Further to yesterday's post about the latest dodgy heart attack/smoking ban study, Dr Michael Siegel shows—yet again—how a global news story has been manufactured out of nothing.
Here we have a study where the paper itself asserts that no causal conclusion can be drawn, yet the media were apparently told that the study showed a reduction in severe heart attacks due to the smoking ban.
Why bother doing the research if you are going to tell the media the same thing no matter how the study results come out?
In addition, the study itself uses misleading, inappropriate, and non-scientific language in describing its findings.
Why can't researchers writing about this issue of smoking bans and heart attacks simply tell it like it is? Why do they have to use non-scientific weasel language to avoid what is apparently a pre-determined conclusion? And how does this get past the peer review of the journal?
Whatever these researchers are getting paid to prostitute their integrity (if they ever had any), I hope they think it's worth it.
(I couldn't find the study yesterday so I assumed it hadn't been published yet. In fact it was published in December last year. Why are tobacco control making a fuss of it now, I wonder?)
2 comments:
This study was conducted by
GeoHealth Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand?
Wow, and not a word about the public health of polar bears?
Do you have copy writer for so good articles? If so please give me contacts, because this really rocks! :)
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