Monday 5 August 2013

Through The Looking Glass With Tobacco Control

I'm extremely busy with Puddlecote Inc's plans for world domination of the hairy-arsed trucker provision market at the moment so content may be very light this week.

However, in the meantime, you may be astonished at this article from Canada in which a tobacco control junk scientist proves conclusively that his industry's integrity and sanity has finally disappeared through the looking glass and is having tea and cakes with Humpty Dumpty.
A researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland found harmful levels of second-hand smoke in a survey of Montreal bar patios. 
The study found that a single lit cigarette could create air quality levels comparable to a smoggy day in Los Angeles. 
Professor Ryan Kennedy, who conducted the study, says the tests suggests second-hand smoke can be harmful outdoors, even on a windy day.
Now, we jewel robbers have known that the tobacco control industry lost its marbles a long time back, but they are now increasingly revealing themselves as a global laughing stock.

Needless to say, there are no links to this study - because it wasn't designed as a serious document to be read, merely created to produce a headline - so if anyone can locate it please do let me know, I could do with a good laugh.


25 comments:

Biker said...

Here ya go. :)



http://www.smokefreeottawa.com/uploads/1/1/7/4/11742147/ocsh_list_scientific_studies_in_support_of_sfos.pdf

chrissnowdon said...

Dunno where the study is, but Kennedy is a psychologist whose "research interests include understanding policies that ban tobacco smoke pollution in a variety of environments". He's in no way qualified to do the toxicology required for a study like this, which is probably why he's come to a preposterous policy-based conclusion.

SteveW said...

Can't locate the precise study, but he seems like a proper arse, check out these piles of cockwaffle:

http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/2/596.short

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2012.300950?journalCode=ajph

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0066692

His 'new' study appears to be absent from his departments list of publications (scroll to the bottom for the most recent publications)

http://www.jhsph.edu/departments/health-behavior-and-society/about/HBS%20Publications.pdf

timbone said...

No doubt the woman who quoted the 23 times more in a car 'study' will be quoting this, and it will soon be a BBC news headline

Crossbow said...

"However, the president of the Quebec bar-owners union, Peter Sergakis, says he doesn't believe the study's findings."
Can't say that I blame him, I don't believe it either. The 'science' of tobacco control has clearly degenerated from merely junk into self parody.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Yes, he seems to have embarked on a personal crusade to 'prove' something which is against the laws of physics. Plenty of studies there but no 'new' one (if there was one at all).

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I don't reckon he's too bothered. Seems very happy to have a career spouting bollocks.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

It'll probably end up being published months after idiot politicians have been quoting it in legislative chambers around the world ... like Jill Pell's 17% garbage.


If we lived in a civil society, their kind would end up in jail for fraud.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I think many are starting to work that out now. The more absurd the nonsense they spout, the less they are supported in reactions to the articles. This has been picked up by quite a few sites across the pond and it is only the most ridiculous anti-smokers who fall for it in the comments. Even self-professed smoke-haters are starting to object because stuff like this fails the believability test for all but the hopelessly dense.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I presume you mean proven liar Vivienne Nathanson?


Yes, I expect she will at some point.

nisakiman said...

And hopefully this will be their undoing. As the old adage has it, you can fool all of the people some of the time...etc etc.


Even the terminally stupid will start to question some of the latest fuckwittery emanating from the bowels of anti-tobacco, surely?


On a lighter note, as an ex hairy-arsed trucker myself, I wish you every success with your plans for world domination. If this planet was run by hairy-arsed truckers, with their inherent grip on reality, the world would be a better place!

Brenda said...

This looks like one of the idiots 'studies'

http://www.smokefreeottawa.com/uploads/1/1/7/4/11742147/newsconferencepresentation.pdf

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Tomorrow the south coast, the next day ... err ... a caff in Worthing! ;)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

2006? Wow, the charlatan has been banging that fraudulent drum a long time, eh?

John Gray said...

This article by Dick may have been misnamed. Shouldn't it be: "Through the Looking glass Darkly with Tobacco Control?"

What the.... said...

DP, the moron was even claiming that SHS inhaled by patrons and servers is “akin to sitting next to a forest fire”. Kennedy seems to have been schooled in the Jimbo Repace method of madness.

The study, which focused on restaurant patios in Montreal,
found that second-hand smoke inhaled by patrons and servers is akin to sitting next to a forest fire.

“What we registered were concentrations that would be similar to someone
experiencing a forest fire, like the fires Kelowna (B.C.) had a few years ago,” said Ryan Kennedy, an air quality scientist who measures smoke pollution on patios.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/second-hand-smoke-even-a-danger-on-open-air-patios-study-says-1.1396455

Even on an outdoor patio, second-hand cigarette smoke can produce
air quality comparable to a smoggy day in Los Angeles or even a forest fire, new research contends.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/study-likens-patio-smoke-to-a-forest-fire-as-advocates-push-for-ban/article13588299/

What the.... said...

There is no information concerning the Montreal "study", just absurd, hysterical claims. Further, Ryan Kennedy, posing here as an "air quality scientist", is a PhD graduate in Health Psychology at the University of Waterloo, whose interests include "applied/social psychology, social marketing, environmental tobacco smoke policies". Do a google search of "Ryan Kennedy" and there'll be a number of returns indicating that he is an antismoking activist who's been spouting this trash for a number of years. In other words, Kennedy, like many other antismoking activists, is a propagandist/liar for the "cause". It's pitiful that this inflammatory drivel was published by a news outlet.

What the.... said...

Kennedy is a recent post-graduate in the puffy "discipline" of Health Psychology. He is also an antismoking activist. There is also no information regarding the so-called "study" referred to.

Here's an example of the "studies" conducted by Kennedy, this time in
Ottawa in 2010. It's a sub-amateurish measurement of particulates that was slapped together during a few nights out on the town. It's not peer-reviewed and does not appear in any journals – even agenda-driven journals. Rather it is referred to in a flimsy "presentation" appearing on an antismoking website intended for press release:
http://www.smokefreeottawa.com/uploads/1/1/7/4/11742147/newsconferencepresentation.pdf

It's agenda-driven nonsense. I would expect the same from this latest
"study" in Montreal. Here's an antismoking "fact sheet" on patio smoking bans prepared by Kennedy in 2009:
http://www.publichealthgreybruce.on.ca/Tobacco/Tobacco_Free_Sport/Backgrounder_Smoke_Free_Patios_2011.pdf

This current story is doing the rounds of news services. Ryan Kennedy, who is not an "air quality scientist" but an antismoking activist, has been variably referred to as:

"researcher Ryan Kennedy of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who specializes in second hand smoke"
"Professor Ryan Kennedy…… of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore"
"...said Halifax air quality researcher Ryan Kennedy."
"Ryan Kennedy, an air quality scientist who measures smoke pollution on
patios."


The emphasis in all these stories and headlines is on "study", "science", and "scientist". It's just another con job on the public by antismoking activists, an attempt to inflict propaganda on the public masqueraded as "science".

This twisted activism is beyond farce, but standard operating practice for
antismokers. Only more pathetic is the gullibility of news services in
publishing this inflammatory propaganda without question.

What the.... said...

This is the bigoted moron in question:

http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~gfong/ryankennedy.htm

Dick_Puddlecote said...

That fact sheet on smokefree outdoor areas is amusing. I bet those British pub associations which sided with the smoking ban in 2007 will be chuffed at how their support will be reciprocated by the anti-smoking mafia. ;)

What the.... said...

The photos above are from 2007. His physical appearance has
changed quite a bit in the last 6 years (your photo above).

What the.... said...

This story from Australia just yesterday involving a medico and a lawyer:
Smartcard License Scheme Proposed For Smokers

http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/smartcard-licence-scheme-proposed-for-smokers-20130804-2r7pr.html?#comments

Michael J. McFadden said...

Just a propaganda piece. No published study that I've seen. The basic trick is the same as always: take a momentary "peak concentration" and treat it as 24-hour-constant-breathing for comparison levels. Similar to comparing a sip of hot coffee to sitting fully immersed in a tub of 160 F degree water for hours. One is enjoyment, the other is cannibal stew.

It's also always good to refer people to classic model for this research: the Klepeis study examined at:

http://wispofsmoke.net/satire.txt



- MJM

timbone said...

That is how 'passive smoking' started in 1977

Adam Haseman said...

And now the BBC come up with this.
"Indoor smoking bans across the UK
have pushed tobacco users into areas outside bars and pubs. Are these now no-go
areas for non-smokers in the summer?

It's a warm, bright day, so you pick up your pint from the bar and wander
outside to sit in the sunshine.

Once you step beyond the threshold, however, you're quickly enveloped by a
Magnitogorsk-like fug of carcinogens."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23515135