Once again the British Medical Journal lends itself to scientific fraud by publishing a junk study. This one, to which "researchers" at Cambridge University lend their voices, states that exposure to passive smoking leads to dementia.
While it seems quite clear that only cognitively impaired persons could believe such an absurdity, it is equally clear that those who conducted this study (as well as those who published it) are not afflicted with dementia, but rather with a case of compulsive lying that just won’t stop.
One of the reasons why all the epidemiologic studies on passive smoking are trash is because they measure nothing but distant memories of exposure claimed by interviewed people (for educational material on this well established fact click on the numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Awareness of this fraud is now widespread.
Public Health, therefore, had to invent another way to bamboozle people on passive smoking, this time giving the impression that they actually measured something to maintain the belief that passive smoking hurts people. What about measuring the cotinine in saliva? That sounds great – except that the measurement applies only to immediate exposure – that is, at most, the last few days. In short, if a non-smoker has cotinine in his saliva he may have been exposed to passive smoking in, say, the last 72 hours.
Well, we know dementia does not develop in 72 hours, it takes years and years – but, in the minds of the Healthist con men, the public knows nothing, and will believe anything the crooked "authorities" assert as "scientifically proven." Thus, the bamboozlers can claim (while using qualifiers aplenty such as “should” and “suggests” to keep themselves out of jail) that passive smoking “kills” instantly with heart attacks, but also makes you senile before you suddenly drop to the floor.
Add to that some blatantly false statement for effect, such as:
“Previous research has established that smoking can increase a smoker’s risk of dementia, but the latest study, led by Cambridge University, is the first to look at the effect of smoking on other people,”
and/or:
“Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: ‘Previous research shows that smoking increases our risk of developing dementia, and this new study reveals that this danger exists even when the smoke is second-hand.’ “
Rebecca Wood is either a liar or she is utterly incompetent. The "literature" has long suggested that smoking is beneficial AGAINST dementia and Alzheimer’s – a well known fact. Smoking has been reported to be good for both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases – there is no controversy about this. Such reports are specifically noted by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science in its ponderous 2002 Report "Clearing the Smoke". Click here for a summation of the Report. Click here for the whole Report. Click here for further, abundant scientific reports of the effects of smoking against dementia.
It is clear that this new "research" is purely political, made for use by prohibitionist activists, and for the reinforcement of the antismoking faith. It’s another insult to good science, professional ethics, and moral integrity.
Isn’t it sad that even Cambridge University has capitulated to corruption and sunk to such moral and ideological lows, prostituting itself to the pharmaceutically-driven smoker-bashing agenda? Antitobacco rot pervades everywhere. Nothing surprises anymore.
The upside of the sad story is that “studies” like this one further decrease the trust and gullibility of a good chunk of the people in public health and at universities, leading to more and more discontent, and thus providing motivation to do something tangible about the ever-worsening situation.
Keep on smoking and don’t worry about dementia. Worry about institutional integrity and join us in the fight to restore it.
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