Clash Of The Also-Rans

It's Friday, so how about something absurdly comedic.

Irish study to find best way to quit smoking for good

[T]he Tobacco Free Research Institute (TFRI) at the Dublin Institute of Technology is using a controlled sample of 300 smokers as guinea pigs to test the success rates of Allen Carr's Easyway smoking cessation programme versus the HSE's Quit.ie initiative.

Well, it's definitely an Irish study if it is seeking the "best way to quit smoking" but excludes e-cigs, isn't it?

The 12-month Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), which is free for participants and funded through the Department of Health's Lottery Fund, is intended to show which programme - if not both - is the most likely to help smokers quit for good.

This is like lottery money funding a study to decide which is the best football team in the Premiership, Watford or West Brom. It's little more than pointless junk but, hey, someone's getting paid for it.

"Unusually, we have recruited publicly because we want to compare these two treatment modalities," said TFRI founder and consultant respiratory physician Professor Luke Clancy.

Oh I see, Luke Clancy is involved. An obsessed man whose dislike of smoking is only eclipsed by his utter unhinged hatred of tobacco companies. The fact that the tobacco industry owns a small proportion of the e-cig market has obviously helped him completely abandon the idea of his role being anything to do with health, not that it had much to do with it before. Standard stuff, really.

While the number of smokers in Ireland is at its lowest ever level, at approximately 20pc of the adult population, Prof Clancy, who was instrumental in bringing in the 2004 smoking ban, said Ireland still has a way to go if we are to achieve the health department's goal of being virtually smoke-free, with just 5pc of the population smoking by 2025. "We worried that no matter what we do, we won't reach this target," he said. "So we're looking to see can we improve things."

Well, you could always consider e-cigs, Luke. Erm, Luke, Luke, look over here Luke! Oh, he seems to be ignoring us.