Friday 29 August 2014

The WHO Goes In To Bat For Big Pharma

Well, the World Health Organisation has finally come out of the closet and admitted that its Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the transnational pharmaceutical industry.

We've kinda known this for a while but it has always previously posed as being concerned with health by attacking tobacco. However, once again e-cigs have thrown a huge spanner in the works and the WHO has been forced to reveal its hand in the most shameful of ways.
The World Health Organisation is recommending a ban on using e-cigarettes in public indoor spaces because of fears over second-hand smoke.

It also says e-cigarette solutions with fruit, sweet-like and alcohol-based flavours – which may appeal to children – should be taken off the shelves and vending machines should be removed in almost all locations.

The ban on indoors use should be put in place “until exhaled vapour is proven to be not harmful to bystanders,” the group said.

A variety of flavours which draw users away from the taste of tobacco, and the ability to vape in many locations are the two most attractive qualities of e-cigs which make them viable. Without this there are only two options, either a huge unregulated black market or a mass migration – and I'm talking literally millions of people here – back to smoking tobacco.

This is proof positive – as if we've ever really needed it since the previous evidence-free assault on snus – that the hysterical anti-tobacco movement has never been about health (as many commenters to the linked article seem to be starting to recognise) but is driven in large part by corporatist defence of pharma industry profits from supplying the nicotine market.

Note too the methods being used here. They fabricated fear of the non-existent dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke, but have been unsuccessfully scratching around trying to find something with which to kill e-cigs too. They strove, they searched, they came up blank … so decided just to tell a load of lies again, as Prof Gerry Stimson observed on Tuesday
WHO’s mission is to save lives and prevent disease but once again it is exaggerating the risks of e-cigarettes, while downplaying the huge potential
The WHO position paper appears to have cherry-picked the science, used unnecessary scaremongering and misleading language about the effects of nicotine.

Just the same old same 'ole from tobacco control. Well, it worked last time so what can go wrong, they guess. The difference is that no-one is going to buy it; passive vaping is quite simply a non-starter, even a hypochondriac is going to struggle to find the energy to be mildly perturbed. It's quite simply not a thing, nor ever will be.

And kids, of course, the old staple. Banning fruit flavours because kids like fruit (and adults never do, oh no) but also banning alcohol flavours because even though adults consume alcohol they, err, also attract kids? It's incoherent codswallop and the public will spot it a mile off.

Sadly, the public don't get a look in - fuckwitted politicians do. So we can expect blind, ignorant caution to prevail and bans to appear all over the world. If so, history will judge these people as some of the most hypocritical, avaricious, irresponsible, dangerous and disgusting ever to have walked the Earth.

I've mentioned before that this year's WHO 'COP6' summit in Moscow is endorsing Putin's Russia while the rest of the world is imposing sanctions, but on this evidence the tobacco control industry and the pharma-shilling WHO have chosen the perfect venue location. They're a global disgrace and belong there with the bigoted, the corrupt and the inhumane.


On the plus side, trust in the WHO and their professional tobacco control hordes can only evaporate amongst right-minded people thanks to this incredible development. There's always a silver lining, eh?  



10 comments:

Zillatron said...

Exactly.

And they are totally missing or ignoring the big difference.

When they almost totally erased snus, people without any contacts had to believe their lies about it. There was no easy way to validate the information. And all we had to go on were the publication by the mass media.

Now we are connected. Everybody has easy access to anything published anywhere in the world. And anybody can publish. It may take some work to find the gems in all the rubbish, But once you hit a vein, you have collective intellectual riches beyond imagination to explore. And you can add your own sparklies to the mix.

As proof that they don't get it, they bullied Clive Bates to remove his satirical take on their logo. Once that would have been the end of it. Hit hard on a few key players and the whole section runs dry. But look what happended: Vapers all over the world WHO liked it are now spreading it. And create new versions. They started a new trend.
It's like playing Whack-A-Mole with an ant hill: You might squash some, but the rest will get quite angry and active.

I just hope there is enough silver in the lining to contain the WHO wolf this time. And stop it before it infects too many with its dangerous virus. This pandemia could kill millions.

BarryNorton said...

More than that: the risks of Chantix/Champix and Zyban are serious and well known but the WHO would rather protect that revenue stream for their sponsors than reserving judgement on an alternative.

Donna said...

Hey Dick, You are always on the money. I'd be interested in your thoughts about what the WHO seems to be saying. To me, it seems they are saying to Nations that have signed up to the FCTC that you CAN rule ENDS as Tobacco products (Govt tax), AND/OR (?) you CAN rule ENDS as Pharma products (keep their pharma funders happy) AND/OR (?) you can justify banning if you have a low smoker population (like we do in Australia). Is this the way you read it or am I missing something?

JonathanBagley said...

I'm not sure passive vaping is a non starter. Many people in ecig article comments are being affected by the propaganda. They want it banned unless it is proved safe, which isnt possible, of course. People in general respect the WHO. I suppose ten years ago I did.

Dragonmum said...

Not long ago there was a feeble attempt by "They WHO must not be named" to tickle up yet another pandemic MERS or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome - I think they realised that they'd been rumbled then, as it just fizzled out - or maybe the good Dutch doctor was on hols. There are so many of us watching and commenting on their every shady move that they're getting really touchy.
Clive Bates is on the the receiving end of of their "toys out of the pram" tantrum but, unlike back in the day, there are millions of us connected, as Zillatron says, and we are backing him all the way; some of the clones of their logo are hilarious, and they're plastered all over fb - it's really going to bite them in the bum! You are right of course - they are not motivated by Public Health, just Corporate Cash. That's not really news to those of us who were once regarded as the tinfoil hat brigade though.

Zillatron said...

Before i started to really search for information and found all those nasty bits, I use to doubt the most vehement critics. I thought that they could not be right. There just had to be some honorable people there.
Now I'm rather inclined to be paranoid about anything what comes from this source. And my apologies for doubting ...

Jon Holland said...

Tamiflu the not as good as paracetamol drug that governments spent a fortune on should have been the turning point but it wasn't, Big P pocketed a big wad governments cringed at the money they wasted & it was business as usual at the WHO.

truckerlyn said...

If they want e-cigs banned due to the exhaled vapor possibly being 'dangerous' then surely the NRT Vapor product should also be banned. After all, what is the difference? You inhale nicotine through a device and exhale vapor!


Just another fact that shows the WHO up for exactly what they are - brown nosers to BigPharma! Must be getting one hell of a kick back!

Anja M ERF vaper said...

well said, dear. And very true.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Creating scare stories is the best way to enhance a career with the WHO, just ask Liam Donaldson.

http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/liam-donaldson-alternative-view.html