August 23 2001:

RESPONDENT: There is something I am curious about Richard. You say that you are a flesh and blood body only which I agree with. I was wondering why you smoke when you know the facts about the harm that smoking does to the flesh and blood body?

RICHARD: And just what are the ‘facts’ that you are referring to? As far as I can ascertain there has never been a scientific study done – random sampling, control group, double-blind testing and so on – and that all the furore (sometimes reminiscent of a witch-hunt) depends upon somewhat skewed statistical evidence. I say ‘skewed’ because if I were to die tomorrow my death would be added to the statistics irregardless of the actual cause (in case you have not noticed that people no longer die of ‘old age’ anymore). Neither am I saying that smoking is good thing[*] ... just that it is not as bad as it is made out to be. Incidentally, when tobacco was first introduced into Europe the Church demonised it (calling it the Devil’s Weed) just as the early coffee-houses were vilified.

I also say ‘witch-hunt’ (as in ‘scape-goat’) because there is some evidence that the internal combustion engine could very well be causing far more illnesses among people – estimates vary between 42-48% of what is called ‘green houses gases’ are coming from exhaust fumes – and yet car ownership is on the increase and I am yet to see obligatory ‘driving kills’ warnings affixed to all vehicles. Curiously enough, in the last hundred years or so the average life expectancy in the West has risen from 50-55 years of age to 75-80 years of age (speaking from memory).

I could go on and bring in examples of factoids masquerading as facts in other areas (the HIV-AIDS controversy, the cholesterol dispute, the monosodium glutamate debacle, the on again off again eggs/butter/sugar/etc. furphies) but maybe it will suffice to say that (a) I do not own or drive a car by choice ... and (b) I live in the country and not the city for obvious health reasons ... and (c) I am a teetotaller in all other respects (not even caffeine these days) ... and (d) I do not experience any stress or tension whatsoever (and I would hazard a guess that the last point is the most relevant point of all when it comes to a resilient immune-system).

Most of what I have written here is opinion-only, of course.

September 10 2002:

RESPONDENT: Richard once mentioned that less than 2% smokers die of smoking related ailments. Let’s seek his input also in this matter.

RICHARD: The latest figures I have are for Australia: the percentage of tobacco users alleged to die, per annum, from smoking-related diseases is 0.47% ... or, to put that another way, 99.53% of the tobacco users do not die (of smoking-related diseases).

I say ‘alleged’ because, as far as I have been able to ascertain, figures such as these are derived from death certificates wherein the cause of death has been written in by the attending physician which, to say the least, is a questionable method of accurately determining causes. For example:

• ‘... a recent (04/19/95) letter to the editor of the San Jose, Ca., ‘Mercury News’ sheds some light on the methods used by the anti-smoking lobby to generate false reports of ‘smoking related’ deaths. The author of the letter, Mary Ellen Haley, reported that a loved one died of adenocarcinoma. Only 17 days elapsed from the deceased’s first visit to the doctor to the day of his death. (...) On the death certificate there was a line for the doctor to insert the immediate cause of death [adenocarcinoma], and then three lines for ‘due to’. The doctor inserted ‘cigarette smoking’ under ‘due to’. [Ms. Haley] questioned the doctor: was he sure the tumour was caused by cigarette smoking? The doctor said he wasn’t sure about that, but there were guidelines issued by the American Cancer Society, and that when a person dies of certain conditions and has smoked, the doctor is instructed to list the ‘due to’ as ‘smoking’. (...) The willingness of the medical profession to blindly observe ‘guidelines’, issued by the Cancer Society generates a continuous stream of death certificates, validating the official line that cigarette smoking causes everything from heart disease to uterine cancer; yet, there is no shred of scientific evidence to validate any of the certificates; they are based on nothing more than official instructions to put down smoking as the cause of death!’ (Chapter 2, ‘In Defence of Smokers’ by Lauren A. Colby; https://web.archive.org/web/20140401071139/http://www.lcolby.com/ and https://lcolby.myvtoronte.com/).

Just to stir the possum a little more: in mid-2001 the ‘New Scientist’ magazine reported that the burning of incense ‘exposed people to dangerous levels of smoke laden with cancer-causing chemicals’. The article says that a team of investigators, led by Ta Chang Lin of the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, collected air samples from the inside and the outside of a temple in Tainan City and compared them to samples at a traffic intersection. The article goes on to say that ‘the total levels of PAH’s (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) inside the temple were 19 times higher than outside and slightly higher than at the intersection’. The article also says that ‘benzopyrene, which is thought to cause lung cancer in smokers’, was monitored in the temple at levels which were ‘up to 45 times higher than in homes where residents smoked tobacco’.

Thus it would appear that the burning of incense and the burning of petroleum are potentially much more dangerous activities than the burning of tobacco – if it were ever conclusively evidenced that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as benzopyrene) do cause lung cancer – especially for people who are genetically pre-disposed to developing lung cancer.

Interestingly enough, while tobacco use is on the decrease (in Australia down from 37% of adults twenty years ago to 25% today), motor vehicle use is on the increase (there are twice as many registered motor vehicles in Australia today than twenty years ago). To put that information in some form of perspective the raw data shows that there are currently 12,500,000 registered motor vehicles, as contrasted to 4,000,000 estimated tobacco users, in a total population of 19,500,000. Furthermore, the latest government census shows that 400,000 workers went to work by bicycle or walking, 260,000 workers went to work by train, 200,000 workers went to work by bus ... and 5,500,000 workers went to work by car (these figures are rounded figures).

I would hazard a guess that weaning people off the habit of burning petroleum will be far more difficult than weaning people off the habit of burning tobacco.

Yet it may all turn out to be a storm in a tea-cup: if burning tobacco did cause lung cancer some demonstration of that would show up in a decline in lung cancer deaths corresponding to a decline in tobacco use – whether through quitting or by not starting in the first place – whereas in the USA, for example, whilst tobacco use has drastically decreased over the last 40 years (down by nearly 50% between 1961 and 1986-88) there has not been a comparable decrease in lung cancer deaths ... if anything lung cancer deaths have increased (possibly due to the population aging).

But, then again, the lack of decrease in lung cancer deaths might be due to the increase in motor vehicle ownership.

September 11 2002:

RESPONDENT No. 58: [quoting from a World Health Organisation article]: The truth is that one out of every two long-term smokers will ultimately be killed by tobacco.

RICHARD: I too have read similar claims – a quit-smoking pamphlet I have to hand, printed by an official cancer fund, states that ‘one in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit’ – yet when I looked at the official statistics for Australia, so as to find out what is actually happening (aka the fact) as contrasted to what they say will happen (aka the truth), I see that not even one out of one hundred tobacco users are dying of [alleged] smoking-related diseases. The figure is 0.47 out of 100 ... and even that figure is questionable.

RESPONDENT: Is there really a discrepancy between Richard’s number and that 50% number being used by the WHO? As far as I understand, Richard’s number of .47% is based on total smokers and not life time smokers. Life time smokers are only a part of the set of all smokers. We will call this quantity LTSM. If LTSM is 1/2 of all smokers, then .47% multiplied by 2 will yield .94%. This number of .94% will then represent the percentage of life time smokers that die per annum due to smoking. In order to then derive the percentage of deaths due to smoking for a life time smoker over the course of a lifetime, we will have to multiply .94% by an average number of years that life time smokers smoke. Given life expectancies of smokers, and discounting childhood non smoking years, we can assume that the number is around 50 years. And when we multiply 50 by that factor of .94% we have a figure that comes close to what the WHO is claiming, that of 50%. And it may very well be that LTSM is far less than 1/2 of all smokers, making the percentage of deaths due to a life time of smoking that much higher.

RICHARD: Thank you for explaining this ... as I am a practical person it has always puzzled me how it could be said that one out of two tobacco users will die (aka the truth) of alleged smoking-related diseases when less than one out of one hundred tobacco users were dying (aka the fact) of alleged smoking-related diseases. And you are correct where you say that my figures are based on the total number of tobacco users (the figures are 19,000 alleged smoking-related deaths out of 4,000,000 current tobacco users).

I was then interested to apply the formula you devised to statistics from another country: the figures supplied for the USA by the American Cancer Society are an alleged 430,700 smoking-related deaths per year out of 47,000,000 current tobacco users ... which means that the percentage is 0.91% per annum. Using the formula you devised then 0.91% multiplied by 2 will yield 1.82%. Upon multiplying 1.82% by 50 the result – as contrasted to the figure of 47% for Australia you arrived at – is 91% ... which is well above the 50% claimed by the World Health Organisation article and the quit-smoking pamphlet I have to hand.

Now I could be facetious and suggest that tobacco users in the USA move to Australia for health reasons – a close to 1 out of 2 possibility of dying of alleged smoking-related causes is significantly less than an almost 1 out of 1 possibility of dying of alleged smoking-related causes – but instead I am left with a demonstration that the method of determining smoking-related causes of death (physicians filling in death certificates) is indeed questionable.

Surely mathematical projections based upon questionable statistics are automatically inaccurate?

September 22 2002:

RESPONDENT: The World Health Organization figures are based on ‘the largest study ever done on smoking deaths’. [quote]: ‘Researchers from China and the U.K., led by Professor Liu Boqi of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, investigated the smoking habits of one million Chinese people in 99 rural and urban areas who died between 1986 and 1988. Results from this and from studies led by Professor Niu Shiru and Dr Yang Gonghuan, both of the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, show that there are already about three-quarters of a million deaths a year in China from smoking and most of these are men’. [endquote]. (www.who.int/archives/inf-pr-1997/en/pr97-61.html). Please read carefully without attempting to disfigure the facts.

RICHARD: I appreciate your advice to read something carefully and without attempting to disfigure ‘the facts’ ... so much so that I must ask just what the facts are which you are referring me to in this instance?

As far as I have been able to ascertain the (possibly SAMMEC-generated) figures relating to alleged smoking-related deaths contained in the article you posted – and the other article you posted less than an hour later – are based upon epidemiological correlations interpreted as being indicative of a causative association between tobacco use and various cancers and cardiovascular diseases ... yet any epidemiologist worthy of their salt knows that correlation does not equal causation.

Which is why I remarked in my initial post that the method of determining smoking-related causes of death (physicians filling in death certificates) is a questionable practice.

Furthermore the assumptions and speculations regarding the correlations are predicated upon the theory that there is a chemical cause – such as the human body being susceptible to certain carcinogenic substances – to the cancers and cardiovascular diseases in question and not a microbial cause ... and I say ‘theory’ because even after 50-odd years of multibillion-dollar research into locating the precise biological cause-effect evidence in regards tobacco smoke no conclusive evidence has been found to date.

Meanwhile, under-funded research into a microbial cause has already produced some startling results, with promising avenues for similarly fruitful research in the pipeline, such as stomach cancer, for instance, no longer being regarded as a smoking-related (chemically-caused) disease but bacterially-caused ... specifically by a bacterium named Helicobacter Pylori. And instead of providing some other examples of a microbial cause, such as for liver cancer and cervical cancer, I would rather suggest that you first peruse the pages at the following URL’s so as to gain a taste of what biological cause-effect evidence looks like:

http://vianet.net.au/~bjmrshll/features2.html

http://www.helico.com/index.html

If you access the following US Government URL you will see that stomach cancer is no longer listed as being a smoking-related disease (look under the heading ‘Malignant Neoplasms’): http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/sammec/help/icd_codes_hp.asp

Whereas the quit-smoking pamphlet published by a cancer fund I have to hand has this to say about stomach cancer:

• ‘There is a link between cigarette smoking and stomach cancer. It is estimated that 14% of stomach cancer in men and 11% of this cancer in women can be attributed to smoking’.

Which goes to show just how tenacious a factoid can be. Be that as it may be the following URL’s could very well provide food for thought in regards to some possible areas of fruitful research:

http://www.forbes.com/global/1999/1115/0223102a.html

http://www.annals.org/issues/v131n12/full/199912210-00101.html

What is now needed of course is some of those billions of research dollars, currently being spent on turning tobacco users into social pariahs, being shifted to the areas of fruitful research – after all these diseases affect all peoples and not just those that entertain certain habits considered by some as being bad habits – so that everybody can benefit from practical scientific research.

However, human nature being as it is, I will not be holding my breath whilst waiting for that to happen.

(for more on this subject there is a book available for free at the following URL): https://web.archive.org/web/20140401071139/http://www.lcolby.com/ and https://lcolby.myvtoronte.com/

January 21 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard, it might help (me at least) to clarify your following statement in your correspondence with Respondent No. 56: [Richard]: ‘... facts are few and far between for most scientists, and many of their ‘facts’ later turn out to be flawed methodology arising out of their expectations based upon their belief systems and/or mind-set’. [endquote]. It is clear and plain to see that the second part of what you are saying is correct. Specifically, that many of scientists ‘facts’ ‘later turn out to be flawed methodology arising out of their expectations based upon their belief systems and/or mind-set’. I don’t see any room for disagreement on that point. Anyone who has studied or read about science and the history of science would be able to agree with that statement. But, you are additionally saying that ‘facts are few and far between for most scientists’, which is by no means obvious. Would you mind stating more clearly what you mean?

RICHARD: I am none too sure how I can put it more clearly ... in any area of research I have ever looked into I have, more often than not, found that not only are facts rather thin on the ground but that it is mainly the hypothesis/ theory which gets most of the attention (which is possibly why many of the ‘facts’ later turn out not to be facts at all).

I could provide many examples – global deforestation for instance – yet hesitate to do so as I would become deflected into attending to all the minutiae the presenting of such examples require in order to make a case ... instead I would invite anyone genuinely interested to find out for themselves by conducting their own research into various topics.

If anyone were to do so I would suggest reading the following booklet ‘Science Without Sense’ before they start:

https://web.archive.org/web/19970412002851/http://www.junkscience.com/sws.html

[... elided ...]

RESPONDENT: Or maybe you mean: 2) Scientists ‘facts’ often turn out to be errors due to flawed methodology arising out of their expectations.

RICHARD: Yes, I also mean that. Expectations can, and often do, lead to cherry-picking the data, for example ... especially in the area of epidemiological studies (such as the tobacco issue for instance).

_____________________

Footnote: As no cause-effect connection has ever been established between tobacco use and any of the 101 ailments it has been epidemiologically associated with, the latest bout of demonisation which tobacco is currently receiving leaves me decidedly unimpressed. For example, despite 50+ years of subjecting many different laboratory animals (such as dogs, monkeys, rats, mice, and so on) to enormous amounts of tobacco smoke – in one instance laboratory mice were forced to inhale the human equivalent of 62 packs of cigarettes a day – no animal has ever developed lung cancer. For another example, in the USA, where all the furore started back in the ‘fifties’, whilst the number of people using tobacco has dropped from approx. 50% of the population back then to approx. 25% nowadays the incidence of lung cancer has risen, not fallen.

What is of particular note is that the cause of liver cancer, cervical cancer, throat cancer and stomach cancer has recently been discovered to be bacterial/viral, all the while that tobacco was being blamed and valuable research dollars were being allocated elsewhere, and some preliminary research is showing indications that bacteria/viruses might also be the cause of lung cancer ... and maybe even heart disease.

Also, the figures published claiming, say, 350,000 deaths in a given year from tobacco-related diseases are not figures derived from a body-count – there are no such dead bodies in graves to count – as they are 350,000 (or whatever) phantom deaths generated by a computer programme such as SAMMEC II ... meaning that it is the epidemiological data that is fed into the computer which determines the statistical deaths the programme prints out.

Lastly (as I have no interest in belabouring the subject) those graphic photographs showing a slimy-black cancerous lung, labelled ‘smoker’s lung’, and a shiny-pink healthy lung, labelled ‘non-smoker’s lung’, are nothing but propaganda: the slimy-black lung should read ‘cancerous lung’ (and could very well be a non-smoker’s lung) and the shiny-pink lung should read ‘healthy lung’ (and could very well be a smoker’s lung) as it is impossible for a pathologist to determine, from both gross and microscopic examination of lung tissue, whether a person who died from other causes (such as a vehicular accident) is a smoker or a non-smoker.

The following URL covers all this and much more: https://web.archive.org/web/20140401071139/http://www.lcolby.com/ and https://lcolby.myvtoronte.com/

March 05 2004

RESPONDENT: Richard disagrees that smoking as bad for you. He provides a link to this interesting site – https://web.archive.org/web/20140401071139/http://www.lcolby.com/ and https://lcolby.myvtoronte.com/. I guess that ‘470,000 deaths per year in the US due to smoking-related illness’ statistic is not a fact.

RICHARD: There is no need to guess ... if you had actually read what is on offer on that ‘interesting site’ – and followed-up on the links – you would already be cognisant of the fact that the statistics are generated by computer programmes, such as SAMMEC II, from epidemiological studies fed into them and not by a verified body-count.

The GIGO cliché seems most apposite in this case.

In other words there is no 470,000 (or whatever figure) gravestones upon which one can read words to the effect ‘here lies Jack/Jill; died aged x-years because of tobacco use’ as there is no medical evidence (no conclusive biological cause-effect connection) whatsoever that tobacco causes any of the 101 illnesses attributed to it since the current witch-hunt began in certain neo-puritanical quarters of the USA in the ‘fifties.

There is plenty of literature on the subject – both on the internet and in books – which expose the so-called facts surrounding the issue to be the factoids they are ... as is the situation with many other issues which similarly hold sway in public imagination.

The day may come when this era is more aptly re-named as the ‘Disinformation Age’.

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