Humorous magazine celebrates 20th anniversary

The Tobacco Control journal—soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent—is celebrating its 20th anniversary, although Anna Gilmore has been working on a computer model which claims it's actually been around for 1,000 years once you make adjustments. To commemorate this occasion, the organ has produced a free issue with a whole section on 'Endgame Visions'. 'Endgame' is the codeword for prohibition and will be featuring in the forthcoming 15th World Conference on Tobacco or [sic] Health. Book early to ensure disappointment, for it has such sessions as:

09:00 – 10:30 - Endgame ideas: Dangerously radical, visionary leadership or both?

15:45 – 17:45 - Planning for a tobacco endgame

Whilst e-cigarettes spread around the world entirely by word of mouth and Sweden enjoys its snus-driven record low lung cancer rate, our prohibitionist friends will be sleepily contemplating such questions as...

11:00 – 12:20 - Harm reduction: Are there "safer products"?

I'm guessing their answer will be: "Yes, but only the stuff made by Pfizer and Johnston & Johnston."

Back at Tobacco Control, we have the same over-optimistic 'endgame' rhetoric, with articles entitled 'What are the elements of the tobacco endgame?' and 'How smoking became history: looking back to 2012'. Would it be impolite to mention that there are more people smoking today than ever before, or that there will be more people smoking tomorrow than today?

It just seems kind of weird to be talking about eliminating smoking when global consumption hits a new peak every day. And even if it wasn't, it's very brave of Stanton Glantz—a man renowned for being economical with the truth—to pen an article entitled 'Pinocchio shows how to end the tobacco epidemic' (I kid you not.)

This rich seam can wait till another day to be mined. For now, let's raise a glass and celebrate what Tobacco Control has been doing better than any other journal for two decades: publishing unspoofable, illiterate, policy-driven garbage under the mantle of science. You may have seen headlines like this yesterday:

Scientists call for smoke-free areas outside pubs

Scientists, cool! I wonder if they are this sort of scientist?

Or this sort of scientist?

Let's examine the credentials of our lead researcher:

Janet Hoek joined University of Otago Marketing Department in 2009; she was formerly a Professor of Marketing at Massey University. Her first degrees were in English Literature, with minors in Botany and Zoology, and her Masterate examined irony in Beowulf, a very early medieval poem. The weak employment market for medievalists prompted her move from the Dark Ages to the Dark Side, and she subsequently completed a post-graduate diploma in marketing and a PhD.

This lady sounds, if anything, rather overqualified for Tobacco Control and, unusually for that journal, her study didn't involve typing in key phrases into Google. Instead, she interviewed real people. And not just people—actual smokers! Well, not actual smokers (you can't risk the thirdhand smoke), but social smokers.

Any fool can survey a dozen people to get the answer they want, but Professor Hoek didn't do that. She surveyed thirteen people to got the answer she wanted. Now, there are some people—cynics, sceptics, party-poopers and so on—who would say that if your sample group is in danger of being outnumbered by your research team, then perhaps you should have broadened the survey. Janet didn't feel the need to do that. She and her colleagues conducted "13 in-depth interviews with young adult social smokers aged between 19 and 25 years and used thematic analysis to interpret the transcripts."

The nay-sayers might tell you that the bit about "thematic analysis" is just a bit of guff to quell suspicions that this was a chat with a handful of impressionable young people who had been given $25 (New Zealand dollars) to talk to some anti-smoking folk. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is science. The woman has been trained in marketing, for flip's sake. She would never tried to manipulate anyone.

The subjects were all nonsmokers who had the occasional tab when they were on a night out. We all know people like this. They are the scourge of our city centres on a Friday and Saturday night. They are the people who have successfully given up buying cigarettes. As one respondent said:

“so yeah, that’s part of my rationalizing, if I’m not buying them, I’m not a smoker. If I’m only getting them off people, then it’s not an issue. Because I’m not wasting my money.”

Temperance campaigners will be pleased to hear that alcohol gets a fair bit of the blame, as this fantastically eloquent participant explains:

“Um, you’re more relaxed so you don’t really mind smoking. I dunno, somehow it makes it ... how do you say that, makes it easier to smoke somehow, I’m not sure how, yeah.”

Another scrounging wretch is quoted as saying:

“well everyone else will be out smoking. You don’t want to sit inside on your own and just drink so you’re like ok, I’ll jump up and have a ciggie with you.”

This phenomenon mentioned in that last comment is, of course, an unintended consequence of smoking bans, which helps explain why smoking bans do bugger all to reduce the smoking rate (as Spain has just found). In so far as we should change policy to accommodate these whiny misfits, it should be to relax smoking bans (as Hawaii has just done). This being Tobacco Control, however, that option is not just off the table, but has been knocked off the table, set on fire, stamped on and swept under the carpet. Instead...

Because alcohol plays such a pivotal role in facilitating social smoking, extending smoke-free areas to the outside of bars would decouple drinking from smoking in this environment... Introducing smoke-free outdoor bars could reduce social smoking by removing cues that stimulate this behaviour and changing the environment that facilitates it. Such a policy would eliminate the current intersection between smoke-free and smoking spaces and create a physical barrier that, for some, would make accessing the smoking zone too difficult.

Funnily enough, banning smoking outdoors just happens to be the 'next logical step' for the readers of Tobacco Control! What extraordinary serendipity that this piece of 'science' appears in 2012 just when it was needed for worldwide press release, despite being a dog's breakfast of half-witted statements of the obvious from New Zealand youth.

A moment's thought tells you that if smoking is banned outside pubs then the dwindling number of smokers who still go to pubs will stop altogether, and where will that leave their social smoking friends? Back home with the smokers drinking cheap beer and smoking endless cigarettes, that's where.

But that's just common sense and real-life understanding and, as such, has no place in the world's leading anti-tobacco comic. So, with its survey of thirteen inarticulate morons to guide policy, let's hear it for Tobacco Control as it moves into its third decade of lowering the intellectual standards of the Western world. Cheers!

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Goodbye, you lizard scum

I have a post about the 'toxic sugar' canard over at the Adam Smith Institute. Before you go any further, please click over there and have a read.

I would like to leave it there, but there really is so much more to say. Seriously, has the whole world gone insane? I can understand why the media would pick up on a story like this and I can almost understand why a popular science magazine like Nature would publish the wacky article in the first place. It sells. What I don't get is why a bunch of nodding-dog journalists would respond with half-witted opinion pieces such as 'Evil is among us. And it’s called sugar'.

It's not that I didn't see it coming. I've been saying for years that the anti-tobacco blueprint would be rolled out to alcohol, food and fizzy drinks. It's just that I didn't think it would happen this quickly and when it did happen, I expected gales of laughter and an anti-nanny state backlash. This is manifestly not happening. That is a problem, but it isn't the biggest problem. The truly terrifying thing is that the intellectual climate is so retarded that Nature can publish such an article without feeling any shame.

Look at the people in the video below. Look at their self-satisfied little faces. These are the authors of the toxic sugar article. They are idiots. I do not say that to be insulting, but as a statement of fact. The woman on the right, in particular, should not be trusted with a pair of scissors. She calls herself a "medical sociologist" and works at UCSF. This should disqualify her from going anywhere near a scientific journal. She thinks that sugar is a poison because it is fermented to make alcohol. If you read the Daily Mail, alcohol is made by "distilling sugar". This is what we're up against: cretinous arguments made still more ludicrous by a woefully uneducated media.







The asshole on the left begins by saying "We are in the midst of the biggest public health crisis in the history of the world." He's not talking about the Black Death, cholera, influenza, malaria or even cigarette smoking. He's talking about people drinking fizzy drinks in North America. The guy is either ignorant or insane or a liar. This one statement is enough to discredit him and yet he has made another video in which he says: "Fructose is ethanol without the buzz ... fructose is poison." That video has had nearly two million hits on Youtube. It's over. The morons have won.

He's another UCSF chump and it's no surprise to find that he's friendly with the anti-smoking loons of that quasi-university. In that same video, he refers to "the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library that Stan Glantz runs right across the street. Stan's a good guy. I like Stan a lot." Right there we have another disagreement because Stan is not a good guy. On the contrary, he is a charlatan and a crank and he should be investigated, prosecuted and imprisoned. He is another obsessive fruitcake who has found a pulpit from which to preach his warped, scientifically illiterate ideas thanks to the lax admissions standards of UCSF.

As you may know, Glantz regularly appears on television claiming that half of all teenage smokers picked up the habit solely as a result of seeing smoking in movies. This is a man who should, as Christopher Hitchens might have said, be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign around his neck and selling pencils from a cup. Do interviewers call him on his bampot theories? They do not. Instead he is perched up in San Francisco with millions of dollars of grants and a professorship in a subject which he has not studied at degree level and of which he apparently knows nothing.

Glantz also invented the heart miracle scam. What better illustration of the Western world's plunge into unreason can there be than this? Here we see the perils of the campaigner-researcher, the corruption of peer-review and the pitiful credulity of the media in perfect alignment.

To take just one example, last year Michael Siegel wrote about a heart miracle in one Minnesota county. It was so pathetic I don't think I even mentioned it at the time. In summary, some devious anti-smoking lobbyists cherry-picked a county and claimed that heart attacks had fallen by 45% after the smoking ban. Siegel listed some of the news stories that unquestioningly covered it.

For example, the headline of an ABC News article reads: "Smoking ban cuts cardiac events 45%, Mayo Clinic says."

A Procor headline reads: "Smoking ban cuts heart attacks in half."

A Thirdage.com article headline reads: "Smoking Ban Cuts Heart Attack Risk In Half."

The UPI headline about the research reads: "Smoking ban cut heart attacks risk in half."

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune headline reads: "Smoking bans cut cardiac events 45%."

The EMax Health headline is: "Smoking bans reduce heart attack rates by half, finds study."

The Business Insider headline reads: "Heart Attacks Decreased By 50% After These Workplaces Launched Smoking Bans."

The trick was a simple one. They didn't look at the year of the ban (2007). Instead they compared heart attack rates in 2001 with those of 2008. Sure enough, they fell by 45%, but this was not out of line with the general decline in heart attacks across the USA. The heart attack rate is falling everywhere. You may recall from last week that the UK saw a halving of heart attacks in the same decade. The longer the timeframe the bigger the fall. Cherry-pick one small county (population 150,000) and the effect can be exaggerated further.

This is routine deception on the part of tobacco control, but that is not the point. My point is that you don't need to be privy to this information to work out that "Smoking ban cut heart attacks risk in half" is a bullshit headline. You do not need to be well versed in statistics to work out that, if this were true, half of all heart attacks before the ban were caused by wafts of tobacco smoke in bars and restaurants. And you don't need to be cognisant of medical science to realise that this is simply preposterous.

Similarly, you do you need to understand biology to know that you are not going to get cancer from smelling tobacco on someone's shirt and yet the concept of thirdhand smoke has been widely talked about, not least by the Daily Mail, as if it was anything other than the ramblings of the insane.

Who came up with the idea of thirdhand smoke? Georg Matt. Who's Georg Matt? He's a wacky psychologist based in San Diego. There is a running theme here, is there not?

Where does every crackpot idea come from?

Where does every hysteria-driven, junk science-based ban begin?

Which is the home to the world's worst university?

Which state is dragging the world into an intellectual dark age?

California.

Lex Luther had the right idea. Bill Hicks had the right idea.

California has to go.

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Repetition, repetition, repetition

Knock, knock, knock at the door they go—the incessant whining designed to make the government sigh and give in, with the forlorn hope that maybe they'll finally shut up and go away. We saw it with the smoking ban. We saw it with banning below-cost alcohol.

And do they ever shut up and go away?

They do not.

Ban cut-price alcohol to save lives, leading doctors warn

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, medical experts urge the Government to take “bold action” and follow the lead of Scotland by bringing in minimum prices for drinks.

Firstly, writing a letter to the Telegraph shouldn't be considered front page news, even in the Telegraph.

Secondly, quit it with this "bold action" stuff will you? You tried it last month...

The British Medical Association (BMA) is calling on ministers to bring in the "bold and courageous" ban for reasons of health rather than road safety.

There's nothing bold about putting up tax and banning things. It's cowardly and self-serving. Your attempts at flattery are nauseating and your cynicism is transparent.

Sir Ian [Gilmore—for it is he] is calling for a return to the higher prices of 20 years ago, when alcohol was about 50 per cent more expensive in real terms.

Does anybody understand what 'real terms' means any more? It means 'after adjustment for inflation', not 'compared with average wages'. As I never tire of pointing out, the Office for National Statistics has looked into this and concluded:

Between 1980 and 2008, the price of alcohol increased by 283.3%. After considering inflation (at 21.3%), alcohol prices increased by 19.3% over the period.

Actually, I do tire of pointing this out, so please stop it.

New figures were made public last week showing that twice as many people were being treated in hospital because of alcohol compared with 10 years ago.

New figures?! You must be kidding. The "twice as many people being treated in hospital because of alcohol" story appears more often than the crossword. It's done the rounds three times this year alone (in February, May and December).

In addition to reporting this "news" last week, the Telegraph reported it in May and August—using the same photo to illustrate it on each occasion. It was first reported back in 2008 and has appeared with unfathomable regularity ever since.

The repetition of the 'hospital admissions double' canard (and it is a canard) epitomises the campaign for minimum pricing, which is based on nothing more than a relentless, circling PR exercise by the UK Alcohol Health Alliance modelled on the smoking ban campaign. There is nothing in the article or the accompanying letter of any interest. None of it is new. It is the same hysterical half-truths masquerading as news.

And so, in the absence of anything interesting to write about, I will use the occasion to launch my new leisurewear collection. The Snowdon Winter 2011 collection includes two high quality white t-shirts (other colours are available) featuring simple but lovingly designed motifs which will give the wearer years of satisfaction.

Order now to avoid disappointment.

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The poison pen of Johann Hari

'David Rose':
Oh, what a tangled web we weave

Johann Hari, the plagiarist and liar, has been allowed to keep working at the Independent despite being caught bang to rights as a fraudulent troll. I was barely aware of this fellow's existence until his journalistic techniques were exposed a few months ago. They should have been enough to get him sacked. Instead, the Independent have let him off with a whining, self-serving apology.

More interesting than the shoddy journalism is the Wikipedia trolling. Rumours have abounded for some time that 'David Rose'—Hari's number one fan on the internet—is Hari himself. This has now been confirmed by the bubonic plagiarist. He operated several sockpuppets on Wikipedia to make himself out to be, as Nick Cohen put it, "one of the essential writers of our time". More seriously, he has also persistently edited the Wiki pages of people he dislikes, including Cohen, with libellous glee. This, too, is not a sackable offence at the Independent.

Nothing is deleted on Wikipedia and the entries of David Rose (or 'David r from meth productions') stand as a testimony to the extraordinary scale and range of Hari's six year trolling campaign. Certain themes emerge. Much of his time was spent emphasising his own importance as a major cultural figure. He pushes to have his every award and nomination put centre stage. As a left-wing journalist, he is eager to downplay his privileged education. He consistently edits the pages of his heroes such as Polly Toynbee and George Monbiot to portray them in their best light. He repeatedly edits his enemies to make them look like racists, or thugs, or loonies.

This, again, is apparently all well and good at the Independent.

The depth of the deceit is difficult to put across in a single blog post. The examples below are just just a tiny proportion of his contributions, each of which he fights for, sometimes for months, repeatedly posting them after others have removed them. As other Wiki editors call him out on the subterfuge, Hari goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain the deception. David Rose is given a full back story—details of his education and his career emerge, often with wholly unnecessary detail. At one point, David Rose's IP address is found to be that of the Independent's offices and an elaborate effort is made to portray Rose as a subeditor at the paper, a job that Hari got him (they went to University together, in this fiction).

He is, at the very least, a weird guy, and the Wikipedia edits tell us a few things about him.

He doesn't like people knowing he went to a public school.

Original

He attended Aylward School, the famous fee-paying John Lyon School in Harrow, North Cheshire Theatre School, and Woodhouse College

Hari's version

He attended Aylward School, John Lyon School, North Cheshire Theatre School, and Woodhouse College

But should you happen upon the Wikipedia page of his public school, he wants you to know that he didn't like it there.

One prominent alumnus, Johann Hari, has been very critical of the school, describing it as "appalling" and "a factory-school churning out robotic middle-ranking accountants, and which sees creativity and intellect as a problem."

He doesn't like people knowing that his idols also went to public school either. This, from the Wikpedia entry for George Monbiot.

Original

He was educated at Stowe School, a boys' independent school in Buckinghamshire

Hari's version

He was educated at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire

All pretty mild stuff until we get onto his enemies. He definitely doesn't like (former New Statesman colleague) Christine Odone very much.

She notoriously attacked her colleagues Jackie Ashley and Johann Hari, claiming "to reveal how "viciously" and "wickedly" the Blairites - from Peter Mandelson to Jackie Ashley and Johann Hari - have acted during her six and a half years in the job." She said, "These people - who I call the ‘neo-Left’ - are cancerous crusts on the real old-fashioned socialists like Peter [Wilby]... The neo-Left can’t stand the New Statesman because it is owned and edited by people who are quite old-fashioned Left. So they unleash a poison that has been very personal. I’ve been very close to people on the Right - the Catholic Herald [which she edited] was more right than left, and I’d worked for the Daily Telegraph. However nasty the Right gets, the Left gets much more wicked... I found myself reading that staff had a voodoo doll of me, and were sticking pins in it because they hated me. I’ve even been wished stomach cancer."

Hari replied, "I'm quite worried about Cristina's sanity. This interview is just bizarre. Apparently I am conspiring to create a Blairite coup at the NS with one person I've never met - Peter Mandelson - and one person, Jackie Ashley, who is such a Blairite she calls repeatedly for Blair to resign. And to what end? why would I want a Blairite coup? Hello? Poor Cristina. I hope she is happier - and saner - soon."

He continued, "As for Peter, who she accuses me of attacking, the exact opposite is the truth. I love Peter Wilby. he gave me my big break in journalism, and I have learned more from him than from almost anybody else I can think of. If anything, he will be an even greater editor when he is no longer chained to a very unhappy and paranoid deputy ranting about voodoo dolls and imaginary conspiracies."

He concluded, "And as for the left being more vicious than the right.... well Cristina, of course the right is nice to you. You are one of them. No doubt the right would equally 'vicious' if a left-winger was bizarrely made deputy editor of the Spectator."

In fact, he hates her. (This, from the Wikipedia entry for Jackie Ashley).

Since then, she has been a television news reporter and newspaper journalist, writing for the New Statesman (where she was violently attacked by Cristina Odone)

He doesn't much care for Richard Littlejohn either, as you might expect (his additions are in bold).

Although he is sometimes praised as an antidote to political correctness, other critics see him as a bigot. Littlejohn has shown his dislike for the far-right British National Party by describing them as "knuckle-scraping scum". However, the leader of the far right party, Nick Griffin, has described Littlejohn as his favourite writer.

Littlejohn has a criminal conviction over acts of violence committed in Peterborough in the 1970s.

He sees himself as one of the great intellectuals, (although his spelling could be better).

Hari defines himself as a defender of the Enlightenment as a systme of rational inquiry he believes is under threat.

He does not like people doubting that he is a major figure in public life. (From the Talk page)

I've suggested as a compromise we say "Hari defines himself as a defender of the Enlightenment, which he sees a system of rational thought that is under seige." That is undoubtedly true. This is not a stray judgement - the National Secular Society, founded to protect the values of the Enlightenment, nomintated him for its Secularist of the Year award in 2006 alongside Salman Rushdie and Ayan Hirsi Ali. You may say it is "untrue", Felix, and he is "a fairly trivial op-ed writer" (as well as a "little tyke"), but that is your POV and some very serious people who dedicate their lives to these issues disagree.

You then ask, "Is he an Enlightenment scholar?" No, he is according to the National Secular Society one of the five most distinguished non-scholastic defenders of the Enlightenment in Britain in 2006. Where in the article does it suggest he is a scholar? 

He doesn't like Francis Wheen, who wrote an exposé of Hari in Private Eye. As well as editing his own Wikipedia page to remove all mention of the Private Eye story, Hari added the following section to Wheen's Wikipedia entry.

Wheen has been dubbed "the Rottweiller of Decency" for his alleged habit of attacking people who displease the so-called 'decent' left associated with the Euston Manifesto. He was accused of hypocrisy when in Private Eye he vehemently attacked a review by Johann Hari of the pro-war book 'What's Left' by Nick Cohen, impugning Hari's journalistic standards, without declaring that he is a close personal friend of Cohen's and thanked at length in the book under discussion. Critics charged that this is the sort of unethical behaviour that Wheen condemns so often in others. A letter in Private Eye later argued that the magazine, via Wheen's writings, "attacks honest journalists just because they criticise you and your mates."

He doesn't much care for the then-editor of the Independent, Roger Alton. (Hari's addition in bold—no loyalty to the Indie from Hari.)

In April 2008, Alton was confirmed as the new editor of The Independent, beginning work on 1 July 2008. Since then, the Independent's circulation has plummeted by nearly 20 percent.

He doesn't like the historian Andrew Roberts. (Hari's addition in bold.)

Roberts was raised in the Church of England (Anglican). He attended Cranleigh School. At Cranleigh's senior school he was expelled for drinking, climbing on a roof and cling-filming the lavatories.

He is a rather vain man who spent many months trying to get the photo changed on his Wikipedia entry. This involved the creation of several more sockpuppets and an elaborate wheeze in which he (as David Rose) pretended to be in contact with himself (Johann Hari).

The picture you posted of Hari is barely recognisable; you aren't meant to post odd snaps, they should be reasonable quality photographs where you can see what the person looks like.

Here is the e-mail I revieved from hari re: the original picture I posted (with intro and end-bit edited out, they were about other stuff and a mutual friend):

"Yeah, I own the copyright I guess on that picture, my dad took it on a rare day when I didn't look entirely like a Down's Syndrome. I'm very happy to waive all claims to the copyright and to place it in the public domain. When one day a picture is finally taken showing my remarkable similarity to Brad Pitt I'll let you have that too."

I think that shows we can use the original photo in clear line with the wiki rules.

And then, holding two sockpuppets ('Dave' and 'Jessica'), Hari stages a conversation between the two of them about himself. And third (real) user, Felix, has already seen through the sham.

['Jessica':] Felix, you've again responded to my comments by calling me Dave. This is ludicrous and offensive, as your picture is ludicrous and offensive. I have deleted it again.

What is the status of Dave's attempts to clear copyright on the orginal picture?

['Dave':]Hi Jessica - I e-mailed Hari, and he said he places the picture in the public domain, as I said above. I'm not sure about copyright law, which would say whether this is sufficient, but my sister knows a copyright laywer so I'm going to call her tonight and ask about that. I also asked Hari if he has any other pictures, but I think he's still in Mexico as he hasn't replied.

He doesn't like people accusing him of being Johann Hari.

I have compromised and engaged with those who agree with specific points by Felix. However, Felix by contrast has simply accused anybody who posts in agreement with me of being a sock-puppet and ignored them. (Indeed, he ignored me for a long time, claiming I was Johann Hari, until somebody who we both know pointed out that I am not).

But he is a "free speech obsessive".

I proposed the edits, and no, I am not Johann Hari. I know him a bit, we were at university together, and I have done some work on his website. You can e-mail me at methuselahproductions@hotmail.com

I think the article about him is outrageous and I e-mailed Johann about it but he has been in Taiwan and has not yet replied. The Private Eye allegations have been answered by Johann and you don't even mention that. While accusing him of lying, you repeat a lie of your own: he did in fact respond to the Iraq Pastor allegations, admitting they were "bullshit". You name him as a friend of Hitchens, but don't point out that he has seriously criticised Hitchens.

To compare him to Steven Glass or Jayson Blair is totally libellous, and if was him I'd sue, and I will recommend that option to him but he is a free speech obsessive and tends to ignore this kind of crap.

He disagrees with his alter-ego about the Iraq War.

Johann and I have argued a million times about Iraq and I'm not defending him on that issue, but the reasons he supported the invasion were sincere and they were not "bomb the towel-heads" crap.

I mentioned litigation only to shock you into realsing that your words have consequences; I also made it clear that Johann is a free speech nut and would never sue anyone. He responed to my e-mail about this article an hour ago and told me to forget about it but I don't think it is right to circulate flasehoods and, since you seem like decent people dedicated to teh truth, I appeal to you to correct the gross innaccuarcies in this article.

...It's frustrating to see a decent guy who works hard for left-wing causes being pulled down by his own side (using right-wing allegations!) because they disagreed with him on one issue.

And so on and so on. There are hundreds of edits like this. No wonder he didn't have time to write proper articles. It's the attention to detail that gets me. The sheer, prolonged, schizophrenic nature of the deceit. But that, once again, is not a problem for the Independent.

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Stunning stupidity

In these intellectually retarded times, mistaking correlation for causation is so common that it takes something really special to grab my attention. But every once in a while, someone puts the cart before the horse in a way that is so monumentally bone-headed that it almost becomes a work of art.

For example, it seems obvious that people who have greater willpower will be more likely to give up smoking. Obvious, that is, unless you are the Daily Mirror...

Quitting smoking gives you stronger willpower than current or non-smokers, study finds

Giving up smoking not only improves your health – it raises your willpower, too.

Quitters have the strongest activity in their brain’s frontal lobes, which control behaviour, a study found.

Experts took MRI scans of current, ex and non-smokers as they performed tasks to test skills linked to smoking, such as avoiding distraction by cigarette-related images.

Smokers lost concentration before others, the Trinity College Dublin study said. Prof Hugh Garavan added in NeuroImage that quitting helped “exercise control”.

Wow. Just wow.

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The Independent's 'exclusive'

The Independent recklessly puts a cigarette pack with full colours
 and no warning on its cover. Won't somebody think of the children? etc.

I wasn't planning on writing anything about Philip Morris's Freedom of Information request, as reported in the Independent today. Only the shock of finding out it was on the front page has made me think that anybody might be interested. The 'exclusive' story (of PM seeking the raw data of a survey published in a Cancer Research briefing which lobbied for plain packaging in 2008) has been around for weeks and was reported by the Herald back in July so I don't know what all the fuss is about now.

The Independent's angle is that the FOI request was "vexatious", but this question was answered by the Scottish Information Commissioner on July 22nd...

Following an investigation, the Commissioner found that the information request was not vexatious. He also found that the University had unreasonably sought clarification from PMI before responding to its request and that, as a consequence, had failed to respond to the request within the time limit set down by FOISA.

In addition, he found that the University did not fulfil its duty under section 15 of FOISA in relation to providing advice and assistance to PMI.

This is really quite straightforward. PM requested the data, the University of Sterling refused to hand it over, it went to arbitration, PM won and Linda Bauld et al. have nowhere left to turn. And so, like many desperate and deluded people, they have turned to the Independent. I have little to add to what Heather Brooke says in The Guardian. We have Freedom of Information laws in this country to give us access to the research that we pay for and special interest groups cannot pick and choose who gets to use them.

When a scientist—or, in Bauld's case, professor of socio-management (whatever the hell that means)—refuses to allow access to their data in defiance of the law, we are entitled to think that they might have something to hide. It's not a "war on science". Scientists used to pride themselves on having their work tested by their critics. A few good ones still do. And so, after being profoundly uninterested in this story, I am rather intrigued at what the data show and why these researchers are so keen to keep it secret.

My only complaint is that so much attention has been given to an inconsequential study that featured in a long-forgotten Cancer Research UK report in 2008. There are any number of genuinely important suspect studies published by the Centre for Tobacco Control Research (for it is they) which Philip Morris could have put under the spotlight. We could, and should, have been talking about them today.

Dick Puddlecote (from whom I snatched the photo above) and the aforementioned Heather Brooke have more on this.

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The BBC's drink problem

Yet more pitiful health reporting from the nation's state broadcaster:

Children aged four in Wales' A & Es for drink and drugs

Children as young as four have been treated in accident and emergency departments in Wales for the effects of alcohol, research shows.

What research would that be?

Figures obtained by BBC Wales suggest at least 1,200 children attend casualty each year because of drink and drugs.

As you will gather, this is not just some rewritten press release from the British Medical Association (BMA). Instead, the Beeb has decided to do some low-grade investigative journalism of its own.

Naturally, however, the BMA takes centre stage:

Dr Richard Lewis, Welsh secretary of the British Medical Association, said the issue was "increasingly worrying".

"I think it's pretty well recognised by health services and health professionals that there's an increasing problem with both alcohol and drug-related incidents with younger and younger people," said Dr Lewis.

"We see year-on-year increases with attendances at A & E departments, particularly for alcohol."

And that is where the BBC's figures come in, which they present in the chart below.

As you can see, alcohol-related hospital admissions for the 12-17 age group have increased from 605 to 833 in five years, thus giving partial support to the claim that...

Clive Wolfendale, chief executive of north Wales drug and alcohol agency Cais, said the problem of children regularly drinking to such extremes had taken off around five years ago.

But, as anyone with the slightest facility for critical thinking can see, there hasn't been a rise in admissions in the last five years. The only reason it looks like there has, is that the BBC wasn't able to get hold of the figures for Cardiff and Vale—which typically make up a quarter of the total—for 2006 and 2007. The national totals the BBC gives for those years cannot, therefore, be compared with the later years. No responsible statistician would think of comparing, or even showing, these totals, but this is the BBC and it's amateur night again.

For the three years which are comparable, there has been no significant change in admissions (818, 809 and 833), and in the four areas which do have full data, three of them saw a fall in admissions. And for the '11 and under' age group (shown on the Beeb's website), the numbers are very small but have not risen (14, 5, 10, 12 and 12 per annum). Oh, and the number of admissions for drugs has fallen.

What, then, is left of the idea that we are seeing "year-on-year increases with attendances at A & E departments" for "younger and younger people"? Nothing at all, and the BBC has the figures to prove it, if it was so inclined.

But it isn't inclined. Instead, it allows various temperance campaigners to make unfounded and unchallenged assertions. Like this, from the anti-alcohol 'charity' Cais (which receives 99.8% of its income from the government):

"Where kids go first for what might be described as a high is drink, rather than cannabis or opiates or ecstasy or legal highs. The substance of choice is alcohol," he said.

"The reasons for that are two-fold. First of all it's the cheapness and availability because, in real terms, it's cheaper that [sic] it's ever been."

[sigh]

Okay, one more time for the world. Alcohol is not cheaper in real terms than it has ever been. Alcohol is more expensive in real terms than it has ever been.

From the Office of National Statistics:

Between 1980 and 2008, the price of alcohol increased by 283.3%. After considering inflation (at 21.3%), alcohol prices increased by 19.3% over the period.

And this is how the price of a pint of bitter changed in the last century:

I wouldn't expect temperance groups to admit to the fact that alcohol has never been pricier, but I would have hoped that the BBC would know this by now—God knows, they write enough stories about alcohol. If they had interviewed someone from the other side of the debate, they would have been told this. But, in defiance of the most basic standards of journalism, they didn't bother to solicit opposing views, nor did they bother with simple fact-checking.

"The second reason [for alcohol's popularity] is the general thrust of marketing," he added.

"The drink companies are on social networking sites and there's still a lot of direct advertising going on through sports sponsorship and so on."

How seamlessly we move from Friday's scare du jour to Monday's nonsense. As I mentioned in the previous post, Alcohol Concern's moral panic about online drinks marketing is silly season stuff. Alcohol marketing has never been more strictly regulated. If you are going to claim that underage drinking is on the rise (which it isn't), you need also to show that alcohol marketing is on the rise (which it isn't), otherwise you do not even have correlation, let alone causation. The only reason this fake charity is harping on about price and advertising is that the temperance movement's current political objectives are to increase prices and ban advertising.

This is reprehensible reporting from the BBC once again. Having gone to the trouble of getting the hospital statistics for Wales, their reporter—Kevin Leonard—sees that alcohol-related admissions for young people have been static or falling, but nevertheless decides to report that admissions are rising (albeit through quotes from interested parties). None of the quotes are challenged and no opposing views are allowed to be aired.

This kind of propaganda is now so common at the BBC that it is becoming difficult to believe that there is not an agenda at work. Whilst the BBC is not (quite) the worst offender when it comes to bad reporting of health issues, its coverage of alcohol issues is consistently biased and, unlike the Daily Mail, it cannot make the excuse that it needs to resort to sensationalism to attract customers.

This rubbish virtually fisks itself, but the facts are now peripheral. A narrative has been set in place that cheap alcohol and rampant drinks advertising has led to an epidemic of drinking, and the truth is not going to get in the way. We have unprecedentedly high prices, less drinks advertising than ever and a ten-year decline in drinking rates, but none of it matters. The temperance movement has stuck to their line and the BBC is right behind them come hell or high water.


UPDATE: Dick Puddlecote has spotted a cracking quote from the author of this tripe, Kevin Leonard, extolling the benefits of the NCTJ journalism course that turned him from geography graduate to BBC reporter.

“Whatever job you end up doing - I work on the BBC News website in Cardiff - you'll never regret getting those key journalism skills hammered home on an NCTJ course.”

He should demand a refund.

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The BBC stands by its junk journalism

Seven days after sending an e-mail to the BBC about its story which falsely claimed that obesity, drinking and smoking are the three biggest risk factors for breast cancer, I received a short and anonymous reply.

The original BBC story stated:

Obesity 'leading driver' of breast cancer

Obesity is the biggest driving force behind the most common form of breast cancer in older women, say researchers.

Alcohol and then cigarettes are the next largest culprits, according to Cancer Research UK.

This is arrant nonsense for several reasons, as I said in my e-mail to the Beeb (see here for the details). In summary, there is not a scientist in the galaxy who believes that obesity and drinking are the main "drivers" of breast cancer and only a handful of certifiable anti-smoking maniacs like Stanton Glantz believe that smoking is a risk factor for breast cancer AT ALL.

The BBC's reply:

Dear Chris

Many thanks for getting in touch and raising your concerns.

You are correct that it is important to stress that the findings mean that obesity affects the levels of sex hormones. The article does this. We were mindful of this and discussed this point and the wording with cancer research uk before publication of the article. We explain that it applies only to hormone sensitive breast cancer in postmenopausal women and that the link suggests obesity drives up hormone levels.

Thanks again for contacting us. We value your feedback.

Kind regards

Since this ignores every point I raised in my earlier e-mail, I replied:

Sir/Madam,

I don't take issue with the bulk of the story in question, which reflects the study accurately in some respects. The main problem is the headline and the first two paragraphs, ie:

Obesity 'leading driver' of breast cancer

Obesity is the biggest driving force behind the most common form of breast cancer in older women, say researchers.

Alcohol and then cigarettes are the next largest culprits, according to Cancer Research UK.

Every word of this is demonstrably untrue. It is not a matter of interpretation or wording. Obesity is NOT the biggest driver of breast cancer - as with all cancers, age is the biggest driving force. Between the age of 29 and 69, a woman's odds of developing breast cancer increases from 1 in 2000 to 1 in 13. As Cancer Research UK's website says: "The strongest risk factor for breast cancer (after gender) is age"

After that, there is reproductive history. Childless women have twice the risk as women with large families (who breast-fed).

Family history of the disease also doubled the risk.

These are the true driving forces of breast cancer. Way down the list is overweight and obesity, with a 10-30% increase in breast cancer risk. Again, from CRUK: "Compared to lean (BMI 22.5-24.9) women, overweight post-menopausal women have a 10-20% increased risk of breast cancer, and obese post-menopausal women a 30% increase in risk."

Alcohol is also a risk factor, varying on consumption, but generally is considered to form a 10-50% increase in risk. (eg. http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/165/6/667).

Smoking is not generally considered a risk for breast cancer AT ALL, despite efforts by the BBC and the Daily Mail to tell the public otherwise. To claim that it is the third biggest driver of the disease is ignorant and inexcusable.

Sex hormones are undoubtedly a risk factor, and a major one. The study you reported on shows that obesity is a risk factor for higher sex hormones and that drinking and smoking may be "moderate" risk factors for higher sex hormones. The crucial points - which I hoped I explained in the previous e-mail, but perhaps not - is that (a) the authors of the study NEVER claimed that obesity, drinking and smoking are the main risk factors for higher sex hormones, let alone breast cancer, and (b) even if these 3 factors were the main risk factors for higher sex hormones, it does not follow that they are the main risk factors - or the 'leading drivers' - for breast cancer itself. Indeed, we know with as much certainty as is possible to have in science that they are NOT.

Your article did not "stress" that obesity affects sex hormones. On the contrary, it stressed, quite wrongly, in the headline and opening sentences that obesity is "the biggest driving force behind the most common form of breast cancer in older women". This is untrue. It then stressed that drinking and smoking were the next biggest drivers of breast cancer. This is untrue. You say that: "This latest work, published in the British Journal of Cancer, suggests obesity should go at the top of this list [of risk factors for breast cancer]". This is untrue. The author of the study said, in the press release you were doubtless sent:

“Our study shows that changes in hormone levels might explain the association of established risk factors such as obesity with breast cancer risk. Other studies have found that weight and alcohol can affect hormone levels and this research confirms and adds to these findings and provides more information about how breast cancer develops.”

Nothing in the CRUK press release or the study itself in any way supports the premise of your article. Are you prepared to stand by your claim that obesity, drinking and smoking are the "biggest driving forces" for breast cancer? If not, the article should be changed. It is too late to avoid misleading the bulk of its readers, but it would at least be an acknowledgement that the BBC knows when it has made a mistake.

Regards,

Chris Snowdon

Their reply...

Thank you for your comments, which have been noted.

BBC News website

Translation: 'Piss off and leave us to report Cancer Research UK press releases in anyway we see fit.' Needless to say, the article in question remains unchanged, so any woman who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer can read it and blame herself for the disease.

I should say that my interest in pursuing this—as I will continue to do—is not because it is the worst example of BBC reporting I have ever seen. Far from it. It is because it is an open and shut case. Their reporting of this particular story is wrong in essence and in fact. To publish such garbage in the first place is lamentable, if forgivable, but to stand by it is appalling.

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Passive smoking lowers blood pressure in girls, study reveals

Before retiring to bed last night, I cast a weary, cynical eye on a brief story from The Independent which reported:

Boys who inhale second-hand tobacco smoke at home may experience significant levels of raised blood pressure, a study has found.

But in girls, passive smoking appeared to be associated with a lowering of blood pressure.

These results, if true, suggest that there are dramatic differences between the male and female bodies that make them respond very differently to secondhand smoke. They also imply that there is a new and unlikely form of treatment for girls with high blood pressure: blow smoke at them.

I'm joking, of course, although it is as valid to draw that policy conclusion from the data as it is for the study's author to claim that her work provides "further incentive for governments to support smoking bans". Actually, neither policy would have any effect because the changes in blood pressure were negligible in both cases—a 1% increase/decrease either way, which even the author admits is meaningless for individual health.

An alternative interpretation is that the study found no effect of passive smoking on blood pressure but that by stratifying the results, the researcher was able to find one by chance (in this case, by splitting the group into genders). Or it may be something else; the study only compared cotinine readings with blood pressure readings after all.

The study's author naturally favours the first interpretation:

"These findings support studies suggesting that something about female gender may provide protection from harmful vascular change," said Dr Jill Baumgartner.

Whether there are any biological reasons to explain these contradictory findings, I don't know (... paging #carlvphillips ...). I couldn't possibly comment because—once again—this study has not been published  and it has only been presented at a conference before being press released around the world. It's a PhD dissertation by a student of Population Health and Environment & Resources.

There is an abstract available, however, which shows the increase in boys is not significant while the decrease in girls is significant. Take both genders together and the overall effect of passive smoking on blood pressure is to lower it, although it is unclear whether that association is significant. The abstract also shows a complete lack of a dose-response relationship which is a bit surprising if tobacco smoke was the true cause of the correlation.

What I do know is that it is misleading to report this study under the headline used by both the Daily Mail and The Guardian:

Passive smoking raises blood pressure in boys, study reveals

In fairness to the Mail, they mention the conflicting finding for girls towards the top of the article. The Guardian, to its shame, mentions it towards the bottom. Ben Goldacre recently mentioned an interesting lay experiment which showed how few people bother reading the whole article before making their minds up. Not very many, apparently, which gives The Guardian the horrible distinction of being even worse at reporting science news than the Daily Mail in this instance. (Neither were helped by the study's press release, which only briefly mentions the findings for females.)

We know that the great majority of newspaper readers only ever read the headline, so let's hope the same is not true of blog readers, otherwise the title of this post—which is as technically correct as the Mail and Guardian headlines*—will also give people a mischievously one-sided view of the story.


* Actually, rather more correct since I have at least focused on the statistically significant finding.

(Michael Siegel and Taking Liberties have more on this story.) 




UPDATE:


Carl V. Phillips has a definitive critique on this study over at Ep-ology. Well worth reading.

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Churnalism.com

An interesting website has just been launched by the Media Standards Trust called churnalism.com. It allows punters to compare press releases to news articles and tells you precisely how lazy/ignorant/overworked the journalists are who produce your daily newspaper.

Just as an experiment I put 'ash press release' into Google and up popped this::

'New report finds major benefits to the health of the nation from increasing tobacco taxes'

(Friday 05 March 2010)

I then cut 'n' pasted the text of the press release into churnalism.com and, voila, I could see how much of that press release was blindly regurgitated by The Mirror and the BBC. In the case of The Mirror, it was 63% cut and 78% paste.

One limitation of the website is that you have to put in the text of the press release to compare it to the news reports, not the other way round. This is a bit of a bugger since the original press releases are not always easy to trace. Another limitation is that its archive seems to be limited to national newspapers. A quick google search found that the press release above was churned out by plenty of other local and regional newspapers.

Perhaps these problems will be ironed out as time goes on with the assistance of its users. If you have a source of press releases, do let them know. In the mean time, it could still be a useful little toy when you want to see how much of what you read is reheated PR guff.

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The price of deceit

On a day when junk science was inescapable, the BBC's Radio 1 website managed to sink to new depths.

Doctors call for smoking ban in all enclosed spaces

Really? They kept that quiet. You'd think they'd have a well co-ordinated media onslaught, with press releases, fraudulent statistics, press, embargoes etc.

That, of course, is not the bit I'm talking about. This is.

Matthew quit when his four-year-old daughter got asthma.

"We were going to the hospital and we told the doctor. She said it was the particles on her clothing that was the real effect for her asthma."

This is the thirdhand smoke myth, is it not? If this anecdote is true, and it's not just some ASH stooge telling tale tales, this doctor should be struck off. There is no place in medicine for the near-medieval superstitions that this quack is peddling. Get rid of her.

"That was when we realised it wasn't helping even smoking outside."

"We thought we were doing the right thing by going outside and smoking. We didn't want to smoke in the house with the kids because of the passive smoking.

"We thought going outside was eliminating it, but it wasn't."

Dear me. A lie really can get around while the truth is still putting its shoes on. 

A few weeks ago someone found this blog under the key phrase 'can third hand smoke cause a 1 year old to wheeze?' That stuck in my mind because I pictured a mother whose baby was unwell neglecting the real reason for its illness in favour of some garbage she had read in a newspaper. 

That, to me, is the human cost of all this trash. Lies have been everywhere today and those who have told them will go home believing that it's all in a good cause. They have said, for example, that passive smoking causes 40 cot deaths a year. 

Now, I can sit here and explain that this is an estimate built on a projection built on a flawed study. I can tell you that the supposed relative risk is almost certainly due to a failure to control for socio-economic status. I could add that cot deaths are rare in countries like Russia which have high smoking rates and that there is no correlation between rates of smoking and rates of cot death. But ultimately what matters is that some parents who have been bereaved through cot death, and happened to smoke, will feel that they are to blame for their child's death. And that, I think, is unforgivable.

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The solution to everything

We all know that smoking bans reduce the number of heart attacks by 40% and absolutely do not, repeat not, lead to a fall in bar sales. Now we know that they also cut car crime by 80%. 

The smoking ban has helped reduce car offences in Gedling, says a crime expert.

Smokers who go outside for a cigarette are acting as "extra pairs of eyes" and deterring criminals, says Bob Vaughan-Newton.

Since the ban came into force in July 2007, there has been an 80% drop in auto crime in the borough.

Has there, by jingo? Let's see your figures then, sunshine.

Latest figures for Gedling North, which includes Arnold, Daybrook, Woodborough and Ravenshead, show it has dropped by nearly a quarter in the last year, with 287 recorded crimes between April 2009 and this January compared to 378 in the same period the previous year.

But the smoking ban was introduced in July 2007. How about showing us how the crime changed in July-June 07/08 compared to the same period in 06/07?

No? Nothing? Let's move on then.

Mr Vaughan-Newton, crime reduction manager for Gedling Borough Council, said: "We used to have big problems in Gedling North, and Gedling South as well, with people breaking into cars in public car parks down Mansfield Road and the rural pubs in Lambley and Stoke Bardolph. It was all along the A60 corridor.

"Suddenly, with the smoking ban, there were all these extra pairs of eyes on the car park.

"We've actually reduced car crime in the whole of Gedling Borough since the smoking ban in July 2007 by about 80%.

The very defintion of post hoc ergo proptor hoc. I'm not familiar with this part of the country, but I wonder if there could - just possibly - be any alternative explanations? Let's ask the police, shall we?

Neighbourhood Policing Inspector Andy Crouch said he believed the decrease was down to police targeting problem areas with CCTV and more patrols, as well as moves to make car parks more secure.

I see.

"I think it's been down to good problem solving and good visibility," said Insp Crouch. "Car parks are safer now, we've covered them with CCTV.

That would certainly make sense.

Insp Crouch said police had been educating people about the dangers of leaving valuables in their cars, and used signs to make people think twice about leaving items on display.

So nothing to do with smoking ban, then. Anything else?

Mr Vaughan-Newton said the integrated offender team management project, where police keep tabs on known offenders when they are released and try and help them get jobs, had also helped.

This all sounds very plausible.

He said that CCTV coverage had also contributed to the reduction in car crime and that a camera used by Sainsbury's in Daybrook had had a knock-on effect, reducing car crime in the Premier Travel Inn opposite, which also came within its line of vision.

I think we get the idea. Every conceivable crime reduction strategy has been employed in Gedling in recent years. All of this reported under the headline: Smoking ban leads to car crime fall in Gedling. 

Interestingly, if you look at the web address of this news story, you will see that the original headline was the less sensational, but more accurate, 'Car crime has reduced by almost a quarter in Gedling Borough in the last year'. Looks like the editor felt it needed spicing up.

The smoking ban. Is there any story too small to be reported?

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Smoking ban 'cuts suicide rate'

It didn't really, of course, but that headline wouldn't be any more silly than the one the BBC went with today:

Smoking ban 'cuts heart attacks'

The number of people suffering heart attacks has reduced since the smoking ban in Wales began, a report by the chief medical officer has found.

I can't argue with that. To two events undeniably coincided. Of course, the heart attack rate also fell consistently for six years before the smoking ban, but the BBC omits to mention that. 

So if the smoking ban was responsible for that, it must also be responsible for this:

Figures also showed fewer children were being injured by cars, with Wales three years ahead of a target reduction.

And this:

Suicide rates across all age groups have also fallen.

These things happened at the same time and, therefore, must have happened as a result. Post hoc ergo propter hoc - the source of all superstition. An old woman moved to the village and the crops failed, therefore she is a witch. I walked under a ladder and later lost my job. I took my lucky heather to the football and my team won.

Pathetic. And if the smoking ban 'cut heart attacks' in 2007/08, what sorcery is responsible for the rate rising in 2008/09?

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The Welsh miracle is not dead. It just smells bad.

When it comes to heart attack miracles, it's difficult to pick the most preposterous. Heart miracles constitute a sub-genre of pseudo-science which is so comically ill-considered it almost makes other quackery seem reasonable. 

At the moment, only a relatively small number of people are in on the joke (including Dr Siegel, who has just exposed yet another), but we can console ourselves that many of these studies have appeared in print, thereby leaving a paper trail for future historians to follow when they rake over the coals of this decade's exodus from rational thought.

One of the silliest heart miracles was reported last year. It concerned the case of Wales, which saw a rise in heart attacks in the five months following the Welsh smoking ban and no significant fall in the post-ban year overall. This - you might think - would be enough for tobacco controllers to turn a blind eye to the green, green hills of Wales, but no. 

With a sneakiness that bordered on the heroic, a Welsh politician named Chris Franks spotted that the 4th quarter of the post-ban year saw fewer heart attacks than the same period of 2006. He used his influence to get the "story" into Wales' Daily Post, where he found a willing accomplice in the form of journalist Tom Bodden who wrote an article headlined: 'Fewer Heart Attacks in Wake Of Smoking Ban'.

This was all back in June 2008. It got a little coverage elsewhere but not very much. ASH and the Department of Health didn't want to touch it because they knew that it was all a scam. I explained why it was a scam on my website and at Spiked. Dr Siegel did likewise. So did Reason.

Now, via Jacob Grier, I see that this ancient corpse has been exhumed and Tom Bodden (for it is he again) is trying to breathe new life into it:

Smoking ban ‘sees fall in heart attacks’ in Wales

NEW figures this week are expected to reveal how the first full year of the public smoking ban in Wales heralded a steep decline in heart attacks.

The findings will be contained in the Chief Medical Officer for Wales’ annual report showing hospital admissions have fallen since the ban came into force.

I will be intrigued if the Chief Medical Officer does make such a claim, because it is completely untrue. Not only is it untrue, it has become even less true - if such a thing is possible - since I last wrote about it.

You see, reading all again this inspired me to return to the NHS Wales hospital admissions data (available at Health Solutions Wales). Since I last discussed the Welsh miracle, another year's data have become available. And - wouldn't you know it? - heart attacks increased last year. (Some readers may recall a similar phenomenon in Scotland).

As you can see from the graph below, there was no "steep decline" in the heart attack rate in Wales after the smoking ban. The rate of decline followed the exact same trend of the previous two years. But you will also notice a rise in heart attacks in the second year of the ban - the first rise for seven years. 

To put it in precise terms, the number of Welsh residents rushed to hospital with acute myocardial infarction rose from 3,999 (2007/08) to 4,126 (2008/09)*. Even if you add in emergency admissions for angina and subsequent acute myocardial infarction, there is a rise from 9,783 to 9,851. It doesn't matter whether you look at Welsh residents or Welsh hospitals (there are different statistics for both), the story is always the same. 

So what does Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart have to say in the face of this unequivocal evidence that hospital admissions for heart attacks went up last year?

"The Chief Medical Officer’s annual report to be published later this week will show that hospital admissions for heart attacks were reduced last year."

This would appear to be from the horse's mouth, which is worrying. If the Health Minister is correct and the Chief Medical Officer does indeed announce that "hospital admissions for heart attacks were reduced last year" there will only be one explanation. 

The Chief Medical Officer must be a liar.

*Emergency admissions for acute myocardial infarction (Welsh residents):

2000/01: 4891

2001/02: 5398

2002/03: 5374

2003/04: 5263

2004/05: 4719

2005/06: 4425

2006/07: 4180

2007/08: 3999

2008/09: 4126

The Welsh smoking ban was enacted on April 2 2007. There were no exemptions.

Health Solutions Wales

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Fresh nonsense

From the print edition of The Sun today:

ONE CIG IS DEADLY

Smoking one cigarette in your 20s can send heart attack risk soaring, researchers claim. Just one fag's fumes can stiffen arteries by 25 per cent, restricting blood flow and damaging the heart.

How many readers will interpret this as a clear warning that smoking just one cigarette in your youth makes your heart attack risk "soar"? How many readers will then think one of the following:

(1) They might as well keep on smoking if they've started. The damage has been done.

(2) People in their 20s have heart attacks as a result of smoking.

(3) The Sun doesn't know what its talking about.

Only one of these statements is correct. See if you can guess which one. 

As per usual, the "research" in question has not been published but it appears to confirm the less-than-earth-shattering fact that smoking increases arterial stiffness. The press release which The Sun reworded gives us enough of the facts for us to see that its news report is tremendously misleading. What the research actually says is:

The study compared the arterial stiffness of young smokers -- five to six cigarettes a day -- to non-smokers. Arterial measurements were taken in the radial artery in the wrist, the carotid artery in the neck and in the femoral artery in the groin, at rest and after exercise.

Clearly then, this was a study of regular smokers, not of people who had just one cigarette in a lifetime. The readings were taken after the participants smoked one cigarette, but that's hardly the same thing. 

So what are the implications of this unpublished research? As the lead researcher says:

"In effect, this means that even light smoking in otherwise young healthy people can damage the arteries, compromising the ability of their bodies to cope with physical stress, such as climbing a set of stairs, or catching a bus," Daskalopoulou said.

Ho-hum. This isn't particularly news-worthy information, which explains why most newspapers haven't reported it. Maybe if the study had shown that "smoking one cigarette in your 20s can send heart attack risk soaring" other journalists would have picked up on it. 

But it didn't. 

[The article has been substantially rewritten in The Sun's online edition, with a slightly less hysterical headline and with some of the more blatant mistakes removed (including the whole first paragraph).]

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