I don’t know where Dave Atherton got this picture, but it’s a fine example of antismoking ‘art’. It really needs a caption though.
But since she’s got a skull grinning over her shoulder, why hasn’t he got one too? Perhaps he’s immune to tobacco smoke?
And why has the skull got no teeth?
And why haven’t they finished their chocolate puddings?
And what are they laughing about?
It’s all very mysterious.
Dave Atherton quotes world-renowned pulmonologist Philippe Even (about whom I have written) on the non-existence of the harm of passive smoking:
He was asked why not he had talked sooner, and on his retirement said, “As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France… I would have had to pay the consequences. Today I am a free man.”
I really do wonder what is the point of paying people to do research, if they only feel able to say what they really think once they have retired, and until then are under some sort of vow of omerta.
It doesn’t happen only with tobacco research. The same is true in climate science. It’s the retired climate scientists who feel free to speak out against the global warming. All the rest dread losing their funding if they were to follow suit.
And what is the point of doing research if the conclusions are predetermined, and it is impermissible to discover that environmental tobacco smoke is harmless, or that the planet isn’t warming?
And if this is happening with tobacco research and climate research, in what other fields of research is it happening?
Anyway, never mind tobacco, did you know that sugar is an equally highly addictive drug?
“Just like alcohol and tobacco, sugar is actually a drug. There is an important role for government. The use of sugar should be discouraged. And users should be made aware of the dangers,” he wrote on an official public health website.
“This may seem exaggerated and far-fetched, but sugar is the most dangerous drug of the times and can still be easily acquired everywhere.”
… “Sugar is actually a form of addiction [sic]. It’s just as hard to get rid of the urge for sweet foods as of smoking. Thereby diets only work temporarily. Addiction therapy is better.”
The senior health official wants to see sugar taxes and legal limits set on the amount that can added to processed food. He also wants cigarette-style warnings on sweets and soft drinks telling consumers that “sugar is addictive and bad for the health”.
So the white powder is a drug? Perhaps I should try snorting some up my nose, or sprinkling it on my tobacco? What’s the lethal dose?
Apart from rotting teeth, the principal ill-effect of sugar that it can be fattening if you eat too much. Because it’s an excellent source of energy, and sugar (in the form of glucose) is what powers your entire metabolism. A 1 kg bag of granulated sugar contains 17,000 kJ of energy. Given a human daily energy requirement of about 10,000 kJ, I could get about all the energy I need from about half a bag of sugar a day. More than half a bag, and I’d start getting fat.
And this new information completely explains the mysterious picture above.
She’s just gaily said to him, just after he’s pushed aside his pudding, and lit a cigarette, “You know, smoking will be the death of you!”
And he has grinned broadly, and shot back, “Not before chocolate pudding does for you!”
And they are both laughing, as Death – which has clearly lost all his teeth after a lifetime of eating bags of sugar – tightens his fingers around her throat.
It’s not harmless tobacco smoke that’s killing her, but lethal sugar.
Frank Davis 
And if this is happening with tobacco research and climate research, in what other fields of research is it happening?
Take your pick! Simply insert ANYTHING and you have it! They are junk sciencing everything in the whole world……………….
All sciences, including my field physics, are riddled with parasitic infestations, some like medicine and climate more than others. The way to tell the parasites apart from honest science is the way you tell between gold digger/whore and honest women — by the role of money as the key determinant of choices, statements and actions (of woman or scientist).
“This may seem exaggerated and far-fetched, but sugar is the most dangerous drug of the times and can still be easily acquired everywhere.”
That’s because it IS exaggerated and far-fetched.
What I want to know is where is this cafe that allows smoking inside?
Kentucky!
Aren’t the people who made this ad worried that showing people smoking inside a cafe will “renormalize” smoking indoors? Even with the grinning death-skull, it seems pretty darn cozy to me.
Iron levels hint at resistance to harmful effects of smoking
“Researchers from Japan say that serum iron levels could be a biomarker that indicates which smokers are resistant to the effects of cigarette smoke on lung function.
The team studied a group of elderly (≥70 years), male smokers who, despite having smoked for over 30 years, had normal spirometry results (forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1]/ forced vital capacity [FVC] ≥0.7, FEV1% predicted ≥80).
Compared with 57 male smokers with impaired lung function, these 60 “smoke-resistant” men had significantly higher mean serum iron levels, at a mean of 121.6 µg/dL versus 107.8 µg/dL, as well as a higher body mass index, at 23.5 kg/m2 versus 22.3 kg/m2.”
“The mechanism underlying the relationship between serum iron levels and pulmonary function remains to be determined, and the question still remains whether the elevation of serum iron has a protective effect in the lung.”
http://www.medwirenews.com/48/104878/General_respiratory/Iron_levels_hint_at_resistance_to_harmful_effects_of_smoking.html
So liver and bacon casserole for tea it is.
That is interesting Rose, it was because of unexplained anaemia and subsequent tests that my lung nodule was found. It was long after my cancer surgery that they finally found the cause after a capsule endoscopy at St. Thomas in London. It was great fun walking around in the heart of Westminster looking like a suicide bomber for eight hours! as a surgical cure is risky and it is controlled by iron tablets I am fine and have had no recurrence of the lung cancer so far.
A very useful reference:
First-Hand Smoke – Actual smoking
Secondhand Smoke – Actually being exposed to first-hand smoke
Third-Hand Smoke – Residue of secondhand smoke on clothing, furniture and walls
Fourth-Hand Smoke – Sight of real people smoking outdoors or seeing a film, photograph or painting of a person(s) smoking indoors
Fifth-Hand Smoke – Seeing a building knowing for sure that people are smoking inside
Sixth-Hand Smoke – Thinking that people just might be smoking in that building and thinking you might smell it
Seventh-Hand Smoke – Even though you looked in the window and the building is absolutely empty, completely quiet and the lights are off, you can smell something and you think it might be smoke
Eighth-Hand Smoke – Speaking to or thinking about a current smoker
Ninth-Hand Smoke – Speaking to or thinking about a person who used to smoke
Tenth-Hand Smoke – Thinking of or speaking to a deceased relative who used to smoke
http://sensiblesmoker.com/politics-policy/levels-of-the-legacy-of-cigarette-smoke/
Some good stuff there, but no recent posts….
“Tenth-Hand Smoke – Thinking of or speaking to a deceased relative who used to smoke”
Actually, this is what I call ODS : Other Dimensional Smoke. See:
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Paranormal-Phenomena-3278/2009/1/Smelling-Cigarette-Smoke.htm
– MJM
These people are very sick. They suffer from acute Idontahavalife Nocureformia.
Paranormal smoke….. I guess we could add this to the list, or simply give it a category 2 or 3 rating. Is it dangerous though? People should be made aware of any risk. Children, in particular, may be in grave* danger – spirits often target them.
(*I’ll go find my coat)
::holding prog’s coat for him near the exit door…::
Heehee…
Actually, in my new book I cite *another* paranormal smoking event as well:
===
March 17, 2013: “A cavalry officer who died in the days of the British Raj has been declared a saint in India with worship¬pers claiming he smokes cigarettes left as offerings at his tomb…. Believers tend his grave in Musa Bagh cemetery. One devotee said: “We leave him food and cigarettes as tributes. The cigarettes glow like somebody is inhaling them. We know Shah Baba smoked so there can be only one answer…he is smoking the cigarettes.”
(No, this is not a satire either: it’s a full-blown news story, courtesy of the Daily and Sunday Express in the UK.)
Tominey C. “Mystery of India’s ‘cigarette smoking’ saint,” Daily and Sunday Express (England), March 17, 2013. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/384855/Mystery-of-India-s-cigarette-smoking-saint.
– MJM
We have to consider that the picture may have been photo shopped, i.e someone has added the cig…
Caution – not for the faint hearted:
http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2013/03/06/what-is-ectoplasm/
‘But not too long ago, we were a more superstitious people’….(FAIL)
Michael you haven’t been watching the paranormal junk store sales people from San Francisco on Cable now have you! Those folks fit that description to a TEE!
At least she isn’t breathing the smoke :-)
It looks like one of those PURITAINS using guilt to PUNISH smokers –
A bit off-topic but I’m starting to see articles about vehicle exhaust in the vein of SHS:
“When buses idle in the school yard, clouds of these invisible particulates fill the surrounding air, the school, and the bus itself, and that’s a bummer for all kinds of reasons. In addition to carbon particulates diesel exhaust contains 40 chemicals that are classified as “hazardous air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act. The EPA has declared diesel exhaust a likely human carcinogen, and it’s doubly hazardous to kids whose lungs are still developing and who breathe more air than adults on a bodyweight basis.”
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/learn/blog/school-bus-exhaust-no-idle-problem
Diesel exhausts do cause cancer, says WHO
“Exhaust fumes from diesel engines do cause cancer, a panel of experts working for the World Health Organization says.
It concluded that the exhausts were definitely a cause of lung cancer and may also cause tumours in the bladder.
It based the findings on research in high-risk workers such as miners, railway workers and truck drivers.
However, the panel said everyone should try to reduce their exposure to diesel exhaust fumes.”
“Cancer Research UK said employers and workers should take appropriate action to minimise exposure to diesel fumes in the workplace.
But director of cancer information Dr Lesley Walker said the overall number of lung cancers caused by diesel fumes was “likely to be a fraction of those caused by smoking tobacco”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18415532
Devil in the diesel – 1997
“A COMPOUND discovered in the exhaust fumes of diesel engines may be the most strongly carcinogenic ever analysed, say Japanese researchers. They warn that a major source of the chemical is heavily loaded diesel engines, and that it could be partly responsible for the large number of lung cancer cases in cities.
The compound, 3-nitrobenzanthrone, produced the highest score ever reported in an Ames test, a standard measure of the cancer-causing potential of toxic chemicals. “I personally believe that the recent increase in the number of lung cancer patients in vehicle-congested areas is closely linked with respirable carcinogens such as 3-nitrobenzanthrone,” says Hitomi Suzuki, a chemist at Kyoto University who led the study. Test emissions from truck engines and the air above central Tokyo both contained the compound”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15621050.200
DIESEL EXHAUST CALLED PERIL IN NEW YORK CITY – New York Times – 1985
“The report also said recent health surveys had linked diesel particles with elevated levels of lung cancer. Diesel exhausts also degrade visibility in urban areas, create noxious fumes and deposit dirt on buildings and other structures, it said. #11% Rise Expected by 1995 The emissions of toxic particles from diesel engines in cities such as New York is expected to climb 11 percent by 1995 because of the growing use of diesel-powered vehicles, the report said.”
“Robert V. Majewski of the New York State Environmental Conservation Department said that while it was known that diesel particles could cause cancer, the state was ”not sure yet” how much of a problem the city faced.
The state has no strategy for dealing with diesel exhausts, he said, because ”we have not identified the extent of the problem.”
http: //www.nytimes.com/1985/05/19/nyregion/diesel-exhaust-called-peril-in-new-york-city.html
CONTROVERSY AT THE SECOND WORLD CONFERENCE on Smoking and Health 1971
“AT ONE EXTREME were the people–mainly British–who pushed their way to open microphones’to say “I won’t let them poison my air,” and “If we’d been intended to smoke, we’d, have been given little chimneys.”
“A fundamental principle” of ACS, said the Society'”s public information vice president, Irving Rimer, has always been that “smokers are people and most of them are very nice people and very responsible people”
His comments, at the close of a session on `Control of Smoking at Places of Work, met little enthusiasm from an audience who two days before had tried to boo and clap down a physician who disagreed with the Royal College of Physicians report on smoking.
He was trying to read an unscheduled paper on “‘The Cigarette — Enemy or Red Herring?” and it became obvious that he felt cigarettes were being used as a scapegoat for alleged dangers of diesel engine fumes.”
http: //tobaccodocuments.org/lor/00622190-2193.html
Meanwhile
Researchers Push For Ban On Alcohol Ads on T – 2009
“Boston University researchers who studied how many alcohol ads young people see on the MBTA on a typical day are calling for a ban on alcohol advertising on the T.
To do their study (PDF), the researchers rode each of the T’s four subway lines and counted the alcohol ads in every car. They found that the average train has two alcohol ads per car, and that almost 10,000 Boston Public School students take the T each day.
Professor Michael Siegel of the BU School of Public Health led the study and said there’s a proven link between alcohol advertising and teenage drinking.”
““The state should not allow its property to be used by alcohol companies to recruit, entice and eventually convince youths to start drinking,” Siegel said, “especially when the legal age for purchasing alcohol is 21.”
Siegel said the state Legislature should pass a pending bill that would ban alcohol advertising on state property, including on the T.”
http: //www.wbur.org/2009/11/05/alcohol-ads
How far will the climate purge go?
DateSeptember 20, 2013
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/how-far-will-the-climate-purge-go-20130919-2u2mg.html#ixzz2fO3YLKZp
Theyre getting an early start in Kentucky this year pushing for a ban……….anyone want to jump in and spank their butts go ahead…………
http://news.cincinnati.com/comments/article/20130919/NEWS0103/309190106/NKY-health-board-endorses-statewide-smoking-ban
He was asked why not he had talked sooner, and on his retirement said, “As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France… I would have had to pay the consequences. Today I am a free man.”
I really do wonder what is the point of paying people to do research, if they only feel able to say what they really think once they have retired, and until then are under some sort of vow of omerta.
Philippe Even probably experienced the same as Prof. Grieshaber….
What is the point of research if the results have been dictated?
Outcome first, then create study to prove outcome, create headline via manufactured study prior to study release, contact political lobbiests to begin lobbying for previously written law!
Repeat parrot fashion on next agenda listing!
Pingback: Emedist.com
Hi Frank. I did email you but perhaps it’s gone to your spam box again as it is unlike you not to reply. I wondered if you were supporting #Octabber this year – a whole month for tobacco consumers who do NOT want to quit in October and are fed up at the waste of their tax going to gimmicks like stoptober. I’m also looking for smokers who will write me a few words on why they love their tabs and why they’re not quitting. If you check the “We’re Not Quitting” page you will see one already posted before the start of October because stoptober’s paid for twitter campaign has already begun. Sorry for planting this here but I hope you don’t mind. Incidentally, you might have to click past the adult content warning. I didn’t want to be accused of “trying to advertise smoking to get the chiiiiildren addicted.” http://octabberresistance.blogspot.co.uk/?zx=c5c50f3655d8315a Pat x
I did get the email. I thought it had been sent to quite a lot of people, so I didn’t reply to it. And I’d begun to wonder what to do about Octabber. Probably something.
Maybe some of my readers would like to tell you why they don’t want to give up smoking.
Thanks Frank. I sent an email all round the bloggers in hope of getting some publicity. and support – perhaps carry the blog badge as well. We can hardly rely on the media to inform smokers that if they feel under pressure, or get nagged to death during stoptober, that there is an alternative especially designed for them. Some bloggers will tell their readers about it and others won’t because they don’t see the point of it.
I forgot about Octabber and stoptober until got an email from The Express that they wanted smokers who were taking part in stoptober for a series on quitters they were doing. As usual, the ones who don’t want to quit are ignored and as octabber seemed welcome when it kicked off for fun last year, I thought I’d take the piss again. http://www.thefreesociety.org/Articles/519/tobacco-consumers-fight-back-through-satire
But it does have a serious underlying message and is a denormalisation counter campaign. Octabber is a month long response to Stoptober from grass roots ordinary consumers of a legal product. It’s our way of showing that we love smoking and we will never quit. It’s also a way of demonstrating to Govt that we are here, we’re not going away,we’re fed up and angry at how we’re being treated and the antis are lying when they say most smokers want to quit . octabber also says we want our tax going to something more worthwhile like direct patient care, for example. Stoptober is benign at the moment and I have no problem if weak people need a special day/month/week to get aboard the community bus to be able to quit if that is their choice, rather than any other day month week of the year, but I wonder for how long this latest public health campaign will stay benign and, as usual, what will they target us for next? Why should the antis have the floor to themselves in October anyway.. We have a voice and Octabber is just a way of using it.
Already stoptober’s paid Twitter campaign is attracting comments that frankly, just don’t sound like smokers and they’re bragging that 100,000 have signed up. It doesn’t sound plausible to me. I’m asking smokers on Twitter to show that stoptober isn’t welcome by smokers who don’t want to quit, and we are somebody too, by using the #Octabber hashtag in their tweets followed by “we love our tabs and we’re not quitting” or “leave us alone, we’ve had enough”
If I could get 28 smokers to say why they love smoking, why they won’t quit, and why they’re fed up to post daily during the 28 days of Stoptober then that would be great.
All the best x
If I could get 28 smokers to say why they love smoking, why they won’t quit, and why they’re fed up to post daily during the 28 days of Stoptober then that would be great.
I am happy to be one of them!! It looks like either of us (or even both!) are under fire.
Maybe some of my readers would like to tell you why they don’t want to give up smoking.
It’ll be my pleasure!!!
Pat, I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow!
Pat, I just wrote a rather lengthy statement – when trying to post it I was asked to log into wordpress (which I have been for at least 1 hour!)
and when trying to retrieve my comment, I got this:
Document Expired
This document is no longer available.
The requested document is not available in XXX’s cache.As a security precaution, XXXX does not automatically re-request sensitive documents.Click Try Again to re-request the document from the website.
Right now I am just annoyed. “Try again” produced the original ” post a comment option.
When I tried to log in using WordPress I was told I did not own the name, the one I have been using for ages.
beobriigitte – are you on FB? #Octabber is on there and it might be easier to DM it over there – or at least we can make contact there for me to give you my email address.
octabber isn’t a wordpress site. It’s E Blogger so you might need to create an e blogger account – or google. If anyone has a problem posting comments over there then go over to the FB page where it should be easier to get in touch https://www.facebook.com/Octabber
Thanks for hosting the badge Frank. Much appreciated. https://www.facebook.com/Octabber