Brian Monteith: BMA’s ‘facts’ prove to be all smoke and mirrors
The British Medical Association has shown itself to be amateur and ill-informed and doesn’t deserve to be listened to
DO YOU believe what your doctor tells you? When the doctors’ trade union, the British Medical Association, speaks out, do you think it must be a reasoned and rational opinion based upon hard evidence?
I would expect most people would give an unequivocal yes to the first question but be more hesitant about the second simply because, as Adam Smith identified, when groups of people from a profession or trade get together they tend to conspire against the public interest rather than put it first. Nonetheless I think people would give the BMA the benefit of the doubt because they are doctors, not butchers, brewers or bakers.
Last week we found out that doctors, as represented by the BMA, can no longer be trusted. The BMA is no more worthy of trust than any political leader, union boss or second hand car salesman.
Last Wednesday the BMA in London and Edinburgh issued a call for a ban on smoking in cars – all cars, no matter who is in them. It argued a ban is necessary because smoking in a car exposes drivers and passengers to “23 times more toxins than a smoky bar”. Now there’s little room for equivocation there: not twice as dangerous, not 20 times as dangerous but exactly 23 times as dangerous as a smoky pub.
Such evidence must have seemed insurmountable and unchallengeable to our politicians, who like to think they act on evidence rather than their prejudices or how public sympathies might influence their re-election. If the danger to people’s health is 23 times as bad as that offered by smoky pubs and politicians have already banned smoking in those, then surely they would act to ban smoking in cars? That the logical extension of this argument could and would be used to suggest banning smoking in anyone’s own private home seemed plain, but the BMA is keeping its powder dry on that issue for now.
When I read of the BMA’s announcement it brought a wry smile to my face, for I know something of the claim about the dangers from tobacco smoke in a car and was surprised by the sheer gall of the statement – either the BMA is so stupid to not have checked its evidence, or it knew the claim was baseless and was peddling a lie to the public in the hope it would be believed without question. Either defence would be a reason for doubting anything the BMA might say on any subject ever again.
Last year, concerned about the veracity of unsubstantiated claims undermining a genuine debate about second-hand smoke, Australian researchers Ross MacKenzie and Becky Freeman from the school of public health at the University of Sydney tried to source a similar claim that second hand smoke is “23 times more toxic in a vehicle than in a home”. They found that it first originated in a January 1998 report from the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado.
A bill to control smoking in cars introduced by a Colorado senator elicited an erroneous press release by her supporters citing a 1992 study of tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines in indoor air. That study did not, however, make the 23 times claim as quoted in the Rocky Mountain News.
From an untrue quotation in a press release it then evolved to become “evidence” and was adopted unquestionably by mainstream academic peer review literature for the next 12 years.
Similar phrasing appeared in the journal Tobacco Control and Nicotine and Tobacco Research, while an Ontario Medical Association’s 2004 paper conferred further respectability. In January 2008, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation referred to the same “Colorado study” which was then picked up by the US-based Action on Smoking and Health and ASH Scotland. Soon it was cited without origin by Australian media reports, a peer-reviewed journal and a press release issued by the Australian Medical Association while state and federal politicians echoed the claims.
The lie was then peddled by ASH Ireland and repeated in the Irish Medical Times and Irish Times, while the European Respiratory Journal published a 2009 paper citing the Ontario paper of 2004. This led to the Sunday Times reporting the 23 times claim, which was in turn referenced in a daily news release from ASH UK and on the websites of the European Lung Foundation and the Oxford Health Alliance.
At no point did any of these self-proclaimed august and reputable bodies seek to check their facts. MacKenzie and Freeman had shown the claims to be nothing more than an urban myth. That the 23 times as toxic claim has, thanks to the BMA, morphed from comparison with a house to a smoky pub is surely no coincidence – for people understand that smoking has been banned in pubs but for homes remains only an ambition with anti-tobacco campaigners who talk about a “smoke-free Europe”.
The BMA’s position did not last even a day under scrutiny. By Thursday it was forced to concede that there was indeed no evidence for the 23 times as toxic claim and instead referred to new evidence that smoke in a car “could be” 11 times as bad. Yet even this claim does not stand up for it is based upon the ridiculous notion that opening a window of a car makes no difference to toxin levels when a study it cites contradicts this.
The American Journal for Preventative Medicine reported smoking in a car with closed windows generated particulate concentrations of 272 micrograms per cubic metre of air compared to a range of 206 in smoky bars in Massachusetts and 412 in New York – but a car with its windows open gave just 51 micrograms per cubic metre. Nowhere is there evidence for 11 times the amount of toxins.
I do not exaggerate about not trusting anything the BMA say in future. The whole edifice of modern medicine is based upon hard evidence being rigorously tested ahead of being put before the public. For the BMA to so blithely or cunningly mislead the public deserves the strongest condemnation and the perpetrators to be removed from office.
Trust me, I’m a doctor? Is there anyone left to trust?
• Brian Monteith is policy director of ThinkScotland.
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There are 17 comments to this article
Page 1 of 2
Iro
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 05:49 AMWHO LAUNCHES PARTNERSHIP WITH THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY TO HELP SMOKERS QUIT (in 1999) ''The WHO European Partnership Project on Tobacco Dependence is being set up with the objective of reducing tobacco related death and disease among smokers. The Partnership Project, which is open to both private, non-commercial and public sector partners, will support implementation of the key strategic goals of the World Health Organization's Tobacco Free Initiative. '' Guess around what date smoking bans and rabid anti-tobacco campaigns started.
Iro
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 05:45 AMSmoking bans are designed to coerce smokers into quitting their habit by making their life as miserable as public opinion will permit. This coercion, combined with the fact that they have brainwashed smokers to believe that they are too severely addicted to quit on their own, profit the powerful pharmaceutical industry who makes billions selling nicotine replacement treatment and dangerous drugs such as Champix and Zyban albeit their very low rate of success in the long term. What better business partnership between governments who collect taxes, the pharmaceutical industry that profits from the repeat sales of their drugs and anti-smoking activists who profit from the grants of both? ''‘’They have created a fear that is based on nothing’’ Pr. Philippe Even - World-renowned pulmonologist, president of the prestigious Research Institute Necker When asked why he didn't speak up before his retirement he replied: ''As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held by my duty to confidentiality (1). If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man.''
Junican
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 09:15 PMI see that my comment was removed by a moderator. I can only assume that the reason was that I named an MP, so I will make the comment in a different way without doing so. Later this month, a motion before the House of Commons will have its second reading. That motion demands that smoking should not be allowed in cars with children present. It is my contention that the BMA have brought forward their demand for a ban on smoking in cars IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES merely to make a ban on 'smoking in cars with children present' more palatable to the Government and the people as a whole. For some unknown reason, their intervention seems to have been a rush job. As a result, they have omitted to check the facts they quote. Or, it may not matter to them whether their facts are correct or not since propaganda and not truth is the name of the game in these circumstances.
Jay111
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 07:44 PM@David Maggot - You've spectacularly missed the point. The BMA has been caught either deliberately misleading the public or is incompetent; either way it can't be trusted. If it can't be trusted in this instance, its integrity in other instances is questionable and, if one can't trust such an 'august' body like the BMA, how much less can one trust lesser bodies. It's not a question of drinking and smoking oneself in denial of evidence, but a questioning that there is any valuable evidence in the first place.
parmenion
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 06:55 PMTheir was a scientific study done in New Zealand that proved that children brought up by smoking parents, were much LESS likely to suffer from asthma. When this evidence was presented to the World Health Organisation, it was simply dismissed, as it went against their anti-smoking policies. As Dr Michael Crighton once said...."Passive Smoking is the biggest lie of the 21st century." http:www.forces.orgevidence...
Junican
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 04:37 PMComment removed by moderator
Kobi
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 01:55 PM#8 " Once, or "twenty three times more toxins than a smoky bar" makes little difference!" True. There is no smoking in bars in the UK, so there are no toxins from smoke in bars. 1 x 0 = 0. 23 x 0 = 0. 11 x 0 = 0. So the BMA are actually saying that there is zero risk whatsoever from SHS in cars. Hurrah! Took them a while, but now they are on the side of the angels. Expect to see their funding from big oil cut off shortly.
prog
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 12:25 PMSo, the 11x claim is also junk (surprise! surprise!). I think it's about time ALL claims re SHS are independently scrutinised. And about direct smoking, for that matter... Notwithstanding anyone's personal opinions about tobacco (and let's face it, much anti sentiment references so called scientific studies), the fact is that it seems the public may have been deceived, or misled at least, about the dangers of SHS (and possibly direct smoking). Fair enough - I guess some would argue that the end justifies the means. On the other hand, this approach is unacceptable if promoted by those whom we place total trust in to offer unbiased advice. If many cases so called smoking related diseases are actually caused by something else yet blamed on smoking by default, this raises serious ethical issues. Negligence springs to mind.
BeeGee
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 11:54 AM#2 Read this link http:centurean2.wordpress.com20110623one-world-governance-the-new-corporate-american-business It shows just how much funding is provided by the drug barons of Pharma.
samcoldstream
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 10:28 AMThe author doth protest too much. Once, or "twenty three times more toxins than a smoky bar" makes little difference. Smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke is ultimately harmful. Recent Cancer Research UK annual statistics show that 40,800 people were diagnosed with lung cancer. 35,260 of this number died. However, the lung cancer rate in the UK has been falling for the past 25 years and the UK is now 22nd in the World league of the highest cancer rates, per 100,000 of the population. Big, wide-open Australia with a population one third of the UK has the third highest lung cancer rate in the world. In Australia, the Federal and State Governments are taking draconian action to reduce the number of deaths compared to the UK. (Source: The Guardian Datablog)
Kobi
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 09:49 AMThe rise in asthma in children is correlated in a statistically significant way with the increase in funding for ASH. Ergo ASH causes asthma in children.
Kobi
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 09:46 AMAs the BMA receives the vast majority of its income indirectly from the state, it is no surprise that it adopts a political position involving more state control such as this. Perhaps the BMA should concentrate more on preventing the iatrogenic deaths and illness which its members cause in the UK, than making stuff up to pursue a political agenda.
Charles11
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 09:35 AMWe have a record number of people iiving to 100. All of whom must have inhaled second hand smoke, especially in the mid 20th Century when most people smoked.
Kobi
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 09:33 AM#1 "recommendations by the BMA or other medical and epidemiological evidence" So exactly what evidence are you talking about? Monteith has thoroughly debunked any pretensions that the mendacious BMA makes about passive smoking in cars in a thoroughly professional and scientific manner. You have provided nothing. If you have an argument to make based on evidence, then make it. As a libertarian I fully support your right to talk drivel, to remain uneducated, and to continue to be a drooling idiot, and you seem determined to exercise that right.
SheilaMartin
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 04:02 AMBrian. Since lying about anyone who challenges the lame science of "second hand smoke" by our PAID health professionals, who are not Scientists, but ARE grant funded by pharma, to produce predetermined epidemiology stars, this is the science that is produced. Interesting that really old folks die, not people in bars, or people in cars. Yet we want to ban smoking in bars and cars, when old folks are dying at home. This is not about making people quit buying tobacco. This is simply about demonizing and ostracing smokers onto the nicotine replacement products of the international pharmacy who funds all this bunk, including the World Health Organization, the British, Scots, and Irish, and Spanish governments, and every grant sponging "health care worker" on the planet. I find the truth can be deeply tedious, but we who can and DO read, can think in more than a ten second sound bite.
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