Stoptober and its fallacies

The UK has an abundance of wealth to spend on silly stunts like this one.



Dame Sally Davies (CMO) urges us to realise that apart from the financial cost to the country, the cost to individuals is the real issue that people should be thinking about. She tells us that 1,260 people a day are admitted to hospital with smoking-related diseases, It is tiresome to point out what has been said many times: that smoking-related diseases are not necessarily caused by smoking. Consider this graph from the World Health Organisation (h/tip Fredrik Eich at Alternative Analysis). Given the low rate of lung cancer deaths in Mexico compared with Scotland, it would seem that there many factors at play other than smoking.


(Legend reads: blue, approximate population in hundreds ages 70–74; orange, deaths from lung cancer ages 70–74.)

In explaining any respiratory problems resulting from air pollution, the burning of fossil fuels merits consideration, especially in the light of reports that UK levels of such emissions have broken European guidelines for years. Only Dame Sally Davies knows why smoking is such a focus of attention, rather than extraordinary levels of emissions, and why the medical establishment repeatedly refers to smoking as a 'preventable cause' of cancer, when considered on a population-wide basis it is not preventable (certainly not more than most other causes of cancer), nor is it necessarily an exceptionally significant cause of cancer or other 'smoking-related' diseases. Do the funders of studies on tobacco allow researchers to conclude that fossil fuel emissions are a factor in respiratory and heart health?

Nicotine replacement could be made stronger for expectant mothers

Nicotine replacement therapy is not only distributed free on prescription in Scotland, but in areas that have taken up the 'give it up for baby' programme pregnant women are paid to use it.

A report from the University of Nottingham now 'discovers' that NRT doesn't work for pregnant women, concluding that changes in the mother's metabolism resulting from pregnancy suggest that patches with a stronger dose of nicotine could be the answer. Now they will need to find an optimum level of nicotine that is strong enough to 'work' but not strong enough to harm the foetus.

Tim Coleman, author of the study, is a leading figure in UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, with acknowledged personal interests in the development of smoking cessation drugs. True to form he has identified a research opportunity in the unreliability of the nicotine replacement cessation regime. That's his living I suppose but these days it's not hard to think of many better ways to use resources.

Champix off the approved list in France: risks outweigh benefits

They kept this one quiet. (Or have I been asleep for a week?) Hat tip Chris Holmes.

The pill, called Champix in Europe and Chantix in the U.S. but known generically as varenicline, has been tied to everything from violent rages to suicidal thoughts. Reported side effects of Chantix have led to hundreds of lawsuits nationwide, including one filed last month in Pennsylvania following a 2009 murder-suicide.

French health Minister Xavier Bertrand said Tuesday he decided to remove the drug from a list of approved treatments available for reimbursement through his country’s social security funds because of questions about its safety.

About bloody time. Well done the French Health Minister. Some recent history is also included in this report:

In another controversy surrounding the drug, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced late last week that Pfizer had been asked last year to resubmit thousands of reports on adverse events related to Chantix, a request that came after it was revealed the company had not sent the information through proper channels.

The adverse-event information had been sent as a periodic safety summary rather than as a report required within 15 days for unexpected or fatal events, the FDA said.

I could comment but time is short today. Chris has already said what had to be said (comment 5):

Medical authorities the world over CLAIM to have the best interests of patients at heart. They CLAIM to be approaching these problems logically and scientifically.

Therefore it should be standard practice everywhere to try all safe methods FIRST, and only proceed to methods that involve any risk at all if none of the safe methods work. It is an absolute no-brainer. Hypnotherapy, acupuncture and the Allen Carr approach (which is a mild form of hypnotherapy anyway) have all proven themselves to be more effective in the long term than any of the meds, and they all involve NO RISK.

Why are they not being used as a priority to avoid damage to patients? Because of the massive lobbying power of global drug giants and their immoral influence over politicians and medical authorities.

It’s corruption, and it is killing people. Think I’m exaggerating, calling this sort of thing corruption? Check this out: GlaxoSmithKline have just revealed how much cash they lavished on Australian doctors and other medical personnel last year alone: over two million dollars, of which $371,659 was just to go on merry junkets to conferences abroad. In the age of the internet, none of this is necessary but it certainly makes people feel important, doesn’t it? Would YOU like an all-expenses paid trip to Vienna? But that’s nothing: in the same period GSK spent a staggering $96,000,000 on doctors in the USA (link here). Why? Because money talks.

But so do smokers! Spread the word, don’t risk the slimy meds. Even Pfizer can’t force their drugs down your throat. Doctors, I keep telling you: you’ll miss your credibility when it’s finally gone forever. You are signing it away with your own prescriptions pads with dodgy drugs like Champix, every working day of your lives.

BUT HOORAY FOR THE FRENCH HEALTH MINISTER! Monsieur Xavier Bertrand, I salute you! Bravo!

He's right. Champix is a drug that is being used to treat something that is far from being universally recognised as a sickness: the desire to give up smoking. And it's not only not the safest option, it's got a known track record (and I don't mean in getting people off tobacco). So let's stop spending our 'health' money on it.

Further call to stop funding anti-smoking groups

Following Forest's report yesterday (27 October) the Institute of Economic Affairs has also called for a halt to anti-smoking groups like Action on Smoking and Health. The UK's government grant to ASH in London, at £142,000, is relatively modest, but 'the Government should be clear about limiting the scope of the public sector, not merely its size'. Not only are taxpayers forced to finance charities via taxes that they don't sympathise with, but also, far more importantly, it can seem to casual observers that the state-funded 'charities' actually function thanks to voluntary donations – even though very little money comes from the general public.

ASH Scotland's government grants are both higher in cash terms and as a proportion of the whole. 'The Scottish Government funds ASH Scotland for the contribution it makes to the development and implementation of national policy designed to reduce smoking levels in Scotland,' says the Scottish Government's summary of an external review carried out in 2007. This relationship is less one of a charity than a quango. Where is the accountability, when a body poses as a charity and yet is substantially state funded because it helps to design tobacco and smoking cessation policies for the Scottish government.

Public awareness that ASH Scotland is not a charity in most people's understanding of the word is growing. For example the IEA's view:

No one can object to citizens establishing campaigning groups to draw attention to the potential health risks of tobacco consumption or to pharmaceutical companies aggressively lobbying to promote their alternative nicotine products, such as chewing gum and patches. But for taxpayers’ money to be given over to such causes is wholly unacceptable.

Not only the funding of these groups is excessive, but also its perceived activities are quite unsuited to be funded by the public purse. 'Drawing attention to the potential health risks of tobacco consumption' becomes, in the hands of a government funded campaigning group like ASH Scotland, a drive for a water-tight policy against public tobacco consumption that will tolerate no loop-holes or flexibility. I might have more sympathy for them if they were a single-person organisation earning a small annual income (£1,500) from local fundraising events, but they are far too powerful for their own good, and everyone else's. A more modest organisation might have more modest and tolerant ambitions. One can dream.

It is good to see this undemocratic form of charitable giving coming under criticism: how far will it go: let's hope the consensus will grow.