97 comments

1. Kaye LeeApril 20, 2014 at 10:12 am

   Along the same lines….

   “In the 1960s asbestos mining was a very profitable business. And it created a lot of jobs. Asbestos was very useful – indeed, one of the best insulating materials known to humankind.

   The link between asbestos and cancer was known as early as the 1930s. But mining continued. Hot water pipes were sheathed in it. In Australia, it was mined into the 1970s despite the known risk. Asbestos was mixed with cement to make building materials and sprinkled in roofs to insulate Canberra houses from the cold.

   But asbestos was toxic. Ultimately it was more economically beneficial to leave it in the ground than use it, aside from the human cost.

   We should now be saying similar things about coal and natural gas.

   There is a difference, of course. Asbestos mining could be stopped dead in its tracks and the economy still functioned and basic living standards remain much the same.

   But an immediate ban on coal to generate electricity or produce steel would almost shut the economy down, and there are no immediate health dangers in using coal.

   But in the long term the continued use of coal will be profoundly more damaging than the continued use of asbestos. If the world continues to burn fossil fuels the way we do, the result will not be a few mesothelioma deaths (awful as they are) and some economic loss weeding asbestos out of buildings.

   Rather, the result will be massive indirect economic costs because we did not have the sense to develop a gradual transition to leave the carbon-emitting toxic fuels in the ground and develop alternatives.

   With coal, however, there is no mood for government intervention to phase it out. Instead of acknowledging its threat to humankind and mapping out a future without fossil fuels, the government’s stated position is that coal comes first and everything else must work around it

   In 30 years Hunt will look like an asbestos miner so concerned about profits and economic benefits that he is blind to the looming catastrophe.”

   Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/coal-stop-burning-it-this-is-the-next-asbestos-20140418-36wlk.html#ixzz2zNf2okaX

2. Möbius EckoApril 20, 2014 at 11:39 am

   The similarities between this and the campaign of misinformation regarding climate change cannot be missed.

   And for good reason. I can’t remember their name but one of the biggest PR firms in the US hired by Big Tobacco and who ran the campaign to muddy the waters is also being used by Heartland and other vested interests for their attacks on the climate change science, and they are employing the exact same tactics as they did with tobacco.

3. abbienoiraudeApril 20, 2014 at 11:43 am

   Wow what an impressive, comprehensive and definitive post on tobacco and its history.

   Whether it be tobacco, asbestos, coal or gas it seems that unless we get into our thick skulls that the only thing that is heard within a ‘free market economy’ and a capitalistic Nation is MONEY.

   Many people’s lives versus a few persons profit. s
   When it comes down to it, the power of fortunes outweighs science, facts and duty of care.

   More fool us!

4. halsaulApril 20, 2014 at 11:44 am

   Absolutely agree with the premise of this article. Julia Gillard was doing exactly the right thing, transitioning and at the same time developing green power.

   I understand we were developing solar technologies, wind etc. and now we have no science minister and cutting funds to C.S.I.R.O.

   Being wealthy will not save anybody from the consequences of this lack of preparedness when climate change really hits. People will not quietly acquiesce, there will be social chaos.

   Too many old, self interested, right-wing religious people in this government. Harsh but basically true.

5. KerriApril 20, 2014 at 11:47 am

   Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M Conway also cites not only the similarity in tactics but often the same “pay for comment” medical practitioners speaking against climate change.

6. Kaye LeeApril 20, 2014 at 11:49 am

   Big Tobacco turned to one the world’s five largest public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, to help out. Hill and Knowlton designed a brilliant Public Relations (PR) campaign to convince the public that smoking is not dangerous. They encouraged the tobacco industry to set up their own research organization, the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), which would produce science favorable to the industry, emphasize doubt in all the science linking smoking to lung cancer, and question all independent research unfavorable to the tobacco industry

   President Obama’s nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), wrote a meticulously researched 2008 book called, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. In the book, he wrote: “the industry understood that the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad. Create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Throw mud at the anti-smoking research under the assumption that some of it is bound to stick. And buy time, lots of it, in the bargain”. Hill and Knowlton, on behalf of the tobacco industry, had founded the “Manufactured Doubt” industry.

   In 1967, Hill and Knowlton helped asbestos industry giant Johns-Manville set up the Asbestos Information Association (AIA). The official-sounding AIA produced “sound science” that questioned the link between asbestos and lung diseases (asbestos currently kills 90,000 people per year, according to the World Health Organization). Manufacturers of lead, vinyl chloride, beryllium, and dioxin products also hired Hill and Knowlton to devise product defense strategies to combat the numerous scientific studies showing that their products were harmful to human health.

   Joining the specialized “product defense” firms were the so-called “think tanks”. These front groups received funding from manufacturers of dangerous products and produced “sound science” in support of their funders’ products, in the name of free enterprise and free markets. Think tanks such as the George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and Dr. Fred Singer’s SEPP (Science and Environmental Policy Project) have all been active for decades in the Manufactured Doubt business, generating misleading science and false controversy to protect the profits of their clients who manufacture dangerous products.

   In 1975, the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) industry realized it had a serious problem and hired Hill and Knowlton to fight back. As is essential in any Manufactured Doubt campaign, Hill and Knowlton found a respected scientist to lead the effort–noted British scientist Richard Scorer, a former editor of the International Journal of Air Pollution and author of several books on pollution. In 1975, Scorer went on a month-long PR tour, blasting Molina and Rowland, calling them “doomsayers”, and remarking, “The only thing that has been accumulated so far is a number of theories.” To complement Scorer’s efforts, Hill and Knowlton unleashed their standard package of tricks learned from decades of serving the tobacco industry:

   – Launch a public relations campaign disputing the evidence.

   – Predict dire economic consequences, and ignore the cost benefits.

   – Use non-peer reviewed scientific publications or industry-funded scientists who don’t publish original peer-reviewed scientific work to support your point of view.

   – Trumpet discredited scientific studies and myths supporting your point of view as scientific fact.

   – Point to the substantial scientific uncertainty, and the certainty of economic loss if immediate action is taken.

   – Use data from a local area to support your views, and ignore the global evidence.

   – Disparage scientists, saying they are playing up uncertain predictions of doom in order to get research funding.

   – Disparage environmentalists, claiming they are hyping environmental problems in order to further their ideological goals.

   – Complain that it is unfair to require regulatory action in the U.S., as it would put the nation at an economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.

   – Claim that more research is needed before action should be taken.

   – Argue that it is less expensive to live with the effects.

7. mars08April 20, 2014 at 12:06 pm

   Examples of tobacco industry spin doctoring sixty years ago:

   http://images2.tobaccodocuments.org/ness/w750r0/00004720.png

   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/A_Frank_Statement.png

8. billy moirApril 20, 2014 at 1:27 pm

   terrific for the 10% of those too young to know the tricks. who can follow cryptic messages and are literate, interested enough to read.and who care. Do we import from Asia? How does the plain package stand up to the signed FTAs?

9. AnomanderApril 20, 2014 at 1:51 pm

   Another fantastic article Kaye. Thank you so much for your amazingly detailed research and ability to write so clearly and concisely to deliver a powerful message. AIMN is fortunate to have a contributor of your calibre as part of its arsenal. This is definitely a site that puts the mainstream media to shame.

10. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    Warning from Kaye. This person is exactly the type I am writing the article about. I have left their rantings to show exactly how they work. To save you time, he has gone through history to try and find any article he can to say smoking isn’t bad

    The SHAM was Judge Kessler! With absolutely no proof of end point connection to disease outcomes to any claim made against smoking she goes and adjudges the tobacco companies lied when all along it was the Government and everyone else LYING!

    Judge doesnt accept statistical studies as proof of LC causation!

    It was McTear V Imperial Tobacco. Here is the URL for both my summary and the Judge’s ‘opinion’ (aka ‘decision’):

    (2.14) Prof Sir Richard Doll, Mr Gareth Davies (CEO of ITL). Prof James Friend and
    Prof Gerad Hastings gave oral evidence at a meeting of the Health Committee in
    2000. This event was brought up during the present action as putative evidence that
    ITL had admitted that smoking caused various diseases. Although this section is quite
    long and detailed, I think that we can miss it out. Essentially, for various reasons, Doll
    said that ITL admitted it, but Davies said that ITL had only agreed that smoking might
    cause diseases, but ITL did not know. ITL did not contest the public health messages.
    (2.62) ITL then had the chance to tell the Judge about what it did when the suspicion
    arose of a connection between lung cancer and smoking. Researchers had attempted
    to cause lung cancer in animals from tobacco smoke, without success. It was right,
    therefore, for ITL to ‘withhold judgement’ as to whether or not tobacco smoke caused
    lung cancer.

    [9.10] In any event, the pursuer has failed to prove individual causation.
    Epidemiology cannot be used to establish causation in any individual case, and the
    use of statistics applicable to the general population to determine the likelihood of
    causation in an individual is fallacious. Given that there are possible causes of lung
    cancer other than cigarette smoking, and given that lung cancer can occur in a nonsmoker,
    it is not possible to determine in any individual case whether but for an
    individual’s cigarette smoking he probably would not have contracted lung cancer
    (paras.[6.172] to [6.185]).
    [9.11] In any event there was no lack of reasonable care on the part of ITL at any
    point at which Mr McTear consumed their products, and the pursuer’s negligence
    case fails. There is no breach of a duty of care on the part of a manufacturer, if a
    consumer of the manufacturer’s product is harmed by the product, but the consumer
    knew of the product’s potential for causing harm prior to consumption of it. The
    individual is well enough served if he is given such information as a normally
    intelligent person would include in his assessment of how he wishes to conduct his
    life, thus putting him in the position of making an informed choice (paras.[7.167] to
    [7.181]).

11. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS”
    7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
    November 2004.

    “5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke – induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease.”

    In other words … our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can’t even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact … we don’t even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.

    The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.

12. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:33 pm

    Then it was Judge Kessler who was also the federal judge who let the JUNK EPA ETS REPORT GO FORWARD after it was totally destroyed by Judge Osteen! Lowering C.I.s from 95% to 90% and still couldn’t produce anything more than a 17% increase of LC in non-smokers…………Then we find Judge Kessler was on the scientific federal advisory committee to just what was considered allowable evidence in federal courts and she knew full well second hand smoke studies were not allowable to start with as they were all junk science by the standards set………

    Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Third Edition

    nap.edu

    This sorta says it all

    These limits generally are based on assessments of health risk and calculations of concentrations that are associated with what the regulators believe to be negligibly small risks. The calculations are made after first identifying the total dose of a chemical that is safe (poses a negligible risk) and then determining the concentration of that chemical in the medium of concern that should not be exceeded if exposed individuals (typically those at the high end of media contact) are not to incur a dose greater than the safe one.

    So OSHA standards are what is the guideline for what is acceptable ”SAFE LEVELS”

    OSHA SAFE LEVELS

    All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.

    For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes.

    “For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes.

    “Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.

    Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.

    “For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes.

    For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time.

    The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.

    So, OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :

    Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA.

    Why are their any smoking bans at all they have absolutely no validity to the courts or to science!

13. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:35 pm

    Heres what SHS/ETS actually is,please don’t laugh to hard

    About 90% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a minor amount of carbon dioxide. The volume of water vapor of second hand smoke becomes even larger as it quickly disperses into the air,depending upon the humidity factors within a set location indoors or outdoors. Exhaled smoke from a smoker will provide 20% more water vapor to the smoke as it exists the smokers mouth.

    4 % is carbon monoxide.

    6 % is those supposed 4,000 chemicals to be found in tobacco smoke. Unfortunatley for the smoke free advocates these supposed chemicals are more theorized than actually found.What is found is so small to even call them threats to humans is beyond belief.Nanograms,picograms and femptograms……
    (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80).

    Heres what a simple cookout produces:

    “Barbecues poison the air with toxins and could cause cancer, research suggests.
    A study by the French environmental campaigning group Robin des Bois found that a typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes.

    Dioxins are a group of chemicals known to increase the likelihood of cancer.

    The figures were based on grilling four large steaks, four turkey cuts and eight large sausages.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3106039.stm

14. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:36 pm

    Then this study shows up last year and even more dramatic was this year smoking lungs out performed non-smoking lungs in survival rates up to 3 years after transplant!

    This pretty well destroys the Myth of second hand smoke:

    http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16741714-lungs-from-pack-a-day-smokers-safe-for-transplant-study-finds?lite

    Lungs from pack-a-day smokers safe for transplant, study finds.

    By JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News.

    Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.

    What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.

    “I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study………………………

    Ive done the math here and this is how it works out with second ahnd smoke and people inhaling it!

    The 16 cities study conducted by the U.S. DEPT OF ENERGY and later by Oakridge National laboratories discovered:

    Cigarette smoke, bartenders annual exposure to smoke rises, at most, to the equivalent of 6 cigarettes/year.

    146,000 CIGARETTES SMOKED IN 20 YEARS AT 1 PACK A DAY.

    A bartender would have to work in second hand smoke for 2433 years to get an equivalent dose.

    Then the average non-smoker in a ventilated restaurant for an hour would have to go back and forth each day for 119,000 years to get an equivalent 20 years of smoking a pack a day! Pretty well impossible ehh!

15. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:40 pm

    If your wondering how a judge can find somebody/Corporation guilty with absolutely no proof at all except JUNK SCIENCE claims and linked to studies you likely find a kangaroo court in session like Kesslers court!

    They had help and entire 100 years of junk epidemiological/statistical studies and that was it!

    ya the grant moneys always been that good!

    Epidemiologists Vote to Keep Doing Junk Science

    http://www.manhealthissue.com/2007/06/epidemiologists-vote-to-keep-doing-junk-science.html

    Epidemiology Monitor (October 1997)

    An estimated 300 attendees a recent meeting of the American College of
    Epidemiology voted approximately 2 to 1 to keep doing junk science!

    Specifically, the attending epidemiologists voted against a motion
    proposed in an Oxford-style debate that “risk factor” epidemiology is
    placing the field of epidemiology at risk of losing its credibility.

    Risk factor epidemiology focuses on specific cause-and-effect
    relationships–like heavy coffee drinking increases heart attack risk. A
    different approach to epidemiology might take a broader
    perspective–placing heart attack risk in the context of more than just
    one risk factor, including social factors.

    Risk factor epidemiology is nothing more than a perpetual junk science machine.

    But as NIEHS epidemiologist Marilyn Tseng said “It’s hard to be an
    epidemiologist and vote that what most of us are doing is actually harmful
    to epidemiology.”

    But who really cares about what they’re doing to epidemiology. I thought
    it was public health that mattered!

    we have seen the “SELECTIVE” blindness disease that
    Scientist have practiced over the past ten years. Seems the only color they
    see is GREEN BACKS, it’s a very infectious disease that has spread through
    the Scientific community with the same speed that any infectious disease
    would spread. And has affected the T(thinking) Cells as well as sight.

    Seems their eyes see only what their paid to see. To be honest, I feel
    after the Agent Orange Ranch Hand Study, and the Slutz and Nutz Implant
    Study, they have cast a dark shadow over their profession of being anything
    other than traveling professional witnesses for corporate hire with a lack
    of moral concern to their obligation of science and truth.

    The true “Risk Factor” is a question of ; will they ever be able to earn
    back the respect of their profession as an Oath to Science, instead of
    corporate paid witnesses with selective vision?
    Oh, if this seems way harsh, it’s nothing compared to the damage of peoples
    lives that selective blindness has caused!

    The rise of a pseudo-scientific links lobby

    Every day there seems to be a new study making a link between food, chemicals or lifestyle and ill-health. None of them has any link with reality.

    http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/13287

16. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:45 pm

    asbestos currently kills 90,000 people per year,

    They don’t even know what causes cancer to begin with or do you have some end point study proving what causes cancer besides what is know as in HIGH DOSE RADIATION that can change cell structure!

    Even epigenics is a theory that cant be proven…………..

    As far as supposed smoking cancer goes look at the age it hits at…………..

    Lung and Bronchus. Invasive Cancer Incidence Rates and 95% Confidence Intervals by Age and Race and Ethnicity, United States (Table 3.15.1.1M) *†‡

    Rates are per 100,000 persons. Rates are per 100,000 persons.

    Note the age where LC is found…………..OLD AGE group incidence hits the 500/100,000 at age 75-85

    AGE it seems is the deciding factor……….

    http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/uscs/cancersbyageandrace.aspx?Gender=Male&Count=false&Population=false&DataType=Incidence&RateType=CrudeType&CancerSite=All Cancer Sites Combined&Year=2010&Site=Lung and Bronchus&SurveyInstanceID=1

17. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:46 pm

    Guess who INVENTED PASSIVE SMOKING …………………..

    Hitler’s Anti-Tobacco Campaign

    One particularly vile individual, Karl Astel — upstanding president of Jena University, poisonous anti-Semite, euthanasia fanatic, SS officer, war criminal and tobacco-free Germany enthusiast — liked to walk up to smokers and tear cigarettes from their unsuspecting mouths. (He committed suicide when the war ended, more through disappointment than fear of hanging.) It comes as little surprise to discover that the phrase “passive smoking” (Passivrauchen) was coined not by contemporary American admen, but by Fritz Lickint, the author of the magisterial 1100-page Tabak und Organismus (“Tobacco and the Organism”), which was produced in collaboration with the German AntiTobacco League.

18. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:48 pm

    The entire anti-smoking Fraud has been going on for over 100 years and its the same junk science claims then as now even Mark Twain wrote about junk statistics way back in 1893.

    Mark Twain said it right over a hundred years ago:

    “The Moral Statistician.”
    Originally published in Sketches, Old and New, 1893

    “I don’t want any of your statistics; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it.

    I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man’s health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years’ indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. And you are always figuring out how many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, etc. etc. You never see more than one side of the question.

    You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you can save money by denying yourself all those little vicious enjoyments for fifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use can you put it to? Money can’t save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment where is the use of accumulating cash?

    It won’t do for you to say that you can use it to better purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities, and in supporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your knees, with your ears buried in the cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never give the revenue officers a full statement of your income.

    Now you know all these things yourself, don’t you? Very well, then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives to a lean and withered old age? What is the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless to you? In a word, why don’t you go off somewhere and die, and not be always trying to seduce people into becoming as ornery and unlovable as you are yourselves, by your villainous “moral statistics”?”

19. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:49 pm

    Twain was right on target because what followed was the same styled smoking bans even in America!

    ALL REPEALED TOO!

    Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.

    1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. “Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity” (Dillow, 1981:10).

    1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.

    1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. “You can’t do that on Fifth Avenue,” the arresting officer says.

    1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: “Business … is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do.”

    1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.

    1937: hitler institutes laws against smoking.This one you can google.

20. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 20, 2014 at 2:51 pm

    Breaking the UTAH smoking ban in 1923

    Which they were, since they—along with McKay, who as a result of some rather undignified snitching by his accomplices in crime was soon to become the object of a similar criminal complaint—openly had violated Section 4, Chapter 145, of the Utah state code. The four men had been smoking in an enclosed public place.

    The story goes even farther and UTAH became a laughing stock of the country for its smoking ban.

    In fact, only one state enacted a new, prohibitory anticigarette and antismoking law during the postwar antismoking campaign. That state was Utah.

    Utah had banned cigarette sales to minors in 1896, but although cigarette prohibition bills were considered in later years, Utah generally muddled through the pre-war crusade without actively joining in. The postwar revival of that crusade found congenial ground in the state, however, particularly within the powerful Mormon church, and in 1920 a church publication hinted that the time had come for all-out war. By February, 1921, the church had lined up enough support to secure easy passage of a bill prohibiting cigarette sales, cigarette advertising, and smoking in any form in certain “enclosed public places,” such as government offices, theaters, and—more germane to this article—cafés and restaurants. The bill sailed through the legislature with little public comment—no one really expected it to be enforced anyway—and was signed by Governor Charles Mabey. By June, 1921, cigarette sales and public after-dinner smokes were illegal in Utah, but as expected the new law affected Utah smokers hardly at all. Restaurant and theater proprietors seemed unwillingly to enforce it themselves, and the sheriff’s office and the police department bickered over who would have the thankless task. In the end, no one enforced it.

    In 1922, however, Mormon church president Heber J. Grant urged Mormon voters to elect officials who would promise to enforce the new laws. Benjamin R. Harries vowed to do just that, and in November, 1922, he was elected Salt Lake County sheriff. Soon after he took office, Sheriff Harries ordered a number of raids on suspected cigarette dealers, whereupon the dealers paid homage to the law by hiding their cigarettes and charging bootleg prices for them. Sheriff Harries obviously decided that more dramatic measures were required, because on February 20, 1923, Mr. Bamberger, Mr. Lynch, and Mr. Newhouse found themselves in jail.

    As if their march down Main Street had not been humiliating enough, the three men were then informed that each would have to post a ten-dollar bond before he could be let go. The implication that so measly a sum could substitute for their word of honor was simply too much; an argument ensued. The three finally were released on their own recognizance by Judge Noel S. Pratt, but not before they had chided deputies Mauss and Harris for not also arresting McKay. That did not help them, but it did result in another complaint being sworn. It was served by telephone, and McKay promised to surrender himself the next morning. Later that day Newhouse told a newspaper reporter that the entire affair was a “frame-up” and a political ploy by Sheriff Harries and his “asinine deputies.” Sheriff Harries dismissed the accusations as “bosh” and ordered his deputies to continue to enforce the law. The next day several deputies raided the Hotel Utah grill room and the state capitol (where the legislature was in session) and arrested six more smokers. The deputies were disappointed when they could find no smoking legislators to arrest.

    THE END OF SMOKING BANS IN UTAH

    he pressure finally proved too much for even the strongest supporters of the antismoking laws. Within a week the Deseret News , a Mormon publication, signaled partial surrender by endorsing a pending revision of the laws to allow cigarette sales to adults and reduce greatly the restrictions on public smoking. The amendment bill streaked through the legislature and was signed by a no doubt relieved Governor Mabey. Charges against Bamberger and his partners in crime were dropped. The Utah crusade was over.

    The Utah anticigarette law was the last of its kind; although North Dakota and Kansas kept theirs until 1925 and 1927, respectively, they were never seriously enforced, Utah having demonstrated that strict enforcement caused more problems than no enforcement at all.

    http://www.americanheritage.com/content/thank-you-not-smoking?page=10

    SIMON CHAPMAN SHOULD READ THIS ONE! The new third hand smoke junk science too!

    E-Cigs classified as a tobacco product by the WHO and the EU COUNCIL claiming that the nicotine is derived from tobacco plants and give NRT nicotine replacement therapy drugs a pass when the nicotine comes from tobacco plants too! Talk about HIPOCRACY…………….

21. Kaye LeeApril 20, 2014 at 2:54 pm

    John Davidson.

    I could point you towards the overwhelming research and studies that have proven beyond doubt that smoking is injurious to your health but it is painfully obvious that you are either one of those people paid to “manufacture doubt” or you just have a death wish. You are following the exact script of those corporate bastards that willingly kill people for profit and your bullshit will find no support here.

22. mars08April 20, 2014 at 3:00 pm

    Kaye Lee:

    In the courtroom, the companies continue to challenge allegations about nicotine addiction and smoking causing illness…

    And if the law allows them this avenue, then let them go for it. They’re only in business to maximise profits after all.

    Today we have a massive effort by corporations to kill any action on climate change.

    The crucial difference between the reach of cigarette companies and climate change, is that future generations cannot avoid facing the damage being done to the environment today. I believe that smoking is dangerous to my health and have chosen to abstain. I have also tried to steer my children away from cigarettes. So far, so good.

    But my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have no alternative but to live in the environment we leave for them…

23. LOVOApril 20, 2014 at 3:02 pm

    JD jr, spreading doubt I see!! 🙄 Does that pay well John?
    ( p.s. If I someone gave me a Harley I’d sell it and buy a motorbike….. just sayin.. 😀 )

24. Kaye LeeApril 20, 2014 at 3:05 pm

    It’s always interesting looking into the people who talk crap like John Davidson Jr. This is a site he recommended in his tweeting with @TobaccoTacticss

    5 Propaganda Techniques

    Propaganda techniques are commonly encountered in commercial advertising but these techniques, or variations of them, are used by political campaigns and nearly every other organization that needs to persuade the public. The five techniques are known as bandwagon, testimonial, transfer, repetition and emotional words

    Read more: http://www.ehow.com/info_8464540_5-propaganda-techniques.html#ixzz2zOqKV7dE

25. lawrencewinderApril 20, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    Does any-one know if legal action could eventually be taken against “The Coot’s-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” (IPA) for criminal negligence from the consequences regarding their climate-change denier support?

26. Möbius EckoApril 20, 2014 at 3:14 pm

    John Davidson Jr gives us a lesson in how to cherry pick bits of information and then flood post a topic with it. Doesn’t prove anything and certainly doesn’t make the case for tobacco being a harmless product.

27. Kevin ArnoldApril 20, 2014 at 5:46 pm

    Mere mortals like myself read the article, decide whether we agree or not, and then if we feel it is important enough to reply, struggle to put into words our views on the subject. John Davidson must have an amazing recollection of articles to access such information so quickly. Or maybe he just had it all sitting there waiting for this moment. Big Tobacco is nothing if not patient and opportunistic.

28. Kaye LeeApril 20, 2014 at 6:17 pm

    Kevin,

    If you click on his name you will see a twitter conversation and yes….he had all the articles ready to roll…so to speak

29. LOVOApril 20, 2014 at 7:45 pm

    If you do a search of his name/tobacco you will find him all over the net when ever an tobacco story is run. He is an internet troll for big tobacco. One wonders what his views are in regards to CC. :/

30. Kaye LeeApril 20, 2014 at 7:51 pm

    I was wondering why someone from the US was commenting so quickly and so much on my story…he’s a first time visitor I think. Perhaps a bell rings every time an article links to tobacco. Ima guessing he gets paid by the word. He was a bit like Zorro – appeared, let rip, and then disappeared 🙂

31. Matters NotApril 20, 2014 at 9:49 pm

    a bell rings every time an article links to tobacco

    Perhaps? But I do know that Kevin Donnelly, (Pyne’s ‘reviewer’ of the national curriculum), usually appears when his name is mentioned on blogs.

    These days, his name has so many pejorative mentions, I suspect he can’t keep up.

    Then again, Kevin was a ‘teacher’ and abandoned it to become a ‘fish and chip’ operator, and now an ‘educator’ chosen to review the National Curriculum.

    Just sayin…

32. Stephen TardrewApril 20, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    JD Jr when does the fifth rate movie start cause the book is bloody boring.

    Black and white hand held 8mm is more your style.

33. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 4:16 am

    You will note smoking was never considered an addiction until somebody in the anti-smoking agenda decided in 1989……….

    Study says smokers are not addicted to nicotine

    By James Heather | Jul 19, 2010 08:03 AM EDT

    Therefore, the craving effect is produced by psychological reasons rather than by the physiological effects of nicotine deprivation.

    A similar study conducted in 2005 amongst religious Jews, forbidden by their religion to smoke on the Sabbath, also found nicotine to be not addictive as physiological addictions are usually defined.

    It is not that nicotine plays no role. The chemical does have a physiological role in increasing cognitive abilities such as attention and memory, it’s not an addictive substance like heroin, which creates true systemic and biologically-based withdrawal symptoms in the body of the user, Dr Dar says.

    http://www.medicaldaily.com/study-says-smokers-are-not-addicted-nicotine-231158

34. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 4:28 am

    When you look at todays anti-smoking campaign in comparison to hitlers it a carbon copy blueprint to the tee!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda

    Before World War II, Nazi propaganda strategy, officially promulgated by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, stressed several themes. Their goals were to establish external enemies (countries that allegedly inflicted the Treaty of Versailles on Germany) and internal enemies, such as Jews, Romani, homosexuals, and Bolsheviks. Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on the anti-Semitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover because “Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah.” Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community, such as the 1940 film The Eternal Jew.

    Then:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tobacco_movement_in_Nazi_Germany

    Adolf Hitler’s personal distaste for tobacco[10] and the Nazi reproductive policies were among the motivating factors behind their campaign against smoking, and this campaign was associated with both antisemitism and racism.[11]… …Strict measures were taken in this regard and a district department of the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) announced that it would expel female members who smoked publicly.[39] The next step in the anti-tobacco campaign came in July 1943, when public smoking for persons under the age of 18 was outlawed.[11][32][37] In the next year, smoking in buses and city trains was made illegal,[14] on the personal initiative of Hitler, who feared female ticket takers might be the victims of passive smoking.[6]

35. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 4:31 am

    Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: The Godber blueprint

    velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2009/12/godber-blueprint.html

    6 posts ·
    By Velvet Glove, Iron Fist ·
    Published Dec 18, 2009

    Dec 18, 2009 · In his thorough review of the various World Conferences on Smoking and Health, Di Pierri identifies what he calls the ‘Godber blueprint’ which anti-smoking …
    .

    Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger

    rampant-antismoking.com

    The second event described televising anti-smoking sermons by imams from Cairo mosques and the positive response from … (indoor and outdoor) smoking – Godber Blueprint.

    German Nazis, Smoke Nazis: Anti-Smokers Use Hitler’s Blueprint

    Present-day anti-smoking forces are following the same blueprint that Adolph Hitler used in his hopes for a smoke-free Nazi Germany. Smoke Nazis’ quest for control and regulatory power closely mirror the original National Socialists of 1930s Germany.

    We list the Nazi anti-smoking accomplishments alongside of those of the Smoke Nazis.

    * The Nazis banned tobacco advertising and financed huge public relations campaigns to propagandize people into giving up smoking.

    In April 1970, Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banning the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio starting on January 2, 1971. The Virginia Slims brand was in the last commercial shown, with “a 60-second revue from flapper to Female Lib”, shown at 11:59 p.m. on January 1 during a break on The Tonight Show.

    * The first modern, nationwide tobacco ban was imposed by the Nazi Party in every German university, post office, military hospital and Nazi Party office, under the auspices of Karl Astel’s Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research, created in 1941 under direct orders from Adolf Hitler himself. Major anti-tobacco campaigns were widely broadcast by the Nazis until the demise of the regime in 1945.

    In 1975, the U.S. state of Minnesota enacted the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act, making it the first state to ban smoking in most public spaces. To begin with, restaurants were required to have No Smoking sections, and bars were exempt from the Act. As of 1 October 2007, Minnesota signed into law a ban on smoking completely from all restaurants and bars throughout the state. This is the Freedom to Breathe Act of 2007.

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2028592/posts

36. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 6:14 am

    What a weirdo. But thank you JD for providing such an obvious example of what this article is discussing. The paid for misinformation campaign by unscrupulous people like you has been responsible for more deaths than any war. The same thing is happening with the climate change debate. You bastards should be locked up.

37. uknowispeaksenseApril 21, 2014 at 7:23 am

    The similarities are painfully obvious to anyone with an IQ over 50.

38. cowper133April 21, 2014 at 8:32 am

    Excellent article Kaye! Throughout history people have been expendable in the pursuit of profits.Usually those who through no fault of their own were not born into the privileged class are the fodder. Those who seek to be part of the elite will conspire with profiteers in the hope that they too will pick up more than the crumbs from the table!
    Keep up the great work and let us hope that the people who are concerned about the well being of people and our planet will win out in the end!

39. Michael TaylorApril 21, 2014 at 8:47 am

    So nobody had an addiction until 1989!

    I doubt that I’ve ever heard anything so ridiculous in my life.

40. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 9:56 am

    Not one of you has yet proffered up any proof that smoking causes one thing in anybody or anything!

    Don’t you seem to find that a bit odd since your so decided that proof exists when there isn’t one shred of factual evidence to end point causation to a single claim!

    But with leftist socialist Greens that is not uncommon at all,they believe in what they want and require no proof of the claim……..In most cultures that’s simply called Religion belief with no proof at all!

41. Michael TaylorApril 21, 2014 at 10:03 am

    I’ll reword that for you:

    “But with the rabid right-wing that is not uncommon at all, they believe in what they want and require no proof of the claim . . . In most cultures that’s simply called religion belief with no proof at all!”

    There, that sounds better.

42. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 10:14 am

    The reason nobody is bothering to answer you is because you are talking a load of shit. There is no question that smoking is harmful. Even the tobacco companies concede that. You are using propaganda methods that people here are awake up to. (I noticed your 5 propaganda tools tweet). The gist of your argument is that people can get lung cancer and other diseases without smoking. You want to ignore all evidence that smoking increases your chance of contracting those diseases. Just as with the ‘paid for’ climate change deniers, you want to ignore risk to make short term profit. I reiterate, I consider your actions criminal.

43. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 10:38 am

    Weekend Review: EPA Smoking Gun

    In a stunning admission, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy revealed to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) that the agency neither possesses, nor can produce, all of the scientific data used to justify the rules and regulations they have imposed on Americans via the Clean Air Act. In short, science has been trumped by the radical environmentalist agenda.

    http://patriotpost.us/articles/25000

44. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 10:41 am

    The precautionary Principle via UN environmentalists used to push forward the agenda with no proof at all!

    The precautionary principle itself is a catch 22 argument. It entails giving no proof the same standing as actually having positive proof. In essence it makes a negative a positive which we all know you can never prove a negative. By using this principle we might as well all just kill ourselves as chance living with possible threats that might harm us. Its actually created to let the nazis claim whatever they want and get away with it! Its use must be destroyed as its led to total destruction of the scientific process trying to create proof where none exists to begin with,hense the mountain of evidence we hear the nazis preach all over the place without actually being held to any proof at all!

    The principle itself cannot stand, it means an end to all we hold dear TRUTH.

    Without truth we have no meaning,we have no future,we have no life,no culture. We have only created hazzards that never existed,a culture defeated by fanaticism and led by radical nut cases passing laws based upon NOTHING! It gives basis to outlawing anything based upon nothing,it lowers the standard of proof in court to that of hearsay evidence to now convict!

    How did it happen,quite simply ENVIROMENTALISM!

    Precaution as Customary Law
    The question whether the precautionary principle is a principle of customary international
    law has received a great deal of attention, particularly since the principle’s inclusion
    in the Rio Declaration.

    http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/17/2/82.pdf

    Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

    The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,

    http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=78&articleid=1163

    Having met at Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992,

45. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 10:45 am

    What a ridiculous story JD. You want every person who is using scientific data to reproduce the research that led to that data? To start from scratch every time? You have got to be kidding me. Before every nuclear plant is built do you want the engineers to go back to the lab and prove that the atom can be split? How ludicrous. Do you even read these articles?

46. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 10:48 am

    Risk assessment studies are nothing but perpetual JUNK SCIENCE producing statistical magic to feed a propaganda machine and if you look you will see that anti-tobacco,global warming,anti-obesity its all junk science the same as the anti-tobacco junk science…………

    If you want a public health epidemic its easy just lower the value at which a disease entity is identified!

    INSTANT PUBLICE HEALTH CAMPAIGN and the Propaganda machine runs with it and the epidemiologists/magicians create the risk studies out of thin air too. While collecting billions worldwide for their trouble at the expense of the taxpayers……………

    Heres how they did it!

    Dont let the anti-obesity folks get wind of that one………..they just got billions to create junk science anti-obesity studies for michelle obamas new czarina roll as head public health policeman……the dems stole billions from food stamp programs to finance the war on obesity…

    The Medicalizing of America

    Part I: The Numbers Game

    Medicalize: “To identify or categorize (a condition or behavior) as being a disorder requiring medical treatment or intervention,” American Heritage Dictionary.

    Responses to virtually all questions, medical and otherwise fall into two categories: 1. Those having a finite number of answers, including yes, no, or in-between, for example “are you hungry?” or “are you sick?” and 2. Questions having a range of answers or values. Biologic and other scientific measurements fall into this latter category and include such things as weight, age, height, blood pressure, blood chemical values, such as glucose, cholesterol, PSA, etc. Where we get into trouble is in deciding, particularly in medicine, what is indeed normal and what is not. No matter where we place the dividing line or cutoff point, we are faced with an irresolvable medical dilemma.

    If we make the cutoff between normal and abnormal too low, we include too many normal in the abnormal group (called false positives, a Type I error); if the cutoff is too high, we include an excess of abnormal in the normal group (false negatives, Type II error). In the first instance we call too many well people sick, and in the latter, too many sick people well. (We are assuming the spectrum of low to high corresponds to the range of normal to abnormal; sometimes this range is reversed.)

    Over the years, various cutoff points for normal values have been based on generally accepted statistical and common sense clinical grounds. For example we have “normal” values for fasting and non-fasting blood sugars, upon which the diagnosis of diabetes is based; the “normal” level for blood pressure, defining the condition, hypertension; cutoff points for weight, defining obesity; and “normal” levels of blood lipids (HDL,LDL and total cholesterol) which for some even define the presence of heart disease (sic!). In what appears as a fatally misguided hope of extending treatment benefits to as many citizens as possible, various professional societies as well as Government Agencies have indeed changed our definitions of disease with unforeseen consequences. Specifically, in the present climate of change driven by a perceived need to keep us healthy and long-lived, these cutoff points have been lowered progressively and so drastically as virtually to create a nation of patients.

    In a revealing article in Effective Clinical Practice (March/April 1999) Lisa M. Schwartz and Steven Woloshin conclude that the number of people with at least one of four major medical conditions (actually risk factors) has increased dramatically in the past decade because of changes in the definition of abnormality. Using data abstracted from over 20,700 patients included in this Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III, 1988-1994) conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, the authors calculated the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, elevated cholesterol, and being overweight under the old and the new definitions and calculated the net change (i.e., number of new cases). Here are the results reported in the above article.

    Diabetes:

    Old Definition: Blood sugar > 140 mg/dl
    People under old definition: 11.7 million
    New Definition: Blood sugar > 126 mg/dl
    People added under new definition: 1.7 million
    Percent increase: 15%

    The definition was changed in 1997 by the American Diabetes Association and WHO Expert Committee on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus.

    Hypertension:

    High blood pressure is reported as two numbers, systolic or peak pressure and diastolic pressure when heart is at rest) in mm Hg.

    Old Definition: cutoff Blood Pressure > 160/100
    People under old definition: 38.7 million
    New Definition: Blood Pressure > 140/90
    People added under new definition: 13.5 million
    Percent Increase: 35%

    The definition was changed in 1997 by U.S. Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure.

    Prehypertension, a new category created in 2003: blood pressure from 120/80 to 138/89 includes 45 million additional people! If one includes this category, we have a grand total of 97.2 million total numbers of hypertensives and prehypertensives (whatever that is).

    High (Total) Cholesterol:

    Old Definition: Cholesterol > 240 mg/dl total cholesterol
    People under old definition: 49.5 million
    New Definition: Cholesterol > 200 mg/dl total cholesterol
    People added under new definition: 42.6 million
    Percent increase: 86%

    The definition was changed in 1998 by U.S. Air Force/Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study.

    Overweight:

    Body Mass Index (BMI) is defined as the ratio of weight (in kg) to height (in meters) squared and is an inexact measure of body fat, though it supposedly establishes cutoff points of normal weight, overweight, and obesity.

    Old definition: BMI > 28 (men), BMI > 27 (women)
    People under old definition: 70.6 million
    New definition: BMI > 25
    People added under new definition: 30.5 million
    Percent Increase: 43%

    The definition was changed in 1998 by U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

    “The new definitions ultimately label 75 percent of the adult U.S. population as diseased,” conclude the two researchers. They add cautiously that “…the extent to which new ‘patients’ would ultimately benefit from early detection and treatment of these conditions is unknown. Whether they would experience important physical or psychological harm is an open question.”

    We seem to live in an equal opportunity consumer culture tyrannized by the fear of growing “epidemics” going by the leading risk brand names, High Blood Pressure, Obesity, Diabetes, and High Cholesterol. Just read the papers, peruse the Internet, or turn on your TV to learn what the Government watchdogs, the consensus insurgency, and the other image makers have to say about our disastrous state of health.

    Several related questions arise when we consider the implications of these new definitions of disease (actually disease risk-markers). First how did these official and semi-official watchdogs achieve their status of “guideline-makers,”who appoints them and why, and how powerful an influence do they wield in terms of medical practice? Finally, one has to wonder what is the rationale for adding over 86 million new “patients” (not counting 45 million “prehypertensives”) to our already staggering over-the-top healthcare cost.

    Coming soon, these and other issues will be examined in our next newsletter.

    Martin F. Sturman, MD, FACP

47. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 10:50 am

    Kaye Lee they proved the atom could be split,they haven’t proven smoking causes a single disease in anyone! That leaves only a belief system to say its proven………not much of a fact based belief is it now!

48. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 10:52 am

    John that is enough. if you continue to just copy and paste from every Tea Party journal you can find I will delete your rubbish. If you wish to read and respond to comments and discuss your point of view then ok. This flooding presumably so you can submit your claim for payment based on the volume of crap you post will no longer be tolerated.

49. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 10:57 am

    You are completely incorrect. Since you like reading so much, go to the reference list at the end of this article and read your way through the proof.

    http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/howdoweknow/tobacco-smoking-and-cancer-the-evidence

50. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 11:01 am

    Kaye Lee how about you just pulling out the portion that proves end point disease causation from smoking. Go ahead I can wait……………psst it doesn’t exist.

51. Michael TaylorApril 21, 2014 at 11:13 am

    Come on, JD Jnr, we’re not idiots. Can I suggest you take a hike?

52. BacchusApril 21, 2014 at 11:13 am

    Suggestion: just immediately DELETE anything further from this moron. No-one is reading the crap he’s posting – smoking indisputably increases the RISK of various cancers. Even if that increased risk is only 2x (it’s somewhere from 8x to 20x), rational people don’t need to be bombarded with the propaganda from this proper goose…

53. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 11:13 am

    After these first results came out, UK scientists began a large study of smoking in British doctors, which Cancer Research UK has helped to fund. 11 This British Doctors’ Study has provided much of our current knowledge about the dangers of smoking.

    Dolls study wasn’t accepted of proof in court with Richard Doll in attendance and he could not explain to the judge the lack of proof in his study. Which btw Richard Doll was a student in Germany at the same school that Hitlers anti-tobacco agenda was created. The same ones who invented the second hand smoke myth!

    Believe me thru the last 60 years they have tried repeatedly to induce cancer via smoking in every animal known to man for testing. They failed each and everytime. What they do is use genetically altered rodents specifically designed to get cancer regardless of any environmental factors. The rodents and smoking study produced an outcome they didn’t expect as the smoking rodents outlived the non-smoking rodents after they all developed the exact same cancers that they were designed to get!

54. Michael TaylorApril 21, 2014 at 11:18 am

    Really? I don’t know of any animal who smokes. 🙄

    But seriously, Bacchus is right. We don’t need your rubbish. It’s time you said goodbye.

55. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 11:20 am

    “Statistical methods cannot establish proof of a causal relationship in an association. The causal significance of an association is a matter of judgment which goes beyond any statement of statistical probability. To judge or evaluate the causal significance of the association between the attribute or agent and the disease, or effect upon health, a number of criteria must be utilized, no one of which is an all-sufficient basis for judgment.”
    —1964 Surgeon General Report

    Relative Risks for lung cancer and cigarette smoking from various studies are around 10.

    For biological plausibility of causation, we find the presence of PAH and NNK and other carcinogens can lead to DNA adducts, which can lead to mutations, which can lead to lung cancer

    PAH polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
    NNK 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone

    This lecture from John Hopkins explains the causal relationship between smoking and cancer.
    http://ocw.jhsph.edu/courses/fundepiii/PDFs/Lecture19.pdf

56. Dan RowdenApril 21, 2014 at 11:35 am

    John Davidson Jr,

    My dad died of lung cancer when I was 15. It was pretty rough. On that basis I’m inclined to be really rude to you but people seem to be giving me the shits in general lately so I’m going to attempt to control myself. You are a fool. The science of tobacco product health deficits is not merely based on statistics. There’s barely anything in medical science that’s been more thoroughly studied.

    I concur with those who want you to ….

57. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 11:37 am

    I wonder if JD thinks smoking causes emphysema, or if smokers are short of breath just because they forgot to go to the gym.

58. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 11:39 am

    The PAH hoax was used back with grilled foods that had burned portions and they claimed massive stomach cancers caused by it with no proof to the accusation and it was pulled. You see PAH is basically in everything.

    “Barbecues poison the air with toxins and could cause cancer, research suggests.
    A study by the French environmental campaigning group Robin des Bois found that a typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes.

    Dioxins are a group of chemicals known to increase the likelihood of cancer.

    The figures were based on grilling four large steaks, four turkey cuts and eight large sausages.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3106039.stm

    With NNK its in virtually everything too especially ham,ballons in the air…………..

    What is a NNK and a safe dose level since its everywhere…………

    Guess where Nitrosamines are also formed? Cooking fish, where TSNAs are measured in microgrammes, but in the Berkeley paper nanogrammes a factor of a thousand times smaller. (2)

    Nitrosamines are also found in ham, milk, children’s balloons and tap water. (3)

    Finally the World Health Organization’s cancer mouthpiece the International Agency Research on Cancer says on Nitrosamines: “5.2 Human carcinogenicity data. No data were (sic) available to the Working Group.” (4)

    So we have a dose that is so low, cooking a fish produces 1,000 times more “carcinogens” on a chemical which has not been proven to cause cancer in the first place.

    Junk science that insults the intelligence.

    http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/02/08/dangers-of-third-hand-smoke/

    http://rms1.agsearch.agropedia.affrc.go.jp/contents/JASI/pdf/society/21-1629.pdf

    http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/134/8/2011.pdf

    http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol89/mono89-7E.pdf

    Just a little bit more about the N’-nitrosonornicotine found in SHS/ETS.

    However, the dose makes the poison!!

    This stuff is NOT present in quantities known to be hazardous!!!

    The concentration of N’-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) ranged from not detected to 23 pg/l, that of N’-nitrosoanata-bine ranged from not detected to 9 pg/l, while 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) was detected in concentrations ranging from 1 to 29 pg/l.

    Thus, non-smokers can be exposed to highly carcinogenic TSNA.

    NNN = 0 to 23 picograms per liter

    NNK = 0 to 29 picograms per liter

    1 cubic meter = 1,000 liters

    1 nanogram(NG) = 1,000 picograms

    Thus, NNN of 0 to 23 picograms per liter is the same as 0 to 23 nanograms(ng) per cubic meter

    NNK of 0 to 29 picograms per liter is the same as 0 to 29 nanograms(ng) per cubic meter.

    The question is whether or not 0 to 29 nanograms(ng) per cubic meter of a carcinogenic substance is a dangerous level?

    The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has concluded that inorganic arsenic is known to be a human carcinogen.

    The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) cites sufficient evidence of a relationship between exposure to arsenic and human cancer. The IARC classification of arsenic is Group 1.

    The EPA has determined that inorganic arsenic is a human carcinogen by the inhalation and oral routes, and has assigned it the cancer classification, Group A.

    Mean arsenic levels in ambient air in the United States have been reported to range from 20 to 30 ng/m3 in urban areas (Davidson et al. 1985; EPA 1982c; IARC 1980; NAS 1977a).

    NOTE: 20 to 30 ng/m3 is NOT stated to be a hazardous level of exposure to this known human carcinogen.

59. Stephen TardrewApril 21, 2014 at 11:48 am

    Please remove spam.

60. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 11:49 am

    Then you go right ahead and smoke JD. You are a fool and I will waste no further time on you. I try not to silence people from a debate but quite frankly, you add nothing and your comments are not welcome. We prefer truth to paid opinions. Speaking of truth, have you the guts to tell us who is paying you to flood the internet with this crap because surely no sane person would make themselves appear such an ill-informed idiot for nothing.

61. Sue LofthouseApril 21, 2014 at 11:52 am

    Mr Davidson, I find it hard to believe that your unintelligible, rambling replies to this post are not derived from vested interest. Otherwise a simple “I choose to smoke cigarettes” would have sufficed.

62. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 11:57 am

    Kaye I work for no one,I am a retired chief and gave a hoot less about the anti-tobacco movement until they criminalized us smokers and I went to find the facts and the facts didn’t back up their claims. The second hand smoke junk science led to even checking on the direct smoking claims they made and it all goes right back to the 1950s for todays movement and the real beginnings of the junk science and manipulatiosn of the scientific process which today is so complete nothing being reported can be believed by anyone. Its daily doses of FEAR PROPAGANDA………..In the 1950s they began calling OLD AGE diseases smoking related when age was the main factor all along and where nearly all the cancers strike in the 75-85 age range across the board.

63. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 12:04 pm

    When one understands that only about 6% of life long smokers if ever develop LC and its not 100% like these fanatics would like to make us believe via their propaganda. Its very simple to see smoking is not a cause of cancer but that age is the result of cancer or genetic flukes within a family or individuals.

    They harp today that Irritation is the outbreak of the cancer process which would mean a genetic breakdown in the repair process of tissue.

    If they could simply figure out what actually causes cancer itd be a whole different debate but single cause issues are junk science all by itself. With the hatred of smoking and the outrageous claims made and the even more fanatically Insane claims still coming by the truckloads we can all see the biases involved in the studies produced………….What a waste of research money!

    BTW the only actual proven thing that causes cancer is High dose radiation……..that’s it nothing else is proven!

64. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 12:10 pm

    Straight from the Hill and Knowlton playbook.

    – Launch a public relations campaign disputing the evidence.

    – Use non-peer reviewed scientific publications or industry-funded scientists who don’t publish original peer-reviewed scientific work to support your point of view.

    – Trumpet discredited scientific studies and myths supporting your point of view as scientific fact.

    – Point to the substantial scientific uncertainty, and the certainty of economic loss if immediate action is taken.

    – Disparage scientists, saying they are playing up uncertain predictions of doom in order to get research funding.

    – Claim that more research is needed before action should be taken.

65. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 12:19 pm

    Disparage scientists, saying they are playing up uncertain predictions of doom in order to get research funding.

    …………………………….

    A strong case against junk science: Dr. Enstrom vs. UCLA

    Posted on April 15, 2014 by admin

    dr_james_enstrom_sDr. James Enstrom, an ACSH trustee, is a fighter to say the least. He has been involved in several legal altercations with his former employers at UCLA for what we think is a worthy cause: debunking junk science.

    Dr. Enstrom was a research professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) when he exposed the university’s dealings in “activist scientific agenda based in fraud.” More specifically, he rose up against the California Air Resources Board and California legislature, when both parties sought to enact policies regulating diesel fuel emissions. Dr. Enstrom uncovered the phony research behind these policies, labeling the data for what it was—junk environmental science.

    For his actions, Dr. Enstrom was fired from his position at UCLA. The ensuing legal battle is complicated, involving UCLA charged with violating California law “for the sake of imposing expensive new environmental regulations on California businesses, according to the American Center for Law and Justice.”

    ACSH’s Dr. Gil Ross says “This is nothing more than vengeance against an iconoclastic thinker, based purely on a political agenda in the guise of scientific purity, waged against someone who has dared to step outside the party line, and sadly, the damage to his stellar reputation is, at this point, substantial, and perhaps irreversible.” Read more.

    You can also read more about Dr. Enstrom in these two UCLA Daily Bruin editorials here and here.

    http://acsh.org/2014/04/strong-case-junk-science-dr-enstrom-vs-ucla/

66. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 12:22 pm

    – Claim that more research is needed before action should be taken.

    At the end of virtually every tobacco control study done is that same phrase

    More research is needed bla bla blah!

67. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 12:31 pm

    You really need to check the validity of your sources JD. The last article you linked to was from the American Council on Science and Health.

    “In December, 1980 ACSH co-founder Stare wrote to tobacco giant Philip Morris seeking financial support. “We are a voice of scientific reason in a sea of pseudo science, exaggeration and misnformation. We believe it would be to your benefit to help ACSH,” he wrote. Stare explained that the “basic” ACSH corporate benefactor membership was $3,000 “but we hope you will contribute $10,000 or more.

    Despite Stare’s 1980 solicitation of funds from PM, Whelan was an early advocate against the tobacco industry. In December 1981 she wrote to Henry Waxman explaining that while they opposed government labelling restrictions on food additives such as saccharin and nitrites – “because there is no adequate data to support the hypothesis that these substances pose a risk to human health” – cigarettes was another matter altogether.

    “In the case of cigarette smoking, however, the evidence is overwhelming. I believe it is the correct role of government to provide educational information on the health risks to consumers, and let the consumers make their own decisions,” she wrote.

68. Möbius EckoApril 21, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    Why are still putting up with this fool?

    I did a search for “Cigarette smoking does not cause cancer” across several search engines and overwhelmingly came across study after study that proves it does. The amount of scientific and medical literature, most peer reviewed and corroborated, swamps the paltry cherry picked pieces John Davidson Jr is posting.

    He probably knows that and wants to get into a tit for tat argument on sources and studies, very much in the same vein as the Creationists, who used their putting out junk science to debate as reason it made what they were espousing legitimate science.

    What he’s doing is harmless in most Western countries now, even if he’s doing it for blood money. But the harm being done by tobacco in the Third World is horrific and hopefully one day smoking will decline there as well.

69. mars08April 21, 2014 at 12:42 pm

    Soooo…. are we supposed to believe that Americans, Merrell Williams Jr and Jeffrey Wigand made stuff up, just to make to tobacco industry look bad?

    Then there’s Australia’s own John St Vincent Welch (former Chief Executive Officer of the Tobacco Institute of Australia)… who admitted that incriminating documents about the dangers of smoking had been destroyed by his office.

    But then you can never trust a former CEO, can you??

70. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 12:43 pm

    Elizabeth Whelan is constantly railing against all the junk science studies being put out by tobacco control and has been for 2 decades literally.

    The old fall back defense plan of Tobacco control advocates is to claim the group are financed by big tobacco.

    The same can be said of ghost writers of Big Pharma who search out for young post grads to sign their name to created anti-tobacco studies and receive a large grant for their loaning of their credentials. RWJF is well known for that tactic for years and not just in anti-tobacco studies but in trials for new drugs.

    Why is it today that all the medical journals come out and claim they wont accept any studies funded or even connected to big tobacco any longer yet still accept studies funded by big pharma,peer reviewed by their fellow prohibitionists!

    The whole point here is they all do it regardless of associations pro or con.

    Its left the professional scientific community scared to death to open their mouths about it or face professional assassination and blocked from grants or positions within the medical community or scientific research community!

    Several Doctors and cancer researchers have come out after retirement to tell the truth about whats been going on and reporting about all the junk science being produced in the world today and over the last 60 years.

    Standards of proof no longer exist! They abandoned them long ago for advocacy grants!

71. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    I said hard proof of disease causation and nobody has produced the first bit of it as it does not exist anywhere just the normal statistical magical claims……………..They’ve lowered standards repeatedly to make even more outrageous claims in the latest SG report!

    Johnathan Sammet has literally written every SG report since 1980 and now sits as the boss at the FDA over tobacco products and is the one behind all the wildest claims being made and not just smoking but even with radio waves causing cancer or electrical power lines.

    The junk science never ceases

72. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 12:55 pm

    You drink coffee,soda,use sugar,have a beer or glass of wine………….don’t feel left out they are coming after you too! First they came for the smokers then……………………..

    The EU Attack on the Drug “Caffeine” Has Started

    It is all so innocuous start of with, isn’t it? I quote from the Sun newspaper (don’t sneer please):

    EU coffee meddlers go potty.

    Meddling eurocrats are causing a latte grief – by targeting our filter coffee machines.

    In the latest barmy EU dictat, makers will have to produce devices that turn off automatically minutes after a pot has brewed – to save energy.

    Some domestic ‘drip’ filter machines will have five minutes before they go into standby mode.

    Others with no-insulated jugs will get 40 minutes.

    Alan Murad from the Get Britain Out campaign blasted: “Is there no end to the EU meddling?”

    He said nearly a quarter of Brits use traditional filter coffee machines.

    Expresso makers will also be hit by the plans, due in January. The EU commission said it was “driven by consumer and industry organisations”, backed by the UK.

    The Sun Editors commented themselves as follows:

    Coffee Mugs.

    Where would be be without the European Commission to save us from ourselves?

    Sitting on the sofa drinking a cup of coffee without any idea of the ticking timebomb in our hands.

    Chemical warfare. Dirty bombs. The potential beginnings of World War Three in Ukraine. They’re all yesterday’s news.

    The real danger that we have to guard against is filter coffee.

    Thank heavens we have the European Commission to fight on our behalf.

    Or maybe they’ve just given the game away that there’s nothing better for them to do than draw up laws about how filter coffee is made.

    The Brussels bureaucrats are one expresso short of a latte.

73. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 12:57 pm

    And you have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock JD. Please go find a Tea Party site to play on.

74. AnomanderApril 21, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    Jesus, JD is both hilarious and deeply disturbing. Clearly another of the rabid cut and paste troll squad, dispatched to crush all forms of sensible discussion or independent thought / analysis.

    I’m also intrigued as to the going rate today for you to sell-out your ethics, your morals and your intelligence away like that, just so you can parrot the words of people whose sole intent in to acquire money and whose actions can only de described as sociopathis and inhuman? Or is it simply a product of smoking way too much hybridised cannabis?

75. AnomanderApril 21, 2014 at 1:09 pm

    Nurse! JD’s out of bed again!

    Can I suggest you need to get some tin-foil JD?

    When moulded into a hat, it is quite effective in stopping all those evil socialist governments from reading your thoughts.

76. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 1:17 pm

    Forcing debate is the answer. Since you still cant produce proof of disease causation the RICO suit was and is a KANGAROO COURT!

77. Kaye LeeApril 21, 2014 at 1:21 pm

    You are not interested in hearing proof JD. You search for obscure articles in obscure publications by vested interests to try and back up your indefensible stance. I have given you links….go read them and stop bothering us here. You are wrong, we all know you are wrong, we are not interested in your bullshit, or in your American denial.

78. mars08April 21, 2014 at 1:30 pm

    Well John… I can’t wait to read your character assassination of your compatriots, Merrell Williams Jr and Jeffrey Wigand. They made things awkward for the tobacco industry, didn’t they?

79. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 1:37 pm

    Then Kaye simply find the paragraph that proves end point connection to disease…………Because if you cant its you who is in denial not I. I simply pointed it out that there is NO PROOF!

80. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 21, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    Its a real easy statement to make they have no factual proof smoking causes disease in anyone!

81. izenApril 21, 2014 at 4:26 pm

    @- John Davidson Jr
    “Its a real easy statement to make they have no factual proof smoking causes disease in anyone!”

    It is easy to make, but that does not make it true.

    It is revealing you use the term ‘factual proof’, science deals with the overwhelming evidence, proof is for liquor and maths.

    The overwhelming evidence that smoking greatly increases the chance that a person will suffer from a range of diseases is very convincing to the vast majority of people. They recognise that smoking causes a big increase in the probability of many illnesses and shortens life expectancy. That is unequivocally established as any health insurance business will confirm.

    That you are unable to accept this result would indicate you are either cognitively incapable of understanding how evidence leads to a credible conclusion.

    Or you have personal beliefs/interests that conflict with the scientific evidence and therefore in a classic case of motivated reasoning you choose to reject the valid methodology of science in defence of your dogma.

82. JamesApril 21, 2014 at 7:51 pm

    I used to work with people who were chronically I’ll and some of them used to use an oxygen mask and be gasping for air but still wanting to smoke because of its addictive quality. You have to be in complete denial to think that smoking is harmless.
    One thing this discussion does show though is the way climate change debate will go in the future. Virtually everyone will have accepted the obvious (probably when it’s too late) but you still get the occasional obsessive idiot spamming forums with rubbish from denialist sources.

83. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 22, 2014 at 12:25 am

    The average life expectancy in The United States is 78.62 years.

    Male: 76.19 years
    Female: 81.17 years (2013 est)

    Source: CIA World Factbook

    Lung and Bronchus. Invasive Cancer Incidence Rates and 95% Confidence Intervals by Age and Race and Ethnicity, United States (Table 3.15.1.1M) *†‡

    Rates are per 100,000 persons. Rates are per 100,000 persons.

    Note the age where LC is found…………..OLD AGE group incidence hits the 500/100,000 at age 75-85

    AGE it seems is the deciding factor……….

    http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/uscs/cancersbyageandrace.aspx?Gender=Male&Count=false&Population=false&DataType=Incidence&RateType=CrudeType&CancerSite=All Cancer Sites Combined&Year=2010&Site=Lung and Bronchus&SurveyInstanceID=1

84. JamesApril 22, 2014 at 2:59 am

    It’s not just the reduction in life expectancy, which is something like 10 years on average, it’s also the reduction in quality of life. Spending your last years gasping for breath because your lungs are damaged or unable to walk more than a few yards because your arteries are blocked etc. And people pay big bucks for that privilege. Anyone who wants to spend his free time on the Internet trying to convince people that smoking is OK has got something wrong with him IMO.

85. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 22, 2014 at 3:16 am

    ten years ehh…………..theres no proof of that. The above average age of death is all people across all boundaries with no BS attached to it…………it includes smokers and non………….

86. LOVOApril 23, 2014 at 9:38 pm

    J. Davidson ???? wasn’t he that shyte actor whose son (jr) does PR work for a quid??? 😛

87. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 24, 2014 at 11:53 am

    Bloomberg’s Indoor Smoking Ban Claims the Life of Prince Charles’s Brother-in-Law
    “The Duchess of Cornwall was “utterly devastated” last night by t he death of her brother after he smashed his head on a pavement in New York.
    Mark Shand, a legendary adventurer, slipped as he tried to light a cigarette after leaving a nightclub in the early hours.”

    Another one for the graveyard.

    The Duchess of Cornwall’s brother Mark Shand has died in a New York hospital after falling and hitting his head in the street following a £1million charity fundraiser.

    Mr Shand, 62, is believed to have slipped as he lit a cigarette, suffering a serious head injury while on a night out in Manhattan.

    He was put on life support but doctors could not save him and he died 12 hours later.

    The incident is believed to have happened at the Diamond Horseshoe nightclub at the Paramount Hotel in the West 46th Street. The newspaper quotes a source who said that Shand had stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when he slipped and fell.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/23/duchess-cornwall-brother-mark-shand-dies-fall-new-york

    He was said to be in high spirits after the charity auction raised nearly £1 million and went on to the Diamond Horseshoe Club in Manhattan for an after-party run by a firm he had set up with his nephew, Ben Elliot.
    Guests said he was one of the last to leave. He then went on to the Rose Bar in Gramercy and collapsed close to the bar after he stepped out to have a cigarette. One source told the New York Post that Mr Shand had been drinking and “had his hands in his pockets when he left the bar and fell on the sidewalk, hitting his head.” Another guest confirmed: “Mark fell after the party last night. So heartbreaking … he was on top of the world.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/10783907/Duchess-of-Cornwall-utterly-devastated-by-death-of-brother-Mark-Shand.html

88. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 24, 2014 at 11:54 am

    The Smokers’ Graveyard

    In Memory of all the smokers driven to their deaths by smoking bans

    http://thesmokersgraveyard.wordpress.com/

89. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 24, 2014 at 11:55 am

    Funding the Tobacco Control Industry Scoundrels

    The charlatans do not come cheap.

    Smoking Scot pointed me to three links (see his comment on the last post). The first two don’t give much direct information about funding anti-tobacco, but the last one does. The last one concerns Bloomberg. Here is the link:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg

    There is a lot of stuff about how wonderful he is and how he came by billions of dollars. Well, nothing actual about how he went about milking people of their money via manipulations of stock exchanges. From our point of view, that does not matter. What matters is how Bloomberg has used his money to persecute smokers.

    The clues lie in this section late on the the wiki about ‘The Bloomberg Philanthropies’:

    According to a profile of Bloomberg in Fast Company, his Bloomberg Philanthropies foundation has five areas of focus: public health, the arts, government innovation, the environment, and education.[166]

    According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Bloomberg, through his Bloomberg Philanthropies Foundation, donated and/or pledged $240 million in 2005, $60 million in 2006, $47 million in 2007, $150 million in 2009, $332 million in 2010 and $311 million in 2011.[167] 2011 recipients included the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; World Lung Foundation and the World Health Organization. In 2013 it was reported that Bloomberg had donated $109.24 million in 556 grants and 61 countries to campaigns against tobacco.[1]

    According to The New York Times, Bloomberg was an “anonymous donor” to the Carnegie Corporation from 2001 to 2010, with gifts ranging from $5 million to $20 million each year.[168] The Carnegie Corporation distributed these contributions to hundreds of New York City organizations,[169] ranging from the Dance Theatre of Harlem to Gilda’s Club, a non-profit organization that provides support to people and families living with cancer. He continues to support the arts through his foundation.[170]

    In 1996, Bloomberg endowed the William Henry Bloomberg Professorship at Harvard with a $3 million gift in honor of his father, who died in 1963, saying, “throughout his life, he recognized the importance of reaching out to the nonprofit sector to help better the welfare of the entire community.”[171] Bloomberg also endowed his hometown synagogue, Temple Shalom, which was renamed for his parents as the William and Charlotte Bloomberg Jewish Community Center of Medford.[172]

    Bloomberg reports giving $254 million in 2009 to almost 1,400 nonprofit organizations, saying, “I am a big believer in giving it all away and have always said that the best financial planning ends with bouncing the check to the undertaker.”[173]

    On July 21, 2011, Bloomberg announced that he would donate $50 million to Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, the grassroots organization’s efforts to close older coal plants and prevent new ones from being built. The gift, spread out over four years, will come from Bloomberg Philanthropies.[174]

    Also in July 2011, Bloomberg launched a $24 million initiative to fund “Innovation Delivery Teams” in five cities. The teams are one of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ key goals: advancing government innovation.[175]

    In December 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a partnership with online ticket search engine SeatGeek to connect artists with new audiences. Called the Discover New York Arts Project, the project includes organizations HERE, New York Theatre Workshop, and the Kaufman Center.[176]

    On March 22, 2012, Bloomberg announced his foundation was pledging another $220 million over four years in the fight against global tobacco use.[177]

    Bloomberg has donated $200 million towards new buildings at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, including the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center. Bloomberg has donated over $1.8 billion to more than 850 charities.[178]

    In January 2013, Johns Hopkins University announced that with a recent $350 million gift, Bloomberg’s total giving to his undergraduate alma mater surpassed $1.118 billion. His first gift to the school was $5 in 1965.[179]

    I have often wondered how Bloomberg ‘bought’ the loyalty of the New York City Council. There, above, is spelt out the method – big donations to city councillors’ favourite causes. What chance have e-cigs got against Bloomberg’s prohibition, even if it were true that e-cigs might save lives? Bloomberg was KING OF NEW YORK, in all but name. And I have no doubt that his dynasty continues.

    =====

    There are some very curious ways in which these donations are used. Reading the above, you might think that the donations were direct contributions to pay for staff and supplies and stuff, but there are cases where that is not the case. In many cases, the donations are used to raise money from elsewhere. Do you see how clever that is? Bloomberg, or whoever, donates, say, $10,000,000, and that money is used to finance the advertising or whatever to get people to contribute, say, $100,000,000. For example, I gleaned this info from SS’s link to:

    As Ted Turner’s $1-Billion Pledge Ends, U.N. Fund Seeks New Donors

    http://philanthropy.com/article/As-Ted-Turner-s-1-Billion/144591/

    Hiring ‘Relationship Managers’

    The Midwestern city is home to Caterpillar, the construction-equipment manufacturer. Last year, the company’s foundation contributed $1-million to the United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up campaign, a social-media project that organizes American girls into donor clubs and tells them about challenges faced by young women abroad.

    On the heels of Caterpillar’s initial donation to Girl Up, the foundation is looking for a “relationship manager” to work directly with the company to identify causes that could win its support in the future. The foundation plans to add more such specialized fundraisers over the next few years.

    And what is the very best source of such funds? The Government, of course! So we might ask who funded ASH ET AL to lobby the Government for funding?

    All very, very clever. But it is obvious that the Foundations do not donate these large sums without ‘expectations’. If Bloomberg donates $10,000,000 to be used to raise even bigger funds from elsewhere, he will want to control not only the funds that he has contributed but also the extra funds raised.

    ———

    From the above cogitations, we can see why it is that so many of the ‘non-profits’ lie, lie and lie again. It is the only way that they can fulfil their role as fundraisers.

90. Kaye LeeApril 24, 2014 at 11:57 am

    Seriously, go away you silly little man. Your are deluded.

91. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 24, 2014 at 12:50 pm

    I know Kaye Lee it only takes one man to make world wide change!

92. Kaye LeeApril 24, 2014 at 1:00 pm

    or woman – Malala Yousafzai, Benazir Bhutto, Rosa Parks – great men like Mandela, Gandhi – these people change the world.

    Your lies and misinformation are harmful. You are not Joan d’Arc – more like the Prince of Darkness.

93. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 25, 2014 at 2:41 am

    Funny thing all of them MURDERED or Assinated save Mandella but in his case he was the murderer!

94. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 25, 2014 at 5:42 am

    Police: Smoking in High School bathroom started Oconto fire
    Updated: Thursday, April 24, 2014, 1:24 pm

    OCONTO – A fire that caused extensive smoke damage to Oconto High School resulted from a student smoking in a bathroom, police say.

    The April 16 fire caused the building to be evacuated. Students returned to class on Monday at Oconto Middle School; they are expected to be there for a total of three weeks. The fire caused an estimated $5 million in smoke damage to the school.

    http://fox11online.com/2014/04/24/police-smoking-in-bathroom-started-oconto-fire/

    ………………………………………………….

    Smoking in the boys room – Motley Crue

95. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 25, 2014 at 5:45 am

    Police believe the fire was an accident resulting from the cigarette being used close to a toilet paper dispenser.

    That must have been some real POTENT gasoline soaked John Wayne paper ehh!

    Nothing ever changes I guess that’s why my high school had ashtrays in the class rooms and a smoking area outside to boot!

    They still smoked in the bathrooms at school……………….I got in a fight with my brothers 9th grade PE coach over him smoking in school in 1979………….Ya he lit up anyway and I put that that teacher in the hospital after he tried to hit my brother with a wooden paddle sideways. Ya I was a soldier in uniform too!

96. John Davidson Jr (@harleyrider1777)April 25, 2014 at 5:46 am

    1976-1980 us army tankers………..then US Navy all the way to retirement!

97. AnomanderApril 25, 2014 at 9:11 pm

    Jesus JD. Surely you can’t still be going on wit this shit? You need to get yourself a life, or perhaps treatment or medication for your condition.