Yesterday demonstrated the effects of a coordinated effort to discredit one of the most disruptive technologies that has several groups within “public health” worried. Not only for their funding source, which is neither here nor there, but also for the steadily decreasing relevance.
Naturally, the media headlines don"t really get to the bottom of the issue:
FDA puts e-cig makers on notice: Fix “epidemic” teen use or products may be pulled from market
As both Snowdon and Puddlecote reported today, the EU - along with 167 other signatories to the WHO FCTC - are set to travel to Geneva for the Conference Of the Parties session 8 (COP8), whereby they’ll completely ignore the founding principles of the Protocol - as I discussed recently.
As with any gathering of the soulless anti-smoking extremists, there’s always going to be something that is a step too far.
On Monday, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World released the findings of a global survey about smokers. Most surveys claim to seek a “better understanding” of the target audience - in this case, smokers - and this one is no different.
Arguably, the methodology behind this particular survey; the “Worldwide State of Smoking Survey”, appears to be very robust in its approach by researching existing surveys such as the Eurobarometer, the Global Audit Tobacco Survey and the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, among others.
It is that time of year where all roads lead to a large, taxpayer-funded shindig of tobacco control troughers, hangers-on, activists and prodnoses. This time, the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) heads to Cape Town to discuss the latest “science”, policies, ideas and general authoritarian principles associated with tobacco control.
Interestingly, the UK felt it necessary to send 35 delegates to the conference, all funded by the taxpayer (natch) to the tune of £250,000.
One of the many reasons I have a blog is so that I can spout, mostly nonsense, into the ether my thoughts on a particular topic that piques my interest. It just so happens that this blog has a specific focus. Most of the posts on these pages cover the various bits of “science” - mostly bad science - that grab sensationalist headlines, that do nothing more than to confuse a highly nuanced subject.
In case you haven’t been paying attention, the news is awash with an announcement from Philip Morris saying that their Heat-not-Burn product iQOS is coming to the UK. London specifically - for the moment at least.
Well, so what you might be asking, why has a new product launch attracted so much press? The answer to that is two-fold. One, it’s a new product from a tobacco company. We all know how much folks are beginning to despise the tobacco industry - particularly those in tobacco control and public health.
Among many things, this really does boggle the mind. Y’see, whenever ASH or their sock-puppet ilk wave their “statistics” under the noses of our ruling elite, they claim that it is “without bias” and of course “entirely independent” - among many other platitudes.
Y’see, ASH et al are entirely free of conflicts of interest aren’t they? So their surveys must be the Holy Grail. No question about it. When it comes to knowing the smoker, ASH has all the answers.
I’ve touched on this briefly a few times before (here, here and most recently here) and it’s all about smoking/vaping in the workplace in particular, and anywhere else in public in general. As many readers will know Public Health England recently released some guidance on the “Use of e-cigarettes in public places and workplaces”.
Before I go much further, let me remind you of a comment that had been left on one of my posts about this particularly thorny subject:
“Teenagers smoke e-cigarettes because they deem them ‘cool and fun’, alarming report claims” - makes for an interesting, click bait type headline doesn’t it? So what is all the fuss about? Well as you would expect a new “study” from Canada has been released - with an accompanying op-ed from none other than Matthew Stanbrook, by far the most ideological and idiotic anti-vaper “researcher” there is, who claims that “e-cigarettes are a gateway that must be shut”.
