US Public Health Organizations Myths about Hookah Smoking (Lung Cancer, etc.) Debunked

“What’s worse is how hookahs are lit, with a piece of charcoal” said epidemiologist Samira Asma, the associate director for the Centers for Disease Control’s global tobacco program. “On top of extra nicotine and cancer-causing compounds, you inhale a lot more toxic carbon monoxide.”

Oh, shocking ! Dr Samira, who also “said the hookah was invented hundreds of years ago”, seems to ignore that not all hookahs are electric, thereby not producing carbon monoxide !

“Lung cancer, which claims the lives of around 85 percent of its victims in five years, is a disease which hookah smoking is strongly believed to contribute to, along with other cancers—but no one can guess yet to what extent. Asma noted a severe lack of long-term hookah studies that could bring light to the problem. “Acquiring funding for this kind of research is really tough,” Asma said.”

Dr Samira ignores or feigns sort of not knowing that the available “light” goes in the opposite direction. For everything on the state of research in this field; check out censored and dangerous literature:

The Medical Consequences of Narghile (Hookah, Shisha) Use in the World

There, you will be able to read, among other relevant facts, statements censored for a long time:
"The apparently low risk for lung cancer would be due, according to a Syrian lung specialist who summarized the findings of her team in his own country, to the low temperatures involved and the filtration of part of the tar."

The author of the above statement is Y. Mohammad, a Middle East female scientist, much more aware of the reality of narghile smoking than her colleague in the USA: Mohammad Y. Les dangers du narguilé. Info Respiration 2000;36:24 [Eng.: The hazards of narghile]

Read again this: An Emerging Deadly Trend : Waterpipe Tobacco Use…

Read again this: Their “Opinion” and Ours. Their World and Ours

Read again this: Heading Towards an All-Out Revolution in Hookah Studies

CONCLUSION: These are lies and lies again, above all when they say they have no money. The truth is that they have been wasting the money of US tax-payers and the main cause for this is their lies and their embargo on divergent views, and so on. Anyway, even if funds were made available right now for long-term studies on possible cancer problems in relation to hookah smoking, they should not be granted to Dr Samira and her likes. What the world actually needs is sound and (financially and politically) independent scientific research on hookah (narghile, shisha, “waterpipe”™) smoking, to be carried out by scientists who can distinguish between a burning and a heating process (1st Erroneous Report), between smoking products (2nd Erroneous Report), between hookah and cigarette smokes (American Lung Association Erroneous Report) and between a Shish-Kebab and a Shisha …

The American Lung Association and its sister organizations are not specializing in public health and sound science but in propaganda and fear-arousing. This is very dangerous for the public health of US citizens. For these reasons, the American Lung Association deserves the Junk Science Golden Palm as far as research on hookah (narghile, shisha) is concerned.

See full story by Dave Mosher: Up in Trendy Smoke: Hookah Myths Debunked in Livescience.com (May 31, 2007)

READ ALSO: La rage et l’orgueil contre... le narguilé (in French)
(automatic) ENGLISH: press HERE

A critique of “Narguilé : attention, danger!» (accessed June 29, 2007), a story written by Pascal DIETHELM, a member of the Governing Board of the French CNCT (Comité National Contre le Tabagisme). The Sacred Narghile awarded him the Golden Stupidity Palm for his dangerous following statement:

« Pire encore, de nombreux parents, en toute innocence, permettent à leurs enfants, parfois de très jeunes adolescents de 12 ans ou moins, de se réunir en groupe avec des amis dans le logement familial pour fumer le narguilé, alors qu'ils n'accteraient pas que ceux-ci fument des cigarettes. »


Picture: Courtesy of Junk Science (Steven Milloy)

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