Jeremy ROSKIN & Paul AVEYARD Bashed Again for the Poor Quality of a Second «Qualitative» Study, on English and Canadian Students

My God, not less than “Publication Bias”, “Misrepresentations” and “Serious Errors” were found in Jeremy ROSKIN and Paul AVEYARD’ study on Canadian and English students' Beliefs about "Waterpipe" Smoking: BMC Public Health 2009 Jan 10;9(1):10.

QUOTEWORTHY (for the boys and girls who haven't got the time to cast a glance at the FULL CRITIQUE THERE) :

« Noteworthy, in ROSKIN and AVEYARD's paper, is the fact that 11 studies, out of the 13 ones cited and having a direct connection with the issue at stake, are from the US-Syrian Centre for Tobacco Studies. Strikingly, they all use the ""waterpipe"" (in one word) neologism which has proved to be not only a scientific nominalism but also what I named a sociological code ».

« ROSKIN and AVEYARD quote from a student having "a background in scientific education [whose] beliefs were based upon the opinion of a toxicology teacher" that "in shisha... the way it's prepared with sugar in tobacco and charcoal, glycerine burns in the head producing free radicals. These are very harmful and causing cancers"". In fact, the interviewed student is not less ignorant (regarding health effects) than the others described as unaware of the corresponding risks […] ».

« The authors wished to draw the attention of their interviewees on the "misleading" figures printed on the moassel (the hookah smoking mixture) packs: namely "0% tar, 0.5% nicotine". The authors speculate that the latter are supposed to induce and reflect the ignorance of hookah users. In fact, these figures are not less unrealistic than those advertised in ""waterpipe"" studies ».

« The authors conclude that "the current lack of health information is currently viewed as tacit official acceptance of waterpipe smoking". The misrepresentation here is that that users have seen by themselves how public health interventions have lost their credibility because of repeated publication bias and fatal errors in studies supposed to be of a high-standard […] »

This kills me !

HIGHLY RELEVANT READING: Pire-Review: Head of US-Syrian Centre Gives English Lessons to Native English ““waterpipe””™ Researchers… Watch Online the Birth of a New "Study"

Let's have a look at the end of the publication....

« Acknowledgements [:] University of Birmingham (the Arthur Thomson Travel Scholarship), London Jewish Medical Association. PA [Paul AVEYARD] is funded by the National Institute for Health Research [...] ».

Excellent, Guys ! You seem to be nice boys. Let’s see now your potential comfits of interest…

«Competing interests [:] Paul AVEYARD had served as a consultant to and received funding from McNeill AB, Xenova Biotechnology, and Pfizer for work on smoking cessation».

Humm… Humm… Humm… Humm… Humm… Humm… Humm… Humm… Humm….. STOP ! Why not be sincere and put things right: Your "smoking cessation" here is PHARMACEUTICAL cessation, based on drugs and more drugs to treat smokers as if they were sick people...

All Hookah Addicts of the World, Let’s All Chant…ix !

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