Thursday 1 December 2011

At Last! Unbiased Research On Smoking Bans

You'd have been staggered anyway, but emphases are mine just in case.

ATLANTA, Nov. 30, 2011 - As part of ongoing efforts to reduce disease and death caused by smoking and secondhand smoke exposure, the CDC Foundation and CDC have launched a new initiative to study the economic impact of smoke-free policies on restaurants and bars in nine states. While the health benefits of smoke-free policies are clear (debatable, surely? Ed.), the perception that they might negatively affect restaurant and bar business can pose a barrier to the broader introduction and acceptance of these policies.

This initiative, made possible by a partnership grant from Pfizer to the CDC Foundation, will assess the economic impact of local smoke-free laws on restaurants and bars by examining objective economic indicators.
Because previous junk science in this area didn't quite mop up those mould-infested dregs from the bottom of the barrel, obviously.

RIP satire.


12 comments:

Xopher said...

Surely this is simply an invitation to 'Pell' the evidence and to disPELL the perception.
I'm waiting Pfizer to fund research showing that bans cause depression so they can push for greater use of (their) anti-depressives = one less downside.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Or a study which looks at the suicides their products have caused, perhaps, Zopher? ;)

Anonymous said...

Ah. So the CDC is actually a front group for Pfizer itself, and not simply supported by Pfizer.

So we can expect every detail of the study to be published on line? We can expect no cherry-picking? No computer models?

Believe it when you see it.

Anonymous said...

"Making worksites, restaurants, and bars smoke-free saves lives, increases productivity, reduces health care costs, and doesn't hurt business," said CDC director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H."

Sounds like they have their conclusions all nice and ready for verification by the 'objective' research.

(M.D. I know: but what is M.P.H.? Mr Potato Head?)

Mark Wadsworth said...

Splendid. As we well know there is huge demand for non-smoking pubs and restaurants and that is why their takings have rocketed since the smoking ban.

Dick Puddlecote said...

MW: And why economic reality shows that smoking bans weren't required as demand should have sorted that out naturally.

I'm on tenterhooks. I wonder what Pfizer will conclude?

Dick Puddlecote said...

Edgar: They don't even hide it anymore, do they? I reckon they take bets on who can produce the most blatant crap to fool a backward public.

david said...

Yea, we (and they) already know what the result will be. I don't know if US supermarket booze is as cheap as in the UK but they'll definitely blame the economic crisis.

At least it seems we have reached the stage where even the antis cannot claim bans boost business. People are gullible, but sooner or later the penny will drop. Problem is, it'll probably be too late to turn the clock back. Besides, they are now targeting wholly private spaces and until the SHS myth is exposed they'll keep pushing.

Anonymous said...

The conclusion is certainly already drawn for this "study" too as it has Pfizer written all over it and it's only purpose will be to dispel the "myths" in order to impose more bans, plain and simple. What we need, more smoke-less dull and boring cafes and pubs that cater to the miserable few who venture in there. It's good for building developers though when all the once profitable businesses are gone bankrupt and it's properties available at cheap discount prices. It was a drug company after all who had government claim eminent domain and steal away private homes in the northeastern US, a case that made it to the SC where it was determined government could take property outright because it was for a drug company and a "good" cause - after which the drug company ended up not building after all, but ruined enough lives in the process. Smoking bans, economically, do the same damage and destruction and the developers and friends of the politicians plunder the land for cheap. Do it often and in enough places using worldwide imposed UN treaties and you can even decimate the entire world's economies by the time you get through. Could be this is an overlooked but obvious cause, among many others of course, but why the entire world is slipping into massive economic depression, thanks to smoking bans - similar to how prohibition last century was a prelude to economic devastation of the 1930's, then of course war, in that progression. Maybe that's why they call smoking bans "progressive", as it progesses everything into total destruction, for the sake of a lie.

Anonymous said...

I think that the zealots are starting to suffer from the law of 'diminishing returns'. The law to stop smoking in enclosed public places had a huge impact - not on the prevalence of smoking, but on business. It really does not matter what this new 'study' finds - everyone knows that the effect has been awful.

But the important point is that every new law that they introduce will have less effect. No one who drives for a living pays any attention to the ban on smoking in their vehicles, any more than people bother that the highway code describes smoking as 'a distraction'. The ban on displays will produce no change whatever and the plain packaging will have no effect at all. Both of these laws will be totally ineffective. Flashy images of heart disease etc will be meaningless because people become accustomed to them - so much so that they do not even see them! If the ban on smoking in cars where children are present is passed, nothing will change. No children will become more healthy or less healthy. These laws will fail because, after a while, no one will even know that they exist. Neither the police nor health and safety were interested in the enclosed places ban. How much less will they be interested in enforcing an in-car smoking ban? After a few months, who will give a damn? But there is more. These idiotic bans serve only to bring ALL laws into disrepute.

And after the zealots have got these laws, where do they go from there? A smoking ban where children are present in the homes of parents? How could such a ban be enforced? The only real possibility is a total ban on tobacco, and we can assume that this is what the zealots want, no matter how they might deny it. Not long ago, ASH ET AL were saying that they did not want smoking banned in pubs! So the zealots will demand the eradication of the tobacco plant. The result will be a massive increase in wild tobacco plants all over the world.

All these bans must eventually collapse under their own weight - even the present ban on smoking in pubs. Logic requires the collapse since they have a fatal flaw, which is that private places cannot be 're-defined', on a whim, as public places. Eventually, someone will find a flaw - and exploit it - and the whole edifice will collapse. I am too stupid to see how, but someone clever than me will see it eventually. It is only a matter of time.

To be honest, the machinations of the zealots are becoming boring. It must surely be true that even politicians must eventually become bored with them.

Frank said...

CDC, just the right people to write a 'report' of this nature. It's like asking Atnott, Pell or Duffy to write a similar report in UK.

Oh, hang on a mo!......

Himmler writing an unbiased 'report' on the Jews springs to mind.

What bullshit!

Xopher said...

Closer to home-
Liam Donaldson had this to say about the Enstrom/Kabat study -
"Q441 Mr Amess: What is your view of their research?
Professor Sir Liam Donaldson: Firstly, the study was carried out by the researchers who were partly sponsored by the tobacco industry, so there was a clear conflict of interest there. Secondly, it was using data from the American Cancer Society. The American Cancer Society subsequently disowned the study and criticised it on the fact that the methods used were unreliable and misleading. Quite honestly, I do not think that study stands up to any scientific scrutiny whatsoever, leaving aside the conflict of interest in the funding which to me is tantamount or comparable to a research study on organised crime being funded by the Mafia."
In other words a research study into 'health benefits' being funded by 'pill manufacturers' is tantamount to ...............

lots of lovely profit