<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">Confession time! We goofed recently in making a brief but rather churlish comment about The Telegraph. In our defence, we can only say that everyone was in an uncommonly bad mood over the dawn of the British smoking ban.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">We may sound like old cranks when we say that the reason for the current health witch hunts is because the institution of “public health” is plainly sold out to the pharmaceutical multinationals, and thus has little credibility. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">Somehow, elected representatives in both the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">U.S.</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;"> and the Canadian federal governments have got it into their heads that it is safer for pregnant mothers to be forced to receive a newly developed and expensive Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) than it is to allow her to decide for herself if she will quit smoking, reduce her smoking, or continue.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">Wouldn’t that be a newspaper header many would like to see? But fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on the take) we are not talking about the American FDA, but the Chinese one.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">Persons who smoke often complain about election results for proposals that affect them such as smoking bans or cigarette tax initiatives.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">Yep, drinking is good for you. ‘<em style="">New research presented at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology on Friday showed drinking at least three units of alcohol a week had clear protective effects and 10 units brought more protection still.</em></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Verdana;">Don’t believe the <a href="https://www.forces.org/News_Portal/news_viewer.php?id=112">Swedish junk science you read above</a>. Here is British junk science to disprove it<em style="">.</em></span></p>
<p>Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in her Wonderland might say. Last week Norman Kjono exposed some curious research that exonerated some heavy-duty anti-depressants from any negative role in foetus development. </p>
<p>Robert Wood Johnson is now funding, with $500 million, a childhood anti obesity campaign. They will be weighing and measuring the children of the poorer folks in our society.</p>
<div>The UK Telegraph informs us that the passive smoke fraud is all done with "smoke and mirrors". Well, it’s a little late as the smoking ban went into effect on July 1st. The UK Telegraph should have informed us of this monumental lie a long time ago.</div>