Dick Puddlecote

NICE Don't Care Much About Health Either

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:50:00 +0000

You may remember a blaze of publicity earlier this month as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) produced their new guidelines on tobacco harm reduction.

Very proud they were of it too.

Landmark guidance to reduce tobacco-related harm for people who don't feel able to stop smoking in one step is published today by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Wednesday 5 June).

The NICE public health guidance is the first in the world to recommend that licensed nicotine-containing products can be used to help people to reduce the amount they smoke, especially those who are highly dependent on nicotine. This includes people who may not be able to stop smoking in one go, those who want to stop smoking without necessarily giving up nicotine, and those who might not be ready to stop but want to reduce the amount they smoke.

Wahey! The part emphasised is exactly what e-cigs provide, is it not?

Amongst others, the BBC (link now disappeared) quoted Professor Paul Aveyard, Nice guidance developer, GP and Professor of Behavioural Medicine at the University of Oxford who had this to say about their harm reduction potential.

E-cigarettes are an increasingly popular NRT option but they are controversial because they have not yet been licensed as safe and effective by drug watchdogs.

But the guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says doctors seeking to help smokers can advise ‘these products are likely to be less harmful than cigarettes’.

Professor Aveyard said he will tell patients that using e-cigarettes is ‘better than smoking.'

Yep, that's entirely the point of tobacco harm reduction. A key clue is in the the use of 'reduction' alongside the word 'harm'.

E-cig users welcomed this development almost as if it were a new age of common sense emerging from the 21st century fog of denormalising bilge from the public health Mafia.

The problem is that NICE were very careful to say that they would only recommend "licensed" nicotine-containing products, which is just another way of promoting pharmaceutical NRT ... but as a long term thing which will earn more money for those who produce it.

Of course, the MHRA have since stated that they are arranging the deck chairs so that e-cigs can be officially licensed as medicines even though, err, they are not medicines. Yesterday, I raised the possibility that this was merely a way of protecting the profits of pharma companies which most of the MHRA committee are linked to and the body itself is funded by.

Still, this surely opens up the possibility of e-cigs being available on prescription, doesn't it? The Telegraph believes this could happen "within nine months"!

GPs will be able to prescribe e-cigarettes, which let users inhale a mist of nicotine instead of tobacco smoke, once they have been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

However, e-cigarettes will not be prescribed on a widespread basis across the NHS unless the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the public health watchdog, backs their use over other means of helping smokers kick the habit.

And here we have a sticking point. You see, NICE don't even see much advantage of e-cigs over traditional tobacco cigarettes according to a freedom of information request submitted by a fellow jewel robber.

From their Health and Safety Manual:

4.5 Smoking (including the use of e-cigarettes) is prohibited in NICE’s offices and in all other areas of NICE buildings. Failure to comply may be considered a disciplinary offence

From a team meeting in May:

1) It was agreed that e-cigarettes should not be used on NICE premises; and the Human Resource team should contact the relevant line manager/s to ask them to inform staff members as appropriate that e-cigarettes should not be used.

And just in case staff weren't aware, it was reiterated in the internal newsletter, just two days after NICE's grand press release.

Staff are reminded that smoking (including the use of electronic cigarettes) is prohibited in NICE offices and in all other areas of NICE buildings. Failure to comply may be considered a disciplinary offence.

So, NICE's approach to harm reduction attempts by its staff using e-cigs is to throw them outside with the smokers? What's the point of that? If you're going outside anyway, why not just spark up a fag?

From that short-sighted knee-jerk idiocy, it's going to be one hell of a stretch for them to "back [e-cig] use over other [pharma] means".

Are e-cigs banned from workplaces by law? No. Is there evidence that they harm others around the user? No. Is there evidence that e-cigs aid harm reduction (you know, the that thing NICE's guidelines were meant to address?). Yes!

But NICE have banned them anyway, at pain of disciplinary action no less.

I'm not sure how this squares with the self-congratulation in their June 5th harm reduction guidance which gained so much publicity.

However, there are other ways of reducing the harm from smoking, even though this may involve continued use of nicotine. This guidance is about helping people, particularly those who are highly dependent on nicotine, who:

- may not be able (or do not want) to stop smoking in one step
- may want to stop smoking, without necessarily giving up nicotine
- may not be ready to stop smoking, but want to reduce the amount they smoke.

Great stuff. Except that NICE will fire you if you dare to get your harm reduction option from anyone but pharma suppliers.

It's beginning to look like a cleverly-contrived publicity exercise to hide a defence of pharma corporate status quo, isn't it?

As I said yesterday, serious questions need to be asked of these people. Do consider getting involved and asking them.

H/T JR for the FOI

Questions Need To Be Asked, So Let's Ask Them

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:26:00 +0000

Even those of us who have been aware for some time that the tobacco control movement has had little to do with health were still quite surprised at the incompetence of the MHRA last week.

In effectively killing off e-cigs - should their daft recommendations eventually be adopted - they seem to be either woefully ill-advised or criminally incompetent.

There is, of course, a third possibility as highlighted by the Free Society yesterday.

That a body can be convened by the MHRA/CHM with quite so many links to the pharmaceutical industry is almost unbelievable. Can you imagine an ‘expert committee’ advising government on tobacco regulation being populated by people working for the tobacco industry? No, nor can I.

Do go read the whole piece to see some staggering self-righteous hypocrisy.

An industry which has been accusing others of interfering in health policy for profit for decades - they even have a WHO convention banning the practice - is now backing the MHRA, which lists a committee so deeply mired in pharmaceutical conflicting interests as to be scandalous.

Remember the furore over the government's responsibility deal?

A BBC Panorama alcohol feature this week questioned the level of industry influence over Government policy whilst exploring the impact of alcohol misuse within hospitals. Scrutinising Government alcohol policy, Panorama revealed that industry representation on the Government and Partners Alcohol Working Group had recently increased from a few up to 7 out of the 16 members.

Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said "The government needs to decide if it really does want to get to grips with the significant levels of alcohol harm in the UK, or stick with the status quo of allowing the drinks industry to call the shots. It can't have it both ways."

If you are a popular public supplier who wishes to be involved in the prohibitionist process, it's appalling that you're allowed anywhere near the table.

However, if you've been paid by Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, or any other competitor for nicotine provision, you're invited onto an advisory committee, no less.

Indeed, the MHRA's forerunner was described in 2003 as an organisation designed to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical industry!

"In deriving all its funding from industry fees, the Agency differs from some of its overseas counterparts, who have a proportion of direct governmental funding. The Agency is also unusual in having a stated objective to facilitate the development of the UK pharmaceutical industry"

This was criticised by Professor Sir Alasdair Breckenridge in 2005 who was in charge of the MHRA at the time..

"Thus it is unsurprising that many of the agency's employees have worked in the pharmaceutical industry."

"In addition, from November 2005, European regulations will require that staff have no financial or other interests that could affect their impartiality."

"Regulation of drugs by the UK regulatory agency is funded entirely by user fees. Strict rules are in place to ensure staff and committee members have no personal conflicts of interest"

Those "strict rules" obviously do not extend on who is allowed to entirely ignore the public on e-cigs and, instead, protect pharmaceutical patch and gum manufacturers against competition.

But then, Prof Breckenridge isn't squeaky clean either.

From 1992 to 1997 I was a member of a scientific advisory committee of SmithKline. I resigned from that in 1997. This had been an extremely valuable exercise for my development in medicines regulation. We did not discuss specific products on that board; it was a matter of the larger picture of industry.

Yeah, pull the other one, matey, I could imagine the tobacco control industry saying. You see, you only have to mildly object to daft pronouncements to be classed as a tobacco industry stooge without the remotest hint of evidence (like everything else they do).

Yet you can take the pharma dollar proudly for years and still be classed as a fine upstanding impartial source. So much so that you are invited to committees which advocate bans on new products which threaten pharmaceutical profits.

Questions need to be asked of the MHRA and its vested interests. The best people to ask them are MPs, so I do hope vapers everywhere will encourage their elected representatives to do exactly that by way of a written parliamentary question.

You have every right as a constituent to do so, and it is a very simple process - you don't even have to know who your MP is. Simply type your post code into www.writetothem.com, click on your MP's name and fill in the web form. They are obliged to provide a reply.

If you receive an ignorant or dismissive response - which I'm sure might happen - do please forward it my way. Not only could it provide great entertainment, but I'll even offer a prize if it's funny enough.

(For a few useful nuggets to drop in, see a letter featured Friday).

H/T Dave Atherton for MHRA digging.

Link Tank 15/06

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:05:00 +0000

So begins another weary day-e-ay.

Is big tobacco back as a big advertiser?

Where's the outrage at an MP demanding censorship?

Beyond the great firewall: How and what China censors

Belgium’s centuries-old beer producers are exporting at astonishing rates

Judges question legality of Nanny Bloomberg's soda ban

Meanwhile, New York now proposes a ban on anonymous online comments

Please think of the children! Lego figures are getting angrier!!

“Parody in porn is something that has been going on forever"

Mountain bikes and beer "go good together"

Airport security stops Chewbacca to inspect his light sabre

Fish on Prozac

Burnley Thrash Manchester City

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:24:00 +0000

I went to a football match at Manchester City's Etihad stadium once.

Nice ground and all that, but I remember the stewarding being pretty heavy-handed to say the least. I was with the boy and in seats at the edge of the pitch, meaning he didn't see the last five or ten minutes due to a ring of hi viz-bedecked, err, crowd control operatives blocking his view entirely as they stood arms folded looking menacingly at supporters who had stumped up a princely sum for their ticket.

I remember the supporters being in jubilant mood, so much so that one lit a cigar about ten rows back. He may as well have taken the pin out of a hand grenade as three stewards leapt seats and ignorantly sent innocent fans flying to get to him.

So it wasn't too surprising to read this a couple of months back.

A City supporter has been left fuming after he was banned from the Etihad Stadium – for ‘smoking’ an electronic cigarette.

The Blues fan, who asked not to be named, was spotted by stewards with the device at their clash with Chelsea – which came in the first week he had not been smoking.

He was told that the e-cigarette, which can be legally smoked anywhere, was not permitted at the stadium and was then escorted from the ground by police.

And now the lifelong supporter has been written to by Peter Fletcher, City’s head of safety and security, who has told him that his season card has been suspended.

The disgruntled Blue said: “I was on the concourse at half-time having a drink with a few mates.

“I took a drag of it and was asked by security to come into a room – I just thought I was going to be asked to explain what it was.

“I was told they were banned and asked for my season card which I handed over. I was then escorted out of the ground by police.”

Nice way to treat someone who has handed over hundreds of pounds a year in advance for the privilege, eh? It seems Manchester City FC are the latest in a very long line of petty authoritarians who are more than happy to enforce pointless rules under the guise of caring about health.

There still isn't a study worldwide showing any health problem from a whiff of real smoke in an outdoor environment, but now e-cigs are also banned just for the hell of it, and fans humiliated and marched off the premises when they use an alternative which doesn't produce the 'deadly' passive smoke the club has been conned to believe in.

Meanwhile, down the road in Burnley they employ a different approach.

The club has recently installed smoking pens outside the stadium exit gates on match days in order to comply with football legislation

Yes, unlike Manchester City, they actually cater for their paying smokers! Arranging their business to fit in with their customers' preferences? How very novel.

What's more, if you would like to try an e-cig instead, they're happy to see their club associated with it.

And even explain what they are for the uninitiated.

But then, why wouldn't they? It's a win/win all round.

[Anthony Fairclough, Director of Commercial Affairs at Turf Moor, said:] “We are conscious of the problems within the stands by fans illegally smoking cigarettes and contravening the stadium regulations. In tandem with Totally Wicked we feel we can approach this problem with a viable alternative and we look forward to working together on this and a number of future initiatives.”

Well, quite. But then, if you're more interested in cracking heads and marching fans out of the ground with a police escort, you'd never spot it would you?

Now, I don't know about you, but if I were in the north west I'd much prefer being treated as a human being - instead of a vaguely sentient form of livestock - while watching my football. As such, my personal choice of venue would be Burnley FC and not Manchester City.

I'd also suggest that Burnley are far more interested in the happiness and health of their fans than the "we've got your money, now fuck off" attitude of Manchester City.

They might have loadsa middle eastern cash (I swear I read that somewhere) and a place in the Premiership, but Championship Burnley thrash the pants off Manchester City for looking after their fans I reckon.

Bravo!

H/T Ta to long-time jewel robber Steve W for sharing the flyers

A Fellow Jewel Robber Writes

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 18:30:00 +0000

I've mentioned many a time before that the vaping lobby are highly motivated and certainly not slow to confront their elected representatives. MEPs throughout Europe discovered this after the announcement of the Tobacco Products Directive recently, with many expressing surprise at the large volume of angry correspondence they received. As a result, 120 amendments have been tabled and there is a real possibility that the silly de facto ban on e-cigs will be watered down or even ditched entirely.

Yesterday's announcement by the MHRA will undoubtedly prompt another avalanche of letters - this time to UK MPs - which I wholeheartedly support. The astonishingly cretinous proposal deserves to be strongly resisted for its incompetent lack of foresight and common sense. I hope others who read here will consider doing just that and demand that their MP asks some stiff questions of the MHRA and its decision to completely ignore the public.

Quick out of the blocks is long time fellow jewel robber Steve W, whose trenchant message to Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk was sent today and is reproduced in full below with permission. He makes some very good points which may come in handy for others who plan to put their objection in writing.

Dear Simon,

I am yet to receive a response to any of my previous four communications (sent on the 18th and 19th of April and on the 6th of June). I have, heretofore, been acting under the impression that, in a representative democracy, your job as my elected representative, having been elected to office to serve your constituents, included some form of (moral at least) obligation to both engage with and represent my views as one of said constituents. It appears that I was sadly mistaken and you do not share my view of this forming part of your responsibilities. I am, however, prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt on one more occasion and assume that one of your office monkeys is failing in their job to pass on to you certain correspondences from your constituents. As an employer myself, I am aware how difficult it can be to recruit suitably qualified people with the appropriate level of integrity to perform such tasks.

I am writing to you today concerning a related matter to my previous correspondence (to which I would still appreciate receiving your considered response).

As I am sure you are aware, yesterday the MHRA finally, and belatedly, released their recommendations concerning the future regulation of electronic cigarettes (wrapped up under the monicker of nicotine containing products or NCPs). They are intending to regulate all nicotine containing products as medicines within the UK. This will have several (if I was being overly generous I would say, unintended) consequences which I shall attempt to outline below.

I shall initially make some serious points regarding the likely outcomes of this activity, and then point out a few less serious, yet natural conclusions to be drawn.

· The costs and timeframes involved in applying for medical licensing will kill off all innovation in a fast moving field. Currently a separate licence is required for every product at a cost running into the millions of pounds and unlikely to be granted in under three years. In a marketplace which is both consumer led and driven by ever more innovative products this imposition will be catastrophic. Rather than consumers being able to assess for themselves the efficacy of, for example, new atomiser arrangements, the manufacturers will be forced to back a greatly reduced product range and to predict in advance which products are of sufficient value and efficacy to be worth licensing. At this point they will then have to spend millions and wait at least three years before there is even the potential for any sort of return on their investment.

· The removal of these products from the general consumer marketplace will cost some tens of thousands of UK jobs, many of them in economically deprived areas such as your own and surrounding constituencies. As I said previously, I have recently become an employer for the first time, but not only will I be forced to lay off my staff, I too will be out of work. Bearing in mind the current state of the economy it seems very ill-advised to actively kill off one of the few genuinely consumer led growth industries in the country.

· Pharmaceutical companies currently make in excess of £500 million from ‘sales’ of nicotine patches, inhalers and gums. Why have I put the word ‘sales’ in scare quotes? Because only a tiny minority of these sales are genuine, with the vast majority being funded from the taxpayers’ purse in the form of prescriptions. This arrangement allows an enormous premium to be charged thereby providing these pharmaceutical companies with a de facto tax payer subsidy to provide a product with a demonstrated efficacy in the region of 2%. This in contrast to an entirely end-user driven market where people are actually choosing to spend their own money on an alternative to smoking which early studies (notably that of Dr Lynne Dawkins of the University of East London, but other studies, such as those from Etter et al. suggest similarly high success rates) suggest being effective in over 50% of cases. The devil in me concludes that both the anti-tobacco lobby and the MHRA are more interested in retaining their status as favoured pets of the pharmaceutical industry, thereby retaining funding and future job prospects respectively, than they are in actually serving the public from whom theiur funding is derived and who provide them with their raison d’etre. MHRA is entirely taxpayer funded whereas the likes of ASH and other lobby groups funding is largely split between DoH/other government bodies and pharmaceutical companies (ASH annual accounts reveal an embarrassingly small amount of their funding, as a ‘charity’ is derived from genuinely charitable donations – they were initially set up by the DoH and act as little more than a mouthpiece for vested interests both within and outwith the DoH/pharmaceutical industry).

· A large number of those who have found electronic cigarettes to provide, for them, a satisfying and even pleasurable alternative to smoking have previously tried and failed to quit using patches/gums etc… these people will likely be encouraged back to smoking should the devices they have become accustomed to over the previous few years no longer be available. If, as claimed in the MHRAs press release, cigarette smoking is responsible for 80,000 deaths in the UK per annum, then driving in excess of 1 million currently non-smokers back to cigarettes means that those responsible will have blood on their hands. If this now forms part of the remit of the ‘public health’ industry then we must have fallen so very far from the days when public health was about preventing the spread of communicable diseases such as cholera or dysentery. On the bright side, I am sure the tobacco companies will be more than pleased at the prospect of regaining so many customers.

· Whilst these proposed regulations will make the manufacture and sale of electronic cigarettes within the UK much more difficult, the same cannot be said of the remainder of Europe, with whom we share a free trade agreement. The recent court decision (which I sent to you previously and regarding which I have received no response) in the TARTU Administrative Courts of Estonia where a similar directive was proposed, suggests that the legal position of such a regulatory framework is very questionable and that at least some EU member states will not face similar restrictions of business. Is it now considered to be the place of the MHRA to interfere in cross border trade within the EU, or is it simply a desire to drive manufacturing and distribution jobs, as well as the revenues and taxes they generate, out of the UK, as this will surely be the end result of such an action.

· As well as the above, I do not believe the borders agency has either the wherewithal or the manpower to prevent individuals from purchasing equipment and fluids of far more questionable quality direct from China, where you will find the standards and quality control framework is far less rigorous than our own. However, I am sure that they too will be grateful for the increased trade and the further job creation that this would entail.

· As the decision from the TARTU court highlighted, if these are to be regulated as medicinal products, perhaps one would care to highlight which medical condition they are being used to treat, then explain how the pharmacological effects derived therefrom differ in any meaningful way from the pharmacological effects of nicotine delivered via a traditional cigarette? If, as in Estonia, there is demonstrated to be no material difference, perhaps one could then explain why cigarettes should benefit, by government edict, from an explicit trade advantage over a product which is likely 99% + safer, in as much as it is widely accepted within the medical community that the vast majority of harm caused by cigarettes has nothing to do with nicotine, rather it is to do with ‘tar’, particulates and carbon monoxide, none of which can be present in the vapour produced from a device which generates no combustion (therefore no combustion by products), said vapour being produced from a fluid of known composition.

On top of these issues, the following would make for an interesting argumentum absurdum:

· Suppliers of tomatoes and aubergines are going to struggle to adequately define the levels of nicotine present in their produce, as the biochemical processes within these species of plant are, at best, ill-defined and subject to the vaguaries of both the weather and other growing conditions. I also suspect that pharmacies are going to have some difficulties in handling the levels of fresh produce to which we have become accustomed to being able to buy freely and easily in markets and supermarkets all over the country.

· The multinational tobacco companies will be overjoyed at the prospect of being able to provide cigarettes on prescription via the NHS, although, in this instance I envisage the bartering over the medical licence will be quite amusing to watch.

There are several other issues I would like to raise around this regulation, however, in view of the fact that I wholly expect this correspondence to be ignored in similar fashion to my previous attempts to communicate with you, I shall leave it at that for now. As a result of the fact that my previous correspondence has gone unanswered I have taken the liberty of copying this letter to the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, not a step I have taken lightly, rather one borne out of the frustration at what I perceive as a breach by you of your “…general duty to act in the interests of the nation as a whole, and a special duty to their constituents…” as detailed in section III, clause 6 of the ‘Code of Conduct, together with The Guide to the Rules Relating to the Conduct of Members’ (2009) updated May 2010.

In conclusion, I would like to ask both for your views on the issues raised above and also for your support in opposing the imposition of these regulations, which, if enacted will likely be responsible for in excess of 1 million ex-UK smokers returning to traditional cigarettes.

Kind regards

Dr Steve W

The MHRA Kills The Golden Goose

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:18:00 +0000

Proving yet again what is fast becoming a certainty of life along with death and taxes, the MHRA today finally concluded their deliberations on e-cigs by completely ignoring public responses to their {cough} public consultation.

All nicotine-containing products (NCPs), such as electronic cigarettes, are to be regulated as medicines in a move to make these products safer and more effective to reduce the harms of smoking.

The UK Government has decided that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will regulate all NCPs as medicines so that people using these products have the confidence that they are safe, are of the right quality and work.

Smoking is the biggest single cause of avoidable death - killing 80,000 people in England each year. Making safe and effective products available for people who smoke can help them cut down or quit.

This is wordplay and sophistry of world class proportion.

The Guardian report that there are now around 1.3 million e-cig users in the UK, which makes it quite clear that e-cigs are an incredibly successful tool to "reduce the harms of smoking"; that 1.3 million people find that they "work" and "can help them cut down or quit".

The MHRA should know this from their own public consultation back in 2011 during which they received 1,217 responses from the general public. An overwhelming majority of these - if not all of them - were from satisfied e-cig users pleading for the MHRA to leave the devices alone and allow vapers to, indeed, "cut down or quit". On the other hand, they received just 9 responses from the usual bansturbatory elite demanding medicinal licensing.

In the face of such a landslide - and identical to the process employed for the EU's consultation on snus - the MHRA chose to side with the 9 and toss out the views of 1,217 members of the public. Because, you see, the term 'public consultation' is a bit of a misnomer; the description they are seeking is more like 'organised fraud with a pretence of involving taxpayers and electors'.

The MHRA know very well that their proposals will do the exact opposite of helping smokers to "cut down or quit". They also know that medicinal regulation will make e-cigs considerably less "effective" by stifling innovation, raising prices and obliterating choice, thereby vandalising the very incentives for a product which has huge market support - and which has cost the taxpayer nothing. In short, they won't "work" any more.

Instead, what we are now promised is - be in no doubt about this - an effective ban on e-cigs in the UK, as explained by E-cig Politics.

I refer to pharmaceutical licensing as a ban, because it is. There are at least 5,000 products on the market now, the majority being refill variants. All will need to be removed from the market immediately licensing comes into force (within 21 days is the usual requirement). A license can only be applied to one product or product combination: a single hardware model, or a single liquid type/flavour, or a single device plus one liquid type. There is no possibility of a single license for several products. Each single product takes at least 3 years and at least £2m to achieve a license for (as that is what it has cost Intellicig in time and money to get their license so far, with no result as yet). Intellicig famously underestimated the cost and timescale, and have had to modify their time plan by a factor of 2 (initial estimate was 2 years), and their cost estimates by a factor of 20 (initial budget was £95,000). And it's not over yet.

If either the EU or the MHRA achieve a ban via the pharmaceutical licensing or tobacco product classification routes, legal e-cigarette sales are finished in the UK, and a huge black market will ensue.

Quite.

But then it has all been so predictable, hasn't it? Once the revolution of e-cigs took hold, those who claim to be interested in health have clutched at multiple straws to deride, demonise, smear and undermine them.

We've seen attempts to invent passive and thirdhand vaping as a concept; heroic conspiracy theories claiming that millions of successful quitters are just an illusion; attempts to rig legislation at EU level; and junk science promoted as fact.

In the end, the pharma enthralled tobacco control industry have fallen back on justification so weak as to be laughable. That they vary in quality and that kids might use them.

ASH welcome regulation to stop kids using e-cigs despite their own study finding 0% of kids using them; the BBC seeks out a head teacher who banned e-cigs in their usual agitprop coverage, despite no student ever having been seen using one; and everyone else cites obscure and unrepresentative negative studies while ignoring the overwhelming benefits to health of over a million people cutting down on tobacco consumption.

It was all telegraphed beforehand too. With the MHRA abomination looming, state bodies redoubled their denialist efforts. The NHS Choices site - purporting to be a neutral fact-checker - displayed the underlying agenda perfectly by publishing this article yesterday.

Carefully cherry-picked junk science - and even this absurd Guardian article - were presented as proof that pharma produced NRT was absolutely brilliant, while e-cigs were dangerous and useless.

Written by someone who doesn't have much understanding of the devices (e.g. they all look like cigarettes; are triggered by air flow; batteries only last 2 to 5 hours), it contained 'neutral' info which clearly showed which side of the fence they were coming down on.

It’s not certain whether e-cigarettes deliver as much nicotine as forms of nicotine replacement therapy such as patches, so they may not be as effective at curbing nicotine cravings.

Hence why 1.3 million smokers have shunned e-cigs in favour of NRT with its 98.4% failure rate ... oh, hold on.

If you want to try a safer alternative to cigarettes but are concerned about the uncertainties surrounding e-cigarettes, you may wish to consider a nicotine inhalator.

A product which has been so successful that it hasn't attracted millions worldwide like, err, e-cigs despite being free and backed by saturation TV advertising.

Because e-cigarettes can be smoked in public places such as bars, restaurants and public transport, some people feel they may be normalising what has come to be seen as an unacceptable activity.

For 'some people', read 'a tiny minority of state-funded lobbyists and fake charities'.

And just in case you didn't get the message, they produce a neat infographic to make sure you make the, ahem, correct choice.

Today is the apex of tobacco control industry stupidity. Ultimate and resounding proof of what I have been saying for years. It has never, ever, been about health. And now they have illustrated it beyond reasonable doubt.

Anything that has gone before can now be disregarded, they have negligently provided all the evidence needed.

So they installed a smoking ban, so what? They have produced rules which could force 1.3 million vapers back to smoking. They banned vending machines. So what? They are effectively banning a revolutionary product which was reducing tobacco harm worldwide. They banned tobacco displays. So what? Their lapdog big pharma loyalty is the best thing tobacco manufacturers have heard for a long time. They intend to bring in evidence-free plain packaging. So what? They are also intending to obliterate a smoking alternative which carries global, real life evidence of overwhelming success.

It can never again be claimed that these people have any care for health. Ever. Just as we can now conclude with 100% confidence that public consultations are nothing but an elaborate and costly sham.

As one tobacco industry observer put it today, they have "killed the golden goose" before it's had a chance to lay many more priceless public health golden eggs. It was, as ex-Director of ASH Clive Bates dolorously described, "a good day for the cigarette makers".

But what does the tobacco control industry care? It was never about health anyway.

The 'Myth' That Keeps On Giving

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:25:00 +0000

Deborah Arnott is being shown up again.

[T]he “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited.

Erm.

A charity has called for a complete ban on alcohol advertising at music and sports events.

Alcohol Concern wants the action to protect children and young people from what it describes as "excessive" exposure.

The charity wants a ban on alcohol advertising in the trailers of films shown in cinemas with less than an 18 certificate.

Dunno about you, but that looks like a 'sign' to me, especially since every proponent I've heard on TV or radio this morning has referenced tobacco ad bans as their inspiration.

Plain packaging of alcohol is merely a few steps further down the line, that's all.

Doctors Confused About Nicotine

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:40:00 +0000

Via Nursing in Practice comes this quite shocking revelation.

A survey of GPs has revealed some falsely believe one of the greatest health risks from smoking is nicotine.

Nicotine is the addictive component of tobacco smoke, but unlike some other constituents of tobacco smoke, it is not carcinogenic (cancer-causing) and according to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) 'medicinal nicotine is a very safe drug.'

The majority of survey respondents (96% UK, 98% Sweden) said that they regularly discussed smoking cessation with their patients, but less than half believe that long-term nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is preferable to smoking (31% UK, 48% Sweden).

The survey findings show that a substantial proportion of GPs (40%) believe nicotine to be the first or second riskiest component of cigarettes, incorrectly identifying it as more harmful than smoke.

Many (44% UK, 56% Sweden) also wrongly believe that nicotine in tobacco products is associated with cancer, while 15% in the UK and 22% in Sweden believe the same for pharmaceutical nicotine.

One wonders who they must be listening to, because it doesn't appear to be the RCP.

"Nicotine itself is not a particularly hazardous drug," says Professor John Britton, who leads the tobacco advisory group for the Royal College of Physicians.

Nor does it seem to be ASH.

In 1976 Professor Michael Russell wrote: “People smoke for nicotine but they die from the tar.” Indeed, the harm from smoking is caused almost exclusively by toxins present in tobacco released through combustion. By contrast, pure nicotine products, although addictive, are considerably less harmful. Electronic cigarettes consequently represent a safer alternative to cigarettes for smokers who are unable or unwilling to stop using nicotine.

Their thinking is also not in accordance with guidance from NICE.

Prof Kelly added that the guidance endorses cutting down on smoking with the help of licensed nicotine products such as patches and gum to help reduce the harm caused by tobacco.

He pointed out that while nicotine is a 'relatively harmless' substance, there is a lack of clarity over the safety of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and what substance actually causes death.

the guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says doctors seeking to help smokers can advise ‘these products (e-cigs) are likely to be less harmful than cigarettes’.

Professor Aveyard said he will tell patients that using e-cigarettes is ‘better than smoking.'

Remember, then, that next time some GP harangues you about smoking (or even e-cig use), he might not have the first clue what he is talking about and could be just reacting to confused messages being delivered by idiot politicians and their civil service arm-benders.

The only question remaining is who has led idiot politicians and their civil service arm-benders to produce such confused messages in the first place. Could it be that the past decade avalanche of anti-smoking denormalisation tactics has convinced doctors that anything contained in a cigarette is on the same danger level as the black death?

Well, yeah. That's about the sum of it.

It's Not About Health In Italy Either

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Just two weeks ago, I wrote about how the French had gone off message and admitted that tobacco control has nothing to do with health.

The French government could be set to ban the use of electronic cigarettes in public places and at work because of health precautions, it emerged on Monday. The ban threat comes as the nicotine-filled ‘vaporisers’ experience a boom in sales in France.

This blog's official France-based official theologian commented at the time that a truly bizarre debate was going on over there.

I did read or hear that it was because people with visible e-cigarettes 'do not set a very good example' to the general public.

How naughty of them to disobey their masters like errant schoolkids, eh?

Bans are needed to "protect workers"? Pah! That Trojan horse is long gone.

Well, now it is becoming a European epidemic of idiocy. Italy has also come out of the closet and decided the coast is clear enough to admit health justification is nothing but a sham.

Rome: The Italian health ministry's top advisory body has recommended a ban on the smoking of electronic cigarettes in public places and their sale to pregnant women and minors.

The recommendation by the ministry's Superior (?) Health Council came after France's Health Minister Marisol Touraine said she was planning similar restrictions.

So the Italian government is also either run by idiots or driven by wads of cash in pharma industry brown envelopes, then (As an aside, I don't believe I've ever seen the word 'superior' used in more undeserving context!).

Such a shame after visual evidence that Italy's emerging e-cig market was making great strides during their Six Nations match against, yes, the French in February (click to enlarge).

The advertising hoardings say "Fumare Digitale" or, electronic cigarettes

How dare 'Smokie's' rub the Italian government's nose in it, eh? Something obviously had to be done about the impudent upstarts.

We are living through significant times. One day, history will view utterly incompetent policies like these in the same way we laugh at the stupidity of medieval quacks.

Jewel Robbing Spotted In The Sunday Express

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 09:02:00 +0000

The Sunday Express has developed my article on Tuesday to produce this front page today.

You can read the whole story here, which details madness towards alcohol learned directly from the tobacco control template.

So many astonishing quotes in there, but here's a taster.

[Professor Peter Anderson, of Newcastle University, said:] “Alcohol is a carcinogen and I doubt that the alcohol industry would want to be caught out producing and selling a carcinogen without warning its consumer.

“We know cigarettes cause cancer, and cigarette packets carry warning labels that cigarettes cause cancer.

“Consumers surely deserve the same information on drink bottles."

Let me, at this point, remind you of something Deborah Arnott said last year.

The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.

Of course, dear. Nurse!

See also: Previous jewel robbing spotted in the Mail, on the BBC and in the Guardian.

Link Tank 08/06

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:10:00 +0000

Once more unto the links, dear friends.

WHO admits it's never been about health

You're addicted to caffeine, time for the state to step in?

Life imitates The Simpsons as Krusty Burger and Moe's Tavern open for real

Ex-Microsoft manager plans to create first US marijuana brand

Smoking alcohol to avoid the calories, public health's worst nightmare

Beer fridge takes down an Australian neighbourhood's mobile phone network

Should restaurants be allowed to ban kids?

Earliest signs of French winemaking dated to around 2,500 years ago

Porn movie premieres are slightly different

The frog that didn't croak after all

Spooky

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:48:00 +0000

I signed up for a forum today and the captcha phrase on registration was this.

I feel like they know me already.

A Victory For Impatience

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 20:22:00 +0000

It's taken me a while to write this as I thought it best to calm down first. Because my exasperation at yesterday's news was off the scale.

Motorway tailgaters and middle-lane hoggers are to face quick justice with on-the-spot penalties under new measures announced by the government.

From July, police will be able to issue £100 fines and three points for careless driving offences that would currently have to go to court.

So middle lane hoggers are 'dangerous' now, are they? Sorry, but that's quite a stretch, and that so many have swallowed this flimsy justification.and nodded along approvingly just shows how our country's definition of 'danger' has deteriorated in the past decade, and also how blasé about civil liberties our population has become.

Being in transport, I fucking hate middle lane hoggers very much more than most. They are ignorant of the guidelines of the motorway as well as being astoundingly ignorant people in themselves for their lack of courtesy for other road users. There have been times where I've struggled to comprehend how anyone can be so very unaware of what is happening around them.

However, when thinking rationally about them, they do little more than hold me up for a minute or two and cause me to execute a manoeuvre I'd rather not be doing. When driving professionally for as many years as I have, you learn to stay calm about many stupidities you see on the road, lane hoggers being just one of them.

But the public - who have all been mildly irritated by a hogger at some point - are quite happy about this legislative expression of vindictiveness despite it presenting the abandonment of road safety as a premise for state enforcement of punishment. Those few minutes added to a 200 mile journey are enough to break out the penalty charge version of torches and pitchforks, while the precedent ceded to those who simply shouldn't be allowed it is ignored.

Are politicians really now saying being a bit annoying on the road merits a £100 fine? Yes, it seems they are. We all hate lane hoggers, don't we, so it's fine and MPs will be lauded ... there may even be a lot of votes in it, eh? It's nothing to do with road safety any more, even though some will try to say it is.

The issue comes down to safety, Heydecker says. While he doesn't accept that lane hoggers significantly reduce motorway capacity, they do raise drivers' blood pressure by their behaviour.

So the 'danger' would appear to be the road rage it might cause in impatient drivers. If you want safer roads, wouldn't it be better not to validate drivers who are prone to raising their own blood pressure for something as easily - even if inconveniently - countered by simply "mirror, signal, manoeuvre". If that's too difficult, perhaps they shouldn't be on the road either.

We've seen public health laws based on pretend health threats to satisfy the intolerant; now we're seeing the DfT invent road dangers to pander to the impatient.

A driver happy about the new rule, pictured yesterday

Of course, we could just eradicate the problem entirely by allowing undertaking as was being discussed by politicians only a few years ago - if it's legal in the US and Australia, how difficult can it be? But that would mean the ratchet going the wrong way. We don't liberalise in this country any more, merely pass legislation to punish.

I mentioned civil liberties because it's something that no-one spoke about in all the blanket coverage yesterday.

Objections were almost exclusively about how it would be difficult to enforce, not that it shouldn't be enforced in the first place (and I hope it won't be, just like the ridiculous child booster seat nonsense).

The nation's foremost state-funded road safety fake charity, BRAKE, were quick to say that they loved the idea ... except that the fine should be £1000! Well, I suppose they would, it was like government handing them a blank cheque for future grant applications, just imagine the studies they can commission; the criticism they can lay on authorities which don't levy enough fines. They also called for lane hogging to be made a criminal offence which, of course, leads to a criminal record and all that it entails.

That smug schadenfreude doesn't look too clever now, does it?

Meanwhile, no-one seemed to worry that the police are now to be judge, jury and executioner on who is lane hogging and who isn't. If they simply don't like you for any reason, wham! £100 fine for being in the middle lane 30 seconds too long sunshine, have a nice day.

The unintended consequences this silly idea will facilitate are simply not worth appeasing the misplaced superiority some road users think they wield over others. It won't make anyone safer, either.

Middle lane hoggers can go to Hell as far as I'm concerned, but I hope this Westminster stupidity goes the same way well before them.

See also: Another pathetic road rule proposal last year based similarly on nothing but selfishness and intolerance.

A Slippery Slope Predicted

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 11:25:00 +0000

The news - reported here on the 27th of May - that France is to ban e-cigs in public places prompted an article on the subject on the Guardian site four days later on the 31st of May (see what I did there?).

Asking "Is France right to ban smoking to ban smoking e-cigarettes in public places?" it prompted a delightfully smug comment from a Guardian contributor, no less.

PeterGuillam
31 May 2013 8:27pm

Well it's interesting. In 2011 I published an article on Cif - you can see it here - about e-cigarettes, specifically how and why they were becoming the target for anti-smoking campaigners, and some of the social and historical context of this.

From the very first comment I was told that this was just paranoid nonsense on my part, and if you have the strength to wade through the 800+ comments you'll see how that charge was made again and again, and how I tried to explain in my responses that there was a growing campaign to have them banned, and that this was consistent with a pattern in which apparently absurd anti-smoking demands gradually became mainstream (and we can see a similar pattern emerging with alcohol, by the way).

Look at this comment, for example, which amongst other things said "Is there any suggestion that anywhere in Europe is considering such a ban? Anything at all?".

So here we are, just two years later, and France is enacting a ban. I don't suppose that those who so dismissively sneered at that article will have the grace to admit they were wrong. But wrong they were and although it isn't very edifying to say 'I told you so', in this case - I told you so!

And let's be quite clear - this is nothing to do with public health. As I explained in that article, it is about a moral scapegoating of smoking and smokers.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

This is concrete evidence of a slippery slope - the thing that anti-smokers say doesn't exist - coming true in a very short space of time, and a reminder that the tobacco control industry and its pharma backers is a disgraceful coalition which will never be satisfied.

Oh yeah, and further proof that it's never been about health. Of course.

Marketers Are Geniuses ... Until They're Not

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 17:02:00 +0000

On Monday, Bucko delivered one of his customarily delightful fiskings of an article in The Scotsman. Very good it is too, as usual, do go have a read.

The author was Professor Amanda Amos of Edinburgh University who seems to be disastrously confused about the merits and/or downsides of advertising and marketing.

ADVERTS for electronic cigarettes could encourage young people to see smoking as a positive thing to do, an expert has warned.

So these adverts for e-cigs are pretty rubbish, then.

You see, they're supposed to be encouraging smokers to use e-cigs instead. Therefore are specifically designed to do the complete opposite of making the target audience "see smoking as a positive thing to do". If - as moaning Mandy states - the ads are having the effect of making tobacco smoking more attractive, people seeing the advert would smoke instead of using e-cigs, which would be a massive fail for the ad agency.

Yet she then goes on to advocate plain packaging of tobacco.

On the issue of packaging, Prof Amos said tobacco companies were still able to promote their products by using novelties such as slim, colourful boxes to appeal to younger smokers, meaning a move to plain packets was the next logical step.

Err, so now advertising and marketing is incredibly well-targeted and able to hone in on precisely the consumer they wish to attract. Right down to sex and age range to within a year or two either way.

One minute even a fag box is precisely targeted marketing by expert advertising industry professionals designed to suck in teens and women to that exact product.The next, e-cig marketing by the same clever advertising industry professionals is shit and will make people buy something entirely different.

Do you reckon - and I know it's a long shot - that Prof Amos really hasn't the first fucking clue about advertising at all? You know, considering she has spent a lifetime working in public health and not even the briefest of hours in an advertising agency?

The wacky world of tobacco control, eh? I just wish they'd make their very dull minds up.

Two Drinks This Month? You Hazardous Drinker, You!

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 17:52:00 +0000

Following on from yesterday's news of a ramping up of the prohibitionist assault on booze, you might be interested - or, more likely, staggered - to read this document from an EU-funded anti-alcohol group, published in December (emphases mine).

Using the European Food Standards Authority guidance on exposure for human consumption of carcinogens in food and drink products, with a margin of exposure set at 1,000, no one should drink more than about 50 milligrams of alcohol a day, equivalent to 20g or two drinks a year.

Currently, Europeans drink about 27 grams a day, some 540 times the exposure level. Ignoring alcohol’s cancer causing role, and just considering other health outcomes, no one should drink more than about 0.3 grams of alcohol a day, equivalent to 9g or about one drink a month. Currently, Europeans drink about 90 times the exposure level.

Now, please someone try to make an argument that these people are remotely rational human beings because it's not - I repeat, not - a parody.

This project - I'm sure you won't be surprised to find out - is heartily encouraged by the EU ... using your taxes.

The AMPHORA project has received funding from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement nº 223059 - Alcohol Measures for Public Health Research Alliance (AMPHORA).

It also won't come as much of a shock that four of their 'collaborating institutions' are from the UK.

They go on to make some recommendations, notably these.

6. All alcohol beverage containers should carry consumer warnings that alcohol is a toxic substance, and in particular a carcinogen.

So, a skull and cross bones on every bottle of wine, then (and plain packaging, no doubt).

7. Low risk guidelines for drinking alcohol are, in general, too generous for health safety and should, in general, be reviewed downwards.

To 'one drink a month' or 'two drinks a year' presumably.

And there we all were thinking that the current guidelines of 8 cans of Stella per week (less for women) were ridiculously low!

It's not about health with alcohol either; it's about eventual prohibition but with better planning than last time, no matter how much they lie that it isn't.

* Image above was promotion of this documentary series on PBS in America, I can heartily recommend it as I did in my review of 2011

How Slippery Must A Slope Be?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 19:52:00 +0000

Another day, another perfect example of how the tobacco control industry does their fundamentally mendacious state-funded business.

Remember Myth 7?

Myth #7: It may be tobacco today but other consumer products will follow

FACT: Tobacco is not like any other product ... Plain packs for tobacco will not therefore set a precedent for other consumer products.

Action on Smoking and Health were even more forthright.

[T]he “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.

Because, you see, according to the tobacco control industry, there is no such thing as the slippery slope those of us grounded in real life see on a daily basis.

Look, if the slope is slippery, it's the most unslippery slippery dip I've ever seen in my life.

Erm ...

The official conference European Week Against Cancer said that the Irish are drinking 700 percent over recommended safe alcohol level to prevent cancer. Scholars at the conference have called for plain packaging for alcohol in the interest of public health.

Ireland has only just proposed thinking about plain packaging tobacco yet already the same is being mooted for alcohol.

If that's what 'any old lie will do' tobacco control industry tax-spongers consider to be a slight gradient littered with velcro, super glue and quick-dry cement, you have to wonder how teflon-coated and ladelled with grease a sheer cliff face has to be before they will admit to it being slippery.

From Turkey With Love

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:10:00 +0000

It looks like there are going to be some very cheap holiday deals to Turkey at your local First Choice or Thomas Cook store soon.

Britons warned to steer clear of Turkey as 1,700 protesters arrested after riots rock the country for a third day

This sort of thing happens from time to time - and from more time to more time - over there. It's generally short-lived once things calm down, though.

But then, why take the risk now that their government has gone nuts?

Turkish Parliament adopts alcohol restrictions, bans sale between 10 pm and 6 am

“No one can be forced to drink or not to drink. This is a religious and ideological imposition,” Musa Çam, a deputy from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) said. “This is not a struggle against the ills of alcohol but an attempt to re-design the society according to their beliefs and lifestyle,” he added.

Additionally, all liquor bottles sold would have to display warning signs about the harms of alcohol, again similar to those found on cigarette packages.

Slippery slope, anyone?

In TV series, films and music videos, images that glorify the consumption of alcohol will be prohibited. Images of alcohol would be blurred, the same way as cigarettes are being blurred at the moment.

Yup.

Alcoholic beverages will not be allowed to be purchased from vending machines. Beverages could not be sold from see-through shop windows and cannot be sold to be consumed outside the facility.

Smoking while driving is also prohibited.

Hmm. Probably best plump for somewhere else this year then. Greece looks a far better bet for relaxing away from authoritarians and for not being blown up, I reckon.

I'm sure Turkish politicians will be dead happy to see their tourist trade shift to their ever-loving neighbours. How nice of them to willingly donate it to assist with Greece's financial problems, eh?

Link Tank 01/06

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 09:34:00 +0000

Saturday's selection box.

Starbucks in the US have decided they own 25 feet of pavement outside their shops

Low taxes and fewer rules are popular

Whips and chains, the secret of a happy relationship

What science is for: A robot which predicts when you want beer and pours it for you

Mum and daughter seek father and son for fun times

Mongolia welcomes the Colonel

Highland Council proposes all drinks to be served in plastic glasses

The decline and fall of the liberal empire

The Gin and Tonic:The summer blockbuster of mixed drinks

Lego branches into schooling

Just your average pigeons solving puzzles on a touchscreen

It's Not Junk When WE Do It ... Again

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Fri, 31 May 2013 18:26:00 +0000

Important new research on tobacco health warnings is just in from Canada ...

Warning Labels On Cigarettes Would Help Smokers Quit

A leading tobacco control researcher says the next step to encourage smokers to quit is to print warning labels on cigarettes.

Massey’s new College of Health head Professor Paul McDonald, a world expert on smoking cessation, backs the Government’s plans to introduce unbranded tobacco packages with graphic warning images, saying it is the next logical step for cigarette packaging.

A "leading tobacco control" researcher says this? Well, that's it then, eh? I'll bet the research is sound and impeccably unchallengeable, so anyone with objections may as well pack up and go home.

The qualitative study surveyed 10 smokers ...

Oh dear.

The "science" of e-cigarettes:gushing anecdotes from 11 self-selected vapers. This was actually published ascpjournal.org/content/8/1/5/…
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) March 8, 2013

Perhaps Simon should get on the dog and bone to this "leading tobacco control researcher" and tell him to stop publishing rotten "science", he being Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Tobacco Control, and all.

Or do you kinda suspect this will be proudly published in Tobacco Control anyway and is just yet another example of "it's not junk when we do it"?

Good grief with tassels!

It's Not About Kids, It's About YOU

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 30 May 2013 21:15:00 +0000

Walking distance from Puddlecote Inc is a chip shop which opens between noon and 2pm and currently offers a lunch deal of small cod and chips for £3.10 - quite generous I think. Equidistant to the shop is also a school. I've yet to have seen a schoolkid in there since we took up residence in 2005.

According to this incredibly daft proposal from Salford City Council, though, they are committing a cardinal sin by opening at lunchtime.

Takeaways near schools in Salford could be banned from selling "hot food over the counter" before 17:00 to encourage children to eat healthily.

The ban would affect new outlets opened within 400m (1,300ft) of a school.

Firstly, forget the 400m rule, it would soon be discarded as we have seen elsewhere.

More importantly, it's fair to say that this is nothing whatsoever to do with 'protecting' children, merely the cloak under which Salford Council - an overwhelmingly Labour one - wishes to dictate to its population.

As a policy, it's incredibly badly targeted. I mean, are Salford City Council not responsible for administration of schools in their area? If they're that desperately concerned about what their charges eat at lunchtime, they can simply stop kids leaving the premises at lunchtime, surely?

Or is that too much of an imposition on liberty for them to contemplate, so they'd prefer to restrict the choices of adults instead?

Of course not, they're not at all interested in liberty and free choice, as the BBC's Newsround illustrates.

The idea's to make it harder for children to buy things like chips and burgers on their way home from school.

On the way home from school? Err, that is - and never should be - any part of Salford Council's role. It's none of their business what kids do once they have left the school gates. In loco parentis stops once school finishes, the 'in loco' bit ceases to be relevant, you see. It is parental responsibility from then on.

Rancid socialists have a big problem with parental choice, because they are terrified that parents might make choices which differ from the ones they like to inflict on others. But then, they are terrified that adults too might make choices that differ from the ones they have arrogantly assumed they have the right to dictate. Hence this policy proposal.

It's nothing to do with the chiiildren, as Newsround's choice of unelected supra-national 'expert' proves.

"The evidence is very, very clear that dietary preferences and habits are learned from the environment in which we all grow up," said food policy expert Dr Corinna Hawkes at the World Cancer Research Fund International.

"So that means in order to change our preferences, to change our habits, we have to change our environment."

It is, however, a fantastic reason for the BBC to ring up anti-food nutter Aseem Malhotra again - repeatedly - for his usual extreme fantasy view on a minor story about a policy which is simply not going to happen for reasons based inconveniently in real life.

I will be on @bbc5live at 840 a.m with @nickyaacampbell discussing salford council takeaway ban during school hours #childobesity #NHS
— Dr Aseem Malhotra(@DrAseemMalhotra) May 30, 2013

I will be joining discussion on @bbcr4today just before 9a.m with @humphriesjohn school hours takeaway ban proposals #childobesity #NHS
— Dr Aseem Malhotra(@DrAseemMalhotra) May 30, 2013

I will be on @thejeremyvine show with @vanessaphelps at 12pm discussing proposals to ban the sale of fast food to kids B4 5pm#childobesity
— Dr Aseem Malhotra(@DrAseemMalhotra) May 30, 2013

Can we abolish the licence fee yet?

The Man Who Stood Up To An EU Kangaroo Court

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 29 May 2013 17:00:00 +0000

At the start of the month, I wrote about how a travesty was scheduled for an EU committee and linked to where you could watch it.

The opening comments will be delivered by a Labour MEP who I described as - and continue to believe is - the most dangerous European alive today. She will be followed by a series of carefully selected tobacco control extremists who will advance their ridiculous reasons as to why e-cigs should be banned.

What I hadn't foreseen was that a sane voice would have managed to slip the security cordon and deliver a message which was deeply unwelcome, as I tweeted while watching.

Dr Etter says "the science has not been fairly presented here today" ... Bravo! #EUEcigBan
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) May 7, 2013

Dr Etter accuses fellow panel members of "cherry-picking", says it is "not good science" - I like this man! :) #EUEcigBan
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) May 7, 2013

Linda McAvan looks to be annoyed at Etter and intervenes to head off arguments to leave e-cigs out of TPD #EUEcigBan #Evil
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) May 7, 2013

It was a stellar performance, believe me.

Now, via the medium of YouTuibe, you can see him back up his sound assertions. I highly recommend this short video to you where Professor Jean-François Etter expands upon his brave testimony of May 7th and describes how the "public health community" are pursuing policies which will "kill millions of people".

Bravo, Monsieur!

Mike Daube's Glory Days And E-Cig Ignorance

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 28 May 2013 18:30:00 +0000

"Time slips away and leaves you with nothing mister but boring stories of glory days" - Bruce Springsteen

Mike Daube is someone you may have read about a few times if you're one of this 'ere jewel-robbing community.

He is a former Director of ASH UK who moved to Australia, advocates banning smoking just about everywhere and is a big fan of the slippery slope. He believes bansturbators should be able to take as much taxpayer money as they feel like, and is now engaged in ensuring that the tobacco template is followed faithfully by calling for gory health warnings on bottles of wine. He is also quite open in admitting that he wants to see full tobacco prohibition by making life as difficult as inhumanly possible for smokers.

The problem is that he is now very old and the archetypal dog which has long since lost the skill of learning new tricks.

You see, for someone who has spent so much of his dreary life obsessing about lit tobacco, you'd think he might be receptive to the idea of e-cigs - an alternative which solves just about every gripe anti-smokers usually have about fags. Such as ...

By virtue of emitting no tar, indeed, no carcinogens of any kind, they knock the stuffing out of passive-smoking concerns. They do not stink, so there is no reason to complain that they interfere with others' enjoyment of food and drink. No butts are left over and no ash is spilled, so they create no litter. They emit a clear vapour but do not burn, and so pose no fire risk. The batteries are rechargeable, the rest recyclable.

What's not to like?

Sadly, the above was in reply to a desperate attempt by Daube to portray e-cigs as some kind of tobacco industry conspiracy.

Faced with the impenetrable facts in favour of e-cigs, he instead harks back to the era of Slade, Kojak and the Austin Allegro by talking about 1970s attempts at creating a safer tobacco alternative.

Public health expert Mike Daube, who was interviewed for the National Newsagent article, told Fairfax Media the products were far from safe.

"The massive promotion of these products provided enormous distraction from anti-smoking efforts," said Daube, a professor of health policy at Curtin University in Western Australia.

And then conflates these attempts with e-cigs which were conceptualised and invented by some bloke from China who wanted to see people quit tobacco.

The buying of e-cigarette firms by Big Tobacco is not a noble attempt to mitigate decades of death caused by cigarettes, Professor Daube says. It is a totally commercial strategy, he says, one that is not motivated by harm reduction."

The fact that harm is being reduced is not acceptable to Daube. He just doesn't like the fact that tobacco companies are a part of it.

"They're not talking about substituting cigarettes for e-cigarettes," he says. "They're talking about using these products as well as cigarettes. Through e-cigarettes, they know they can get back into workplaces and restaurants. They're promoting e-cigarettes as a way to smoke in places that you otherwise can't."

Because, you see, for Jurassic Daubosaurus, attacking the tobacco industry is far more important than actually improving public health, a task which he has been employed to do with public funds for the past 40 years.

And it's not just smokers being targeted, says Professor Daube, who advocated the plain packaging of tobacco in Australia, implemented last December. Colourful e-cigarettes adorned with decorations could be seen as a way to make cigarettes attractive to younger consumers, targeting people who may never have smoked but may, through attractive marketing, feel compelled to try an e-cigarette.

Hmm. ASH UK, the organisation he himself ran in the 1970s, can find no evidence whatsoever that this is happening. But Daube is so single-minded in his out-of-date crusade against big tobacco - and conditioned over decades to promote falsity as fact - that he really couldn't care about the truth.

"If we have learnt anything over all these years, it's that Big Tobacco will do anything to keep people smoking."

And this is what it's really all about. Daube is another to add to the list of mostly moth-eaten, tired, aged tobacco control industry activists who have been overrun by current events. The game has changed with the advent of e-cigs and they are simply too old to adapt to it.

Like the guy in his sixties who can't quite get the idea of how to text or e-mail, Daube is incapable of changing his approach to facilitate better public health outcomes. Instead he sticks rigidly to throwing rocks at an industry which is doing exactly what his movement has been demanding for decades - to market a product which is not tobacco and therefore less damaging to health. You might assume from this that Duabe isn't actually that interested in health, and I'd tend to agree with you.

He is not alone. Around the world there are a handful of former tobacco control industry big hitters who have been rendered obsolete by the e-cig revolution, so they are reduced to trotting out boring stories of decades-old victories in a vain attempt to portray themselves as somehow relevant in the 21st century.

Even boxers now realise when it's time to retire before they look ridiculous, but it would appear that the lucrative tax-funded gravy train is more difficult for crusty tobacco control industry spongers to resist.

France Admits It's Never Been About Health

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 27 May 2013 21:20:00 +0000

Online news site The Local can usually be relied on for some superb off-the-wall articles about bizarre behaviour by people in Sweden, Germany, Denmark and France. You know, like Danish farmers marrying donkeys or Swedes setting up a church to worship lettuce, that sort of thing.

This, however, is apparently a serious story about bizarre behaviour by the French government.

The French government could be set to ban the use of electronic cigarettes in public places and at work because of health precautions, it emerged on Monday. The ban threat comes as the nicotine-filled ‘vaporisers’ experience a boom in sales in France.

"Health precautions"? They are hugely safer than the cigarettes the French government has been nagging everyone to give up for years!

France’s Minister for Health, Marisol Touraine, could be ready to introduce a ban on the use of e-cigarettes in certain public places, once she receives an expert report on Tuesday into the health effects of the smokeless devices.

Despite what is thought to be a largely positive report, commissioned in March and carried out by pulmonologist Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg, sources for French radio RTL claim that Touraine is planning a bill to outlaw e-cigarettes in public.

Now, one has to wonder why the need to ban e-cigs in public. If the French government has fears about their safety to users, the ban should be on their sale, shouldn't it? There has never - except in the minds of the most hysterical hypochondriacs and pathetic tobacco control scaremongers - been any suggestion that they could be harmful to passers-by.

Don't those pharma tentacles get everywhere these days? It's never been about health, merely secret corporate hand-shaking.

The Sage Of Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 27 May 2013 10:40:00 +0000

I've mentioned the astonishing arrogance of anti-smoking zealots before ...

You see, they're the experts on everything. They've already re-designed the laws of physics and chemistry to advance their agenda, why not the principles of economics too?

More than once.

The tobacco control industry like to portray themselves as 'experts' in everything from economics to organised crime, when the only area they are truly expert at is hating tobacco companies and sponging off our taxes to do so.

But, while finally finding time to clear out my blog drafts this bank holiday weekend, I found probably the funniest 'expert' fail of the lot.

On March 5th, Patrick Wintour published a piece in the Guardian confidently predicting that legislation on plain packs would be in the Queen's Speech.

Alex Ralph at the Times tweeted that there might be some doubt, but a tobacco control 'expert' was on hand to educate him.

@alexralph Standard arse covering protocol after a leak.
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) March 6, 2013

Thank heaven for the expertise of political 'expert' Chapman, eh? The sage of Sydney, no less.

Otherwise, we might have believed ridiculous stories from non-Guardian inferiors like Murdoch's Sun ... which turned out to be true.

UK squibs on #plainpacks. A nation that once led public health, now mired in mediocrity. BigTobacco rejoices! thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/n…
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) May 2, 2013

So it would seem journalists are, after all, proper experts in evidence-gathering, and Chapman just a common-or-garden typically pompous tobacco control windbag.