…and to confirm that smoking is a bad choice, here another whooper from Science Daily, also known as Junk Science Daily. Another veritable pack of lies from computer data crunching, complete with authoritative coating!
Yesterday we commented on Science Daily’s revelation about dieting girls and their proclivity to smoke. Today’s piece of trash must have paid well for Dr. Neal Freedman of the NCI and his co-investigators. The epidemiological and pipe-less Sherlock Holmes of the day did not prove anything at all, but the study make money for the "researchers" and helped the antismoking fraud terrorize the gullible. Read with us between the lines.
‘The analysis showed that the risk of smoking leading to any type of head and neck cancer was significantly greater in women than in men. While 45 percent of the cancers could be attributed to smoking in men, 75 percent could be attributed to smoking in women, reported the study published in the Oct. 1 journal of Cancer, available online.’
‘"Incidence rates of head and neck cancer were higher in men than in women in all categories examined but smoking was associated with a larger relative increase in head and neck cancer risk in women than in men," Freedman said in a statement.’
So, once again we have attributions and associations (that is, the opinion of the data crunchers) but absolutely no scientifically demonstrated cause and effect relationship.
Amongst other suspected causes for head and neck cancer are alcohol consumption, diet, poor dental care and mechanical irritation such as from poorly fitting dentures, sun rays, human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, radiation to the head and neck (this exposure can be from diagnostic x-rays or from radiation therapy for non-cancerous conditions or cancer), certain industrial exposures such as wood or nickel dust inhalation, consumption of certain preservatives or salted foods, and even the use of mouthwash that has a high alcohol content. Non-smokers and non-drinkers too may develop head and neck malignancies.
The annual incidence of these cancers taken all together is less than 140 individuals in 100,000. There is roughly a 0.14 chance in 100 that you may get these cancers in the first place. According to the study above, if you smoke and you are a woman (the worst case scenario) that chance goes up by 75%, thus it becomes 0.245. Note, incidentally, that this incidence is slightly greater than that of lung cancer. How do we build the scare? Like this: we multiply by the population, and the 0.14 chances (or 0.245 if you please) in a hundred become about 40,000 (tobacco-related) "victims". Alarm! Epidemic! Preventable deaths! What would those people die of, hadn’t they been "exposed"?!
Why “tobacco” victims in the first place? Because the attributions come from the speculation that, since those who smoke (but are exposed to all the confounders above in an UNMEASURABLE way), have more cancers than those who do not smoke (who are also exposed to all the confounders above in an UNMEASURABLE way), the extra cancers must come only from smoking! Too bad that no two human beings are alike, no two life situations are ever the same, and that confounding factors interact in an immense number of variations made incalculable by the first two reasons alone — and there are many more.
In other words, if a group of Mr. Puritan John Does went bankrupt for $100,000 (non smokers with cancer) and a group of Mr. John Smiths went bankrupt for $300,000 (smokers with cancer), the reasons for the extra $200,000 of the Mr. Smiths’ bankruptcies are attributed to their passion for rock and roll, women and good coconuts on the grounds that women, coconuts and rock and roll are sometimes present in similar bankruptcies (actually, it would be fair to say "more present than not"). We therefore conclude that rock and roll, women and coconuts are definite causalities of bankruptcies, with the important implication that if we had a coconut-free, rock ‘n roll-free and woman-free society there would be very little or no bankruptcies at all. Multi-billion planetary campaigns must therefore be launched to get rid of those three elements for a "better" society. If that sounds "weird" and "vague", try this: an accountant can quantify exactly the contributions of the various factors of a bankruptcy in dollars and cents by reading the ledgers. That task is absolutely impossible for a doctor faced with these types of disease.
That is how cause and effect is established by this kind of fraudulent junk science, which qualifies the intelligence and integrity of those who help construct it. It also qualifies ignorance, stupidity and dishonesty of the politicians who embrace antitobacco and make repressive laws.
Eminently logical, and extremely “scientific”, don’t you think?… And, especially, absolutely political.
Happy smoking.
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