It's all unscientific balls!

Just when you think that Tobacco Control (TC) has sunk to its lowest ever, yet another little gem rears its ugly head. We all now know that the previous atrocity, known as the Blairite years, were well and truly conned by ASH et al and also that the 'schoolboy in long trousers' made a complete ass of himself by introducing an online reformation page only to backtrack on smoking simply because the idiot didn't research the situation properly. He immediately lost whatever political credibility he may have had with that single interview!
It is also well known that despite continuous attempts to whitewash politicians, the truth is beginning to surface, much to the chagrin of Arnott, Duffy, Bauld, Dockrell etc for although they all conspired to force this evil, spiteful & socially destructive law through parliament none of them, nor anyone else, can prove that the ban has saved a single life! Yes, my old friend and fellow 'quizzer' David Taylor stood on the green, green grass outside  parliament one fine day and proclaimed that it was 'estimated' that the ban would save 40,000 lives in the first 10 years, and then promptly collapsed and died from a heart attack on Boxing Day, 2009! But how can they possibly prove that statement to be true? Estimated this, estimated that, for God's sake they rely on estimations of everything to hoodwink all & sundry. Do they actually think that should tobacco become illegal, cancer cases will magically drop to zero? If so, they are very sadly mistaken!
For now we get the long awaited news that "(It is true,) smoking does not cause lung cancer.  It is only one of many risk factors for lung cancer." What has happened is quite simple really. ASH et al, wanting to impress their desire upon whoever  was willing to listen, initially simply altered the wording to suit their agenda; ie, leave out the word NOT and there you have it-'smoking causes lung cancer'. It was very simple to build the so called 'science' around the newly formed sentence, especially for a community hell bent on destroying a perfectly legal product simply because they did not like the smell of tobacco !
 Thanks to the media and the unimaginable amount of junk science & statistics fed to them by ASH, You Gov and other government paid lackeys it is no surprise that people now think that if you smoke you are destined to get lung cancer. They would be wrong, completely wrong for the actual figures are (quote):

  Yes, a US white male (USWM) cigarette smoker has an 8% lifetime chance of dying from lung cancer but the USWM nonsmoker also has a 1% chance of dying from lung cancer.  In fact, the data used is biased in the way they are collected and the actual risk for a smoker is probably less.

Now that is a considerable difference to the figures banded about by ASH, CRUK etc!
Here's something even more astounding for all you statistical genius's:

"when we actually look at the data, lung cancer accounts for only 2% of the annual deaths worldwide and only 3% in the US.**" 

Now I know these figures are for the USA but we will assume that as they have rather a large number of people to base things on ( 311,591,917 - Jul 2011,Source: U.S. Census Bureau), we will transfer similar figures over to this country. On that basis we only have, based on a population of 65,000,000, and a tally of  493,242 deaths registered in England and Wales in 2010, it would mean that a maximum of 14,800 deaths would have been by the means of lung cancer. The question of course is how many of those deaths would have been smokers and how many were non smokers? And when you then consider that "About 100,000 people in the UK die each year due to smoking" you have to wonder what all the other 393,242 deaths were and why they overwhelmed the smokers figure by a 4 to 1 ratio?
And why have the remainder of the 100,000 suddenly became attributed to smoking/SHS/smokers when we we have our most erudite MPs declaring that air pollution  is killing 50,000 people per year in this country alone! Indeed, how have the other 81,200 been attributed to smoking/smokers/tobacco etc and not included in the MPs evidence of air pollutions?. Mind you, in saying that, it is unbelievable just how many deadly ailments have been placed at the humble smokers door. You have to note the first word of the quotation - "about". "About" means any number desirable. It could be 10, it could be 132 but 'they' have decided that 100,000 suits their purposes, simply because 100,000 is a massive number and also a fairly significant percentage of the actual 493,242 deaths. And remember this folks: More non smokers die than people who do smoke! Also, 100% of non smokers die, just as 100% of smokers die-or have ASH et al conjured up some different figures courtesy of YouGov?

"When we look at the data over a longer period of time, such as 50 years as we did here, the lifetime relative risk is only 8. That means that even using the biased data that is out there, a USWM smoker has only an 8x more risk of dying from lung cancer than a nonsmoker."  

 It surprised me too because I had always heard numbers like 20-40 times more risk. Statistics that are understandable and make sense... it may be a new avenue of scientific inquiry. Isn't it funny how distorted the figures have seemingly become, but then it's all to suit the crusade!

"The process of developing cancer is complex and multifactorial.  It involves genetics, the immune system, cellular irritation, DNA alteration, dose and duration of exposure, and much more. Some of the known risk factors include genetics, asbestos exposure, sex, HIV status, vitamin deficiency, diet pollution , shipbuilding and even just plain old being lazy. When some of these factors are combined they can have a synergistic effect, but none of these risk factors are directly and independently responsible for 'causing' lung cancer!"

Well, well, well, so even laziness can be a factor! That doesn't bode well for the Arnott who spends most of her highly publicly paid time sitting on her 'aristotle' in either the Hof L, anti tobacco meetings or lounging about in the Shoreditch offices does it!
"CAUSING" - Take a look in any dictionary and you will find something like, "anything producing an effect or result".  Question: At what level of occurrence would you feel comfortable saying that X "causes" Y. For myself and most scientists, we would require Y to occur at least 50% ; ie, 51% of the time. Yet the ignorant media would have you believe that X causes Y when it actually occurs less than 10% of the time. Haven't the TC mob done a marvellous job of brainwashing the people they needed to brainwash!

"Everything in life has risk; just going to work each day has risk. Are we supposed to live our lives in bed, hiding under the blanket in case a tornado should come into our bedroom? We in science, have a duty to give the public accurate information and then let them decide for themselves what risk is appropriate. To do otherwise is to subtly impose our biases on the populace."

This is exactly right! Do we not venture out of the house for fear of being hit by a tornado, or a bus, or a dive bombing wasp? Do we stop playing sports or going on a beach to play? after all, the humble flip-flops cost the NHS £40m in treatments so are all forms of sandal/flip-flops to be banned because they cost the NHS money? Should we ban climbers from climbing just because 'falls' cost the NHS £11m per annum in the Highlands? So, do we now ban every activity that may cost the NHS money or do we simply ban things that might raise objections over smells? Talking of which, I was stood at the bus station the other day, struggling to breathe in the heat, and this stupid woman produced a large bottle of spray perfume and proceeded to not only spray herself, with many sweeping movements of the arm, but smothered me with this stinking liquid as well. I soon retired from the scene. So let's ban all hairsprays, body sprays, fresh breath mouth sprays etc etc. Let's ban dogs, they stink. Let's ban eating take-aways in the street, they stink too - and overeating will definitely kill you! Let's make it illegal for chip shop doors to be left open, the stench is overpowering, in fact, where does it end?
Now we know that the so called proof has been obliterated, the cretins at ASH, RCP, CRUK etc have absolutely nowhere to hide their shamed faces. I can only imagine that Sandford et al, when interviewd on TV or radio, will remove themselves somewhat rapidly from the studios when faced with some of these facts! After all, if the tide turns and radio/tv presenters get wind of the real truth are they going to give Sandford et al as hard a time as they do smokers and those who stand up for smokers rights? Perhaps 'they' ought to read this, digest the truth and then reverse all the unscientific balls on ASH!