianism is really skin
deep and not really rooted in an intrinsic love of freedom. An older
woman who opposes the WEF, who, I had spoken to last year, declined to
sign my petition as well. Usually, I’d leave it there, but this woman
had a ‘Keep Britain Free’ label on the back of her jacket, so, I thought
I’d try and persuade her. Although she opposed ‘the paedophiles and
Communists’ at the WEF she would not accept they were the same people as
the paternalists, (even when I said paternalism was at the root of the
fifteen-minute cities she explicitly opposed), and, when I jibbed her
she wanted to keep Britain free, but not to make mistakes such as taking
up smoking, she remained resolute in her support for the ban. She ended
up taking a leaflet though.</p><p>... I must say people are willing to go onto all sorts of tangents when you
talk to them in public, this is probably selection bias, i.e., lonely
people who never get to talk to anyone will gladly speak to someone,
anyone, who is willing to listen to them. This is why I ended up hearing
about the situation in Israel, someone being banned from Wetherspoons
and foreigners entering the country.</p></blockquote><p> <br /></p><p> </p>Christopher Snowdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15963753745009712865noreply@blogger.com0