Some weeks ago I asked one of my commenters, Reinhold in Bavaria, if he would like to write something about Professor Romano Grieshaber’s new book, Passivrauchen – Götterdämmerung der Wissenschaft which was recently published in Germany. He very kindly agreed to do so, and having written one review in German, set out (with the assistance of another regular commenter, Brigitte) to translate it into English. I also got involved in the latter stages, helping to try to get it to read as good English. The result of this co-operative effort follows below:
…
“The question ‘Is passive smoking injurious to health?’ is commonly regarded as having already been unequivocally answered. I, however, did not find any such unequivocal answer in my prevention investigation. Quite the contrary!”
Prof. Romano Grieshaber
In March 2012, a year after he retired, the German medical professor Romano Grieshaber published a book in which he considered the “creative truths” of the WHO and its zealous footsoldiers in science and politics – as well as the methods being used to push these “truths” through into law.
The book’s title is “Passivrauchen – Götterdämmerung der Wissenschaft” (“Passive smoking – Science’s twilight of the gods”), and its publication is a special event. Because Grieshaber is the first in Germany – perhaps even worldwide – who himself carried out research work on passive smoking, and then came out publicly to oppose the sacred dogmas of the WHO, and to cut them down to size – from the practitioner’s standpoint – to what they are: ideological, statistical sleight-of-hand, remote from any reality.
We often ask ourselves how it could happen that nearly the entire learned world tolerates laws against smokers being concocted (for the protection of non-smokers, it is said), rubber-stamped by courts, and cheered by the media, even though the underlying “studies” are so flimsy that even a layman – as far as he concerns himself with them – can recognize that it is much more missionary zeal than science that has contributed to their production. How is it that serious, unbiased researchers can tolerate such a development? Why must even someone who has the courage to speak up against it wait until their retirement to do so? Grieshaber himself gives the answer:
“According to the well known phrase: ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. In Science, whenever the subject addressed is Tobacco, every objection can easily be nipped in the bud by using the same dismissive phrases (‘Tobacco lobby’ accusations etc.) over and over again, and this has given the WHO-led global Tobacco Control movement a position of power which has offered too many temptations for scientific integrity to survive unscathed. One can assume that scientists who have seriously delved more deeply into the subject of tobacco smoke have been aware of this for a long time. But almost every one of them is silent. Why? Given my own experience it is very likely that dissenting voices are systematically silenced. I am convinced that effective means of exerting pressure exist for this.”
In an interview, Grieshaber was asked how we might imagine the retaliation measures that were taken against him. “Colleagues from the German scientific community have defamed me and my work”, he answered. “They said I was in the pay of the tobacco industry; I was even called a “mass murderer” once. Such infringements and slander are not easy to take, especially when it also involves employees, and when our reputation as scientists is violated.”
Who is Grieshaber?
From 2000 until his retirement March 2011 Prof. Dr. med. Romano Grieshaber was the responsible leader of the Department for Prevention and Research at the “Berufsgenossenschaft Nahrungsmittel und Gaststätten (BGN)”, the German Employer’s Liability Insurance Association for the Food and Catering Industry. He is Honorary Professor of Applied Prevention and Health Promotion at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. He was board member of the “Forschungsgesellschaft für angewandte Systemsicherheit und Arbeitsmedizin (FSA)”, the German Research Association for Applied System System Safety and Occupational Medicine, member of the International Social Security Association (ISSA), and spokesman of the board of the “Kompetenzzentrum für interdisziplinäre Prävention (KIP)”, Competence Centre for Interdisciplinary Prevention at the University of Jena.
Grieshaber is a physician. After doing clinical work in internal medicine, trauma surgery, emergency and occupational medicine, he worked from 1986 at the BGN, first as chief physician at the Occupational Health Service, and from 1994 as Medical Director, and from 2000 as head of the department for Prevention and Research.
The centre of his attention in his professional and research career were the causal connections of work-related health risks.
For several years he focused on studies of passive smoke exposure in restaurants and the discussion of hypotheses which have become the basis of the nonsmoking protection legislation.
Grieshaber is and always has been a nonsmoker.
Why this book?
Obviously, for the author it goes against the grain to see science on its way to becoming untrustworthy, but not only that: he also sees tangible dangers for the life and limb of real people (in contrast to those existing only on paper) in the use of statistical number games for a supposed “good cause”.
The fact that as a doctor he therefore stands in opposition to the dogmatists is obvious, particularly those who are part of a gargantuan collective re-education programme. Thus, at a conference in Singapore about the same time as the publication of the book, WHO Director-General Mrs. Chan asked her widely travelled (at whose expense?) and favourable audience: “Can we ban the sale of cigarettes?” And her audience thundered: “Yes!”. “If we stand together,” Ms. Chan said with satisfaction, “the industry cannot survive.” [These words are re-translated from German and may slightly differ from the originally spoken ones.] Then of course for such people there is no point wasting time thinking about the huge fraction of the world’s population for whom tobacco use is a normal part of life, since they believe that there’s a devil that must be driven out by all possible means, even if it involves the destruction of an entire industry and everyone dependent on it.
For Grieshaber, however, it is not about destruction and re-education, but about preservation of the individual’s health, and for him dogmatism at all costs is out of place. He writes:
“What preys on my mind are my decades of experience in dealing with, both medically and scientifically, the working population and the risks to which they are exposed. They are the victims of symbolic politics. They are being fobbed off with pseudo explanations and inappropriate accusations of blame, while the real causes of their ailments remain undetected – and are even supposed to remain undetected, because anything else would place the foundations of the out-of-control WHO campaign in jeopardy. … My position on the second hand smoke issue developed only gradually, the more I realized and experienced the full extent of the obsession with which WHO-controlled science responds when it is confronted with real life.”
About the contents
The titles of the nine chapters provide a glimpse of Grieshaber’s concerns, and that he uses plain language:
1. The Munich Hospital fulfills an order.
2. Missionary zeal and war rhetoric: The WHO in imitation of the Holy Inquisition.
3. The creative truths of the Collaborators.
4. For risks and side effects ask the publican of your local pub.
5. The Epidemiologist’s basics.
6. … and Tomorrow the Entire World? [from the refrain of a Nazi song]
7. Higher mathematics for milkmaids [a pun: “Milchmädchenrechnung”, “Milkmaid’s calculation” means in colloquial German a case of naive fallacy]
8. Well intentioned is the opposite of good.
9. When will decent people revolt?
Prof. Grieshaber looks at it from several points of view.
On the one hand he reports research that he and his colleagues did a couple of years ago. This included the disproof of the infamous Invernizzi experiment (in which the tobacco controllers compared cigarette smoke in a small room with diesel fumes), but also a study of actual disease incidence among German hospitality industry staff (showing no increased lung cancer risk for non-smoking waiters) and debunking epidemiological collages like the one about the famous 3,301 annual alleged deaths due to passive smoking in Germany.
Grieshaber knows the facts and he doesn’t hold back. He confronts the statisticians, and those who parrot them, with reality – surely an unforeseen and painful experience for many of them.
Secondly the author describes his personal experiences with anti-smokers: how they avoid discussions, hide data, slam doors in meetings, tried to give his research and his institution a bad name, and even tried to get the federal government to remove him from office.
“It is a macabre irony of history that the WHO and its disciples instigated international condemnation of the research results, brushing aside a law governing research trade associations such as the BGN, and boycotted the manufacturers and certification body of the most sophisticated ventilation systems […] and thus forced the abandonment of their work in this area. The interdict used UN sanctions, as if the WHO’s fight against ventilation technology to protect nonsmokers was about preventing mass murderers and dictators from their bloody business.”
And finally the professor closely examines the overall development with detailed and extensive analysis and commentary: How the WHO has become the new inquisition, how counterproductive patronising public health approaches can be, and what’s to be thought of all those boastfully-announced heart attack miracles of the world, and so forth. He covers the damage to the hospitality sector due to total smoking bans (in Ireland and Bavaria, e.g.) and also questions some approaches toward active smoking (for example, the “black lung” myth). Hence Grieshaber doesn’t regard the smoker as somebody who “shouldn’t actually be there any more” as the WHO’s loyalists do.
“In which law of nature is it supposed to be enshrined – that it is impossible to reduce the health risks for smokers who do not want to give up their vice? Risk reduction becomes impossible only according to the dogma that smokers must be encouraged in all circumstances to quit smoking. The underlying idea in this is a quasi-religious notion of sin and of salvation based on repentance which has no place in science at all.”
And:
“Unfortunately, many smokers do not want to be freed, but in a constitutional state the intervention in the behaviour of a person who harms only himself is limited. But the situation is different if smoking also harms bystanders […]
“It would be very inconvenient for the WHO, should it turn out that their warnings about the health risks of secondhand smoke were based on gross exaggerations. And so one may guess the means and resources they use to fight dissident opinion and critical inquiry. I got to know them all: Deception, concealment, falsification, control of the professional media (and thus of professional interactions), as well as intimidation which goes so far that I’ve ceased to wonder why in the professional world hardly anyone dares to object when it comes to the subject of passive smoke.”
But the non-smoking professor certainly didn’t set out specially to himself champion smokers – he primarily wants to pull the emergency brake on a runaway train before further delusional developments result in completely losing touch with political and scientific realities, and doing more harm than good.
“When it comes to tobacco smoke, over the course of time a universe emerged, existing only on paper and in the minds of many devout disciples, which, after being constantly supplemented with more and more alleged, hair-raising dangers, now more or less resembles a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. This development, as such, is pathological, and the chances of ensuring better health in the world in this way are are low to nonexistent. Probably even the opposite is true: The real risk factors, especially for non-smokers, as a result of a greatly exaggerated role of passive smoke, are neglected and therefore continue to act unhindered.”
But it’s not over yet. There’s still everything to play for. And Grieshaber doesn’t believe that the misguided development will go on forever:
Grieshaber looks to the future
“At the end the global ‘war on tobacco’ of the WHO will fail – the question is not whether, but only when. It will be doomed to failure not only because of their drift into bottomless pseudo-science, but also because of their self-righteous claim to absoluteness. The optimisation of naturally deficient human being to a target of hundred percent has never yet worked in the entire history of human civilisation, other than in the imagination of the initiators of the recent programme for the improvement of mankind. Even with the strictest control and suppression and extermination measures, it has never been possible to completely eradicate ideas and people that supposedly threaten man’s spiritual welfare, or the progress of humanity, or the realization of socialism, or – in today’s case – global ‘health’. It will not be successful this time either.
But history also tells us, how tremendous damage may be done by those ‘improvers of mankind’, if the right moment for objection is missed. That right moment is right now and I have entered my objection. It’s my wish for you, for me, and for our society that it will be heard and understood and will provide impetus to start a new course: to a science that is fallible, and willing to learn, and able to abandon old certainities when new knowledge is found.”
This book is well worth reading. It’s been published by PubliKom Z – so far, however, in German only – and costs 19.95 Euro. It can be ordered online (but apparently at present only inside Germany??) – plus 3.80 Euro forwarding costs – here: www.grieshabers-passivrauchen.de
P.S. See also Grieshaber interview in comments below.
Frank Davis 
I got the impression that Grieshaber was a very, very angry man.
Aint we all Frank……….
Indeed! Prof. Dr. med. Grieshaber, just as we smokers are, is still a very, very angry man.
(Frank, thank you very much for proof reading our combined effort of translating excerpts of Prof. Dr. med. Grieshaber’s book. I personally find translations much harder to do than to write, so I try and avoid this where I can)
Frank, many thanks to you, to Reinhold, and also Brigitte; and most especially of course to Professor Grieshaber himself. His story of the reaction of his former colleagues doesn’t stand alone. Over the years its become almost routine for members of the medical and research communities who oppose the Antismokers to become very guarded about publicly expressing their views simply because they know that they’ll get similar reactions.
But when they retire, like the Professor, or like his colleage Professor Phillipe Even a couple of years ago, their head is off the chopping block — at least as far as their livelihoods are concerned. Unfortunately their reputations are still open to smearing.
:/
MJM
OT: I read an article today that quoted Sartre from a book I never read, (“Anti-Semite and Jew,”) in which he defined anti-semitism as “a seductively self-sparing form of sadism.” I thought that a perfect description of Anti-Smoking.
On yesterday’s topic, fwiw, ahead of the proposed Obscene Packages law that was supposed to hit the States (but may now never happen on Constitutional grounds) I’ve been hoarding Nat Sherman boxes now for nearly a year. They’re sturdy and designed like a cigarette case and since they’re not getting wet on bartops any more, I have enough to last me for quite a long time. (I also hoarded 100 watt incandescent bulbs, which have now been totally banned.) I think, on all fronts,we need to learn to live defensively (what will they ban next?) until we can live aggressively.
In other news from Bloomburg (formerly New York City) anti-alcohol plans:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/party_poopers_eye_unhappy_hour_BlWPbB2ohSJMj2fsh5txSI
Other folks hoard guns and ammo! Hoarding I now firmly know is caused by threatening government actions against the people.
Zurich bars flout city’s smoking ban
Published: 30 Apr 2012
Online: http://www.thelocal.ch/3227/20120430/
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The application of Zurich’s smoking ban has weakened progressively since its implementation exactly two years ago, according to media reports.
Many bars and restaurants have relaxed the rules on smoking indoors, online new site 20 Minuten reported.
“Officially, we are of course a non-smoking bar – unofficially we apply the smoking ban only until midnight,” a bar worker from Zurich told the website.
To avoid problems if the police call around for a spot check, the bar never puts out ashtrays. Cigarette butts on the floor do not prove that the bar tolerates the practice, the worker said.
An employee of another bar told the website that they ask smokers simply not to smoke at the windows or where they can be seen.
“It is worrying that the smoking ban is not enforced consistently,” the president of the Lung Association Zurich, Alexander Turk, told 20 Minuten.
“It is extremely important that the legislation is adhered to – otherwise it degenerates into a farce,” he said.
Last year Switzerland saw restaurant and bar revenues fall by approximately 2 billion francs ($2.2 billion). The losses were partially blamed on the introduction of the smoking ban, news website Basler Zeitung reported.
English Pubs could take a lesson here.
Thanks for the work at translation, Frank & others, this seems an interesting book. I wish I could read the whole thing in German but I can’t. Maybe it will get translated in full sometime. Harley, nice to hear also about defiance. The more defiance, everywhere, the better.
Very interesting, thank you for the translation Reinhold, Brigitte and Frank.
“What preys on my mind are my decades of experience in dealing with, both medically and scientifically, the working population and the risks to which they are exposed.
They are the victims of symbolic politics. They are being fobbed off with pseudo explanations and inappropriate accusations of blame, while the real causes of their ailments remain undetected – and are even supposed to remain undetected, because anything else would place the foundations of the out-of-control WHO campaign in jeopardy.”
Hueper
“If physicians came to agree that smoking was such a universal and important cause of lung cancer, even in their work-patients, then liability and compensation suits by workers in the industries that did cause lung cancer in workers, such as coke, chromate, or asbestos production stood in dire jeopardy.
If a worker happened also to be a smoker – which most blue collar workers tended to be – then companies would argue that he brought it on himself.
Epidemiologists themselves did not argue that the new smoking evidence distinguished the influence of workplace exposures from that of smoking in any individual case.
Yet Hueper knew how defence attorneys and their medical witnesses would seize upon a plaintiff’s smoking to provide a “convenient escape for the guilty industrial part to pay compensation to the victim or to his widow and orphans.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1381166/?page=8
Rose, Thank you! this:
Hueper
“If physicians came to agree that smoking was such a universal and important cause of lung cancer, even in their work-patients, then liability and compensation suits by workers in the industries that did cause lung cancer in workers, such as coke, chromate, or asbestos production stood in dire jeopardy.
If a worker happened also to be a smoker – which most blue collar workers tended to be – then companies would argue that he brought it on himself.
is PRICELESS!!
Prof. Dr. med. Grieshaber (and ?numerous other physicians) may well be aware of many cases which might have, if smoking had not been such a convenient scape-goat, led to compensation suits.
It would seem Prof. Dr. med. Grieshaber addresses another ugly ugly head of the anti-smoking movement.
If my memory serves me right; hasn’t Michael McFadden addressed this in his book “the Anti-smoker’s brain” as well? (I had the opportunity to borrow this book a while ago, so I still don’t own a copy. This will be corrected asap!!!)
I still have not received my copy of Prof. Dr. med. Grieshaber’s book but I am very much looking forward to reading it!!
I suspect that as more and more of the scientists involved in early anti-smoking “research” approach, or reach, retirement increasing numbers of them may begin to speak out now that they no longer have a career which can be threatened by powerful lobby groups. I also suspect that it isn’t something that any of the anti-smoking campaigners will have anticipated, so certain were they that everyone involved in their little scam was fully behind them and “on-side.” Lacking any integrity themselves and with a total inability to understand anyone’s reluctance to use their own field of endeavour shamelessly in pursuit of the Holy Cause, I’ll bet that this kind of book will come as a complete bolt from the blue.
Have any of the German papers picked up on the book?
You’d have to ask Reinhold about that. But I think Tobacco Control have distanced themselves from Grieshaber.
No, Jax, the German papers assiduously ignore the book (unregarded Novo Argumente, but that’s anything but a mass medium).
And it’s easy to ignore it because the publisher company certainly hasn’t the big money for a proper promotional campaign.
TC, Frank, surely don’t need to distance themselves from Grieshaber because they were never in league with each other.
But who have publicly distanced themselves are the DGUV, the German Legal Accident Insurance, umbrella organisation of the German legal insurance associations (like the BGN, where Grieshabers formerly worked):
“The book does not reflect the consensus of the professional associations and accident insurers to secondhand smoke”, they write on their webpage. “Secondhand smoke threatens health. It contains over 4800 different substances, including over 50 known carcinogens and many more toxic substances. The thesis that the harmfulness of secondhand smoke wasn’t proven scientificly is not tenable in the view of the statutory accident insurance. Occupational associations and their umbrella organization DGUV distance themselves expressly from Romano Grieshaber’s book.”
A well written, summary, Frank. Congrats to all.
Yes, more retirees need to speak out. But thbreakthroughgh will occur when the MSM finds that Tobacco Control’s scare stories are no longer exciting and horrific and a good story for them to publish. When that happens, the MSM is quite likely to find battering Tobacco Control is more exciting for its readers, especially when the corruption comes to light. Maybe a retiree might have the courage to reveal how he was threatened and by whom. Maybe some emails might turn up, and, if picked up by the MSM, could be less easy to brush aside than the ‘cost of shutters’ stuff.
Crumbs, what took them so long?
Smokers More Vulnerable to Joint Replacement Failures – April 27, 2012
“People who smoke cigarettes before and after receiving a total joint replacement, such as a hip replacement device or knee implant, are far more likely to endure revision surgeries on those implants than people who don’t smoke.
Two recent studies presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons showed that smokers were less likely to fully heal following a total joint replacement surgery in which they received either a hip or knee implant. Also, orthopaedic surgeons are more likely to aid in encouraging implant recipients to quit smoking before they are scheduled for surgery to decrease the likelihood of complications after receiving the implant.”
http://www.newsinferno.com/defective-medical-devices/smokers-more-vulnerable-to-joint-replacement-failures/37152
Smoking Could Reduce Risk Of Joint Replacement Surgery – 9th July 2011
“Men who smoke have less of a risk of needing joint replacement surgery than those who have never lit up a cigarette, according to a new study published online in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.
“The study, which was led by George Mnatzaganian, a Ph. D. student at the University of Adelaide in Australia, analyzed study data of more than 11,000 subjects and discovered that those who had smoked for 48 years or more had a 42% to 51% lower risk of needing a total knee or hip replacement than those who had never done so.”
“Analysis showed that being overweight independently increased total joint replacement risk, while smoking lowered the risk, which was most evident after 23 years of smoking exposure,” they added, noting that “vigorous exercise increased risk of joint replacement in men in the 70-74 year age group.”
”Our study is the first to demonstrate a strong inverse correlation between smoking duration and risk of total joint replacement,” Mnatzaganian said in a statement
. “The independent inverse associations of smoking with risk of total joint replacement were evident also after adjusting for major confounders and after accounting for the competing mortality risk in this elderly cohort of men.”
Further investigation is required on the subject, he added.”
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/2076418/smoking_could_reduce_risk_of_joint_replacement_surgery
CAGE Canada has picked up this essay.
http://cagecanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/at-end-global-war-on-tobacco-will-fail.html
Great.
Nice review.
Frank, I know you follow Whats Up With That. For those of your readers who don’t, there’s a splendid essay on Groupthink. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/30/why-climate-science-is-a-textbook-example-of-groupthink/#more-62415
It has anti-tobacco (or more broadly public health) written all over it.
Thanks for that. I must have missed it somehow.
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
Fits Tobacco Control perfectly.
The tribalism … is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures
Is even better.
Today in an interview
Prof. Romano Grieshaber, longtime director of the Prevention Research association for food and hospitality industry, and author of passive smoking – Twilight of the Gods of Science “
Mr. Grieshaber, what prompted you to write this book?
The scientific debate about secondhand smoke has been declared wrongly concluded. I call on the experts, but also the interested public to start them on the basis of facts once again. I hope my book will stimulate debate, because the results had to secondhand smoke is a politically and socially far-reaching effect. They are, in effect, however, open to doubt, but they have the basis for new laws of the federation and the states provided to Non smoking protection.
What was the deciding point for the book? My work on the issue of secondhand smoke have been attacked as dissent within the German scientific community. The research of BGN (association for food and hospitality industry) has fallen prey to the instigation of the German WHO Collaborating Center of the scientific ostracism. This resulted in repression, involving in addition to my person and employee. With this heavy responsibility for me it was not feasible to conduct the debate on passive smoking on a scientific foundation.
How can we imagine the retaliation against you? colleagues from the German scientific community have defamed me and my work. I was placed under the vassalage of the tobacco industry, even I was once dubbed a “mass murderer”. Such gaffes and slander are not easy to digest, especially when it involves people and our reputation is injured as a scientist.
the book is a personal statement with the DKFZ? Is No. . Doing quite the contrary to the correct, objective scientific analysis of the topic-hand smoke
and how your contacts are on the tobacco industry, “I know of companies in the tobacco industry from my past work as BGN -. prevention managers”
What is your position today in the BGN? “I am due to age in the BGN excreted. I come therefore no longer on the name and on behalf of BGN “.
received or receive money from the tobacco industry? “No”. BFT:
Are you planning more releases on the subject “The book is treated fairly comprehensive and can be renewed and intense debate on the topic. I would be delighted to make this wish come true: and we are an objective look back come together. ”
How do you assess the possibilities for relaxing the existing law in Bavaria? “Again, that the absolute ban on smoking laws in the name of the Non smoking protection with reference adopted on scientific studies, which I believe have no adequate scientific basis. As part of a new hope, result-open discussion of the laws enacted amendments should be discussed. At least the political will is partially visible. Regardless of the scientific discourse seems to have not completed the topic Non smoking control in Germany.
Do you fear new attacks or reprisals in person? of which is assumed. The debate about secondhand smoke is made from all sides but very emotional and polemical. My thesis and the results of my previous work is facing a strong opposition. I hope that objectivity prevailed and the debate it seriously and allow in particular. For the purposes of a fair public information, I would like like in the media coverage. “
Thanks for exposing this Romano, many of us have been fighting this for years. We have even pointed to their admissions to using questionable methodology to no avail. Hopefully this insanity will come to an end along with all politically motivated pseudoscience.
Great interview! Google Translate struck again though:
“I am due to age in the BGN excreted.”
Heehee… But on a more serious note: it’s not clear whether he was alienized by his academic community before he retired or only afterward. In other words, had he come out with statements/papers/etc that had him in hot water with the Antis during his career?
:?
MJM
I left the Google translation unchanged. I rather liked the “excreted” bit.
As best I understand it, Grieshaber was someone that needed to be pressurized to conform long before he
retiredwas excreted.As best I understand it, Grieshaber was someone that needed to be pressurized to conform long before he retired was excreted.
That’s right.
Striking out doesn’t work in comments, it seems.
Reinhold, many thanks for working on this! Great to see what this man has done and sad to see the reaction to it.
– MJM
Thanks for this work and others that have provided me with some inspiration to keep fighting back, especially here in Kansas. Myself and other small tavern owners have pushed and gotten a House Bill through Committee, that will restore our right to choose whom we cater to. Since it was left to work til this late in session, we only have a few days to get this Bill “above the line” so it will be worked on the House Floor.
The American Cancer Society sent out one of their “action requests” to all on their mailing list, today, and told people to email their Legislators and fight back against Big Tobacco who were behind this Bill.
Frank, NO ONE from Big Tobacco helped us fight this, not with time or money. This is the tactics of pro ban, as explained by the doctor in this story. Lie about the science. Lie about the business losses. Lie about their grant funding from pharma. Then if anyone fights back, they are accused of being tobacco company shills. I was really rather surprised that the Topeka Capitol Journal allowed this writer to even print this much truth:
http://cjonline.com/news/2012-05-02/tobacco-bill-proponents-push-back
They got busted for this in Kansas today. They didn’t realize I was on their mailing list I guess?
I cannot understand why we can’t find any attorneys who want to sue the pants off these lobby groups for pro ban. They lie ALL the time, and these lies have caused massive loss of revenue and closures to many small businesses. None of the tobacco companies will fight back. Maybe they figure who cares about little businesses as long as people are still buying tobacco to use at home. Maybe they really don’t care that these fanatics are lying about second hand smoke.
We have been waiting for almost seven monthes to hear back on the Ohio Zeno’s Supreme Court Case. Funny, when I looked up the Justices on the Johnson and Johnson campaign donations site, four of the Ohio Judges are listed as $5,000 recipients.
The State of Kansas is still buying the patches of J&J and handing them out for free, knowing that all the recent studies say these products don’t work. Kansas gave the Cancer Society the Quitline contract, and when you call the Quitline, the advisor tells you to go and buy these products of J&J.
No media will simply ask the Cancer Society to tell how much money they received from J&J’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to “advocate” for smoking bans. No one will ask this of Tobacco Free Kids, the Heart Association, the Lung Association, the Dental Society, the Nursing AAssociation, the Kansas Health Institute, and no one will tell the story of how when J&J cornered the NRT market, the grant money started pouring into the “non profits” for lobbying for bans.
I know that J&J money went into the European countries and into China and India, Australia and New Zealand to buy the governments to pass bans there. I know that Pfizer is on on the demonizing of smokers agenda.
I would prefer that governments completely ban the selling of all tobacco products, than see our government involved in this NRT replacement marketing scheme with pharma. I do not wish to see small business owners being forced to treat their customers and friends like lepers. It is disgusting and degrading. Our CDC and FDA are made up of current and former employees of J&J/RWJF.
21 of us from 9 states sent a Complaint to Grassley TWO YEARS AGO about the illegal activities of J&J/RWJF and their grant funded lobbying “non profits”. Unfortunately, most in Congress get campaign donations and/or have large holdings in J&J in their porfolios. (Good timing, eh?)
If you or any of your readers could direct me to the financial connections between the WHO and J&J/RWJF I would appreciate it. Bill CLinton’s Global Initiative is apart of this agenda also, and may be one of the conduits for the pharma money going to the WHO.
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Frank, if you are wondering why this page is getting traffic all of a sudden from anonym.to, see: http://forum.psiram.com/index.php?topic=9785 (it’s in German).
English Trans via Google: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.psiram.com%2Findex.php%3Ftopic%3D9785
Looks like Grieshaber isn’t popular with this lot. Something to do with a letter…
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