Simon Chapman’s Lost Battle of “Tobacco Control”. Wretched Intent to Mobilize Muslims & Jews Against the Tobacco Industry (Australian Pig Blood Story)

[Update Apr 22: content unchanged. Only the previous image (cover of the antismoking "Tobacco Control" journal April issue) was replaced with that of a book (left) by Gilles Chatelet [translated title: "Living and Thinking like Pigs"] which was deemed most relevant. By the way, this philosopher has nothing against those nice animals... Here's a presention of his work for the happy ones who can read French: "une réflexion sur la "Contre-Réforme néo-libérale", une démystification, l’analyse des présupposés scientistes (et ô combien " réalistes ") d’une idéologie dont la pensée n’est pas le point fort. Comment en est-on arrivé là ? [...] Châtelet propose aujourd’hui une philosophie de combat qui fasse "plus de vagues et moins de vogue". [more with Fluctuat]"

The Daily Telegraph (March 30, 2010): Cigarettes may contain pigs blood. From AAP (Australia)

In this press item extensively quoting from him, Simon Chapman pathetically scares Muslims and Jews about the “undisclosed” presence of pig element in cigarettes…

Excellent ! That animal haemoglobin may have been used here or there in some cigarette filters (although it is apparently very rare and limited to some places in Greece) to trap carbon monoxide or other harmful chemicals is not the problem here.

Some commentators have decided that it would be an April Fool's Day joke…

This isn't our opinion. We think that the timing is likely more related to a historic speech in The Hague (March 15, 2010) in which an independent non-antismoking researcher found, “further to numerous in-depth peer-reviewed critiques of biomedical publications (notably the WHO expert report)”, […] that “Prohibition based on shoddy science also collides with the holy teachings of a great religion of the world. The latter commands that good sound science should be sought from the cradle to the grave. Consequently, he invites States, particularly those for which this religion is central, to collectively withdraw from the WHO FCTC (Framework Convention for Tobacco Control) and demand accountability (International Court of Justice)”.

Of course, that shoddy science is, to a great extent, that published in “Tobacco Control”, the main world antismoking journal whose Editor-in-Chief for one decade or so has been Simon Chapman himself. See last issue (not another April Fool’s Day joke !)

This April issue contains many interesting papers offering a foretaste of the so strongly desired Prohibition. It is heralded by an editorial on Electronic cigarettes written by Jack HENNINGFIELD (USA) and Ghazi ZAATARI (US-American University of Beirut), two prominent WHO TobReg experts who stress the necessity for procrastinating another 10 years or so because ENDDs (new speak for electronic cigarettes) might be very hazardous in their opinion… Therefore, they suggest in their WHO jargon an “emerging science foundation for policy” so you folks can be impressed by the scientific nature of the procrastination… Case made !

In view of his interests in US Big Big Pharma products, Jack HENNINGFIELD’s not very enthusiastic opinion about the Chinese gadget is understandable, isn’t it ?

However, why, would you ask, is Ghazi ZAATARI’s analysis likely to be biased ? Simply because the proportion of cigarette smokers in Lebanon is so huge (around 60% of the total population). This means that the great hazard for the pharmaceutical industry is that those Eastern folks adopt the Chinese gadget instead of the nicotine inhalers, patches and gums, and Chantix… Understood ? If not, browse this site to see the similar tactics in their “scientific” war against the ““waterpipe””…

Note: Last month, in the same “Tobacco Control” antismoking journal, the One Million E-cigarette users in the USA could find a rocket science study by Thomas Eissenberg whose title is everything but unclear: “Electronic nicotine delivery devices: ineffective nicotine delivery and craving suppression after acute administration”

Interestingly, the previously mentioned independent non-antismoking researcher who went Holland to deliver his speech against Prohibition said that E-cigarettes are now under the same fire (that is, the so-called “peer-reviewed” “studies”) led by the same people who have attacked the hookah for almost one decade now.

Not sure ? Let’s see:

Jack HENNINGFIELD and Ghazi ZAATARI are the WHO TobReg experts who have ““peer-reviewed”” the infamous WHO flawed report on ““waterpipe””™ smoking.

Ghazi ZAATARI has personally selected the experts to be appointed for the task of preparing that document (source: US-American University of Beirut Bulletin dated Feb 2006, Vol7, 45)

The first "objectively" “selected” expert was Alan SHIHADEH (who is affiliated with the same institution, the US-American University of Beirut…) and the second one was Thomas EISSENBERG… What a coincidence…

The more the merrier… D’you kow what ? All these people are members of Globalink !

This is not all. The “Tobacco Control” antismoking journal is also famous for having published a “reference” (certainly it has been one for the crowds of blind or parroting researchers who cited it) review on ““waterpipe””™ authored by Wasim Maziak and co-authored, among others, by Thomas Eissenberg. As expected, the “reference” review is a great fraud and contains tremendous scientific errors:

Maziak W, Ward KD, Afifi Soweid RA, Eissenberg T. Tobacco smoking using a waterpipe: a re-emerging strain in a global epidemic. Tobacco Control 2004; 13: 327-333.

See critique of main errors THERE

Most scientific journals would have retracted such a big stain in their editorial content. “Tobacco Control” did not because antismoking ideology is superior to science.

CONCLUSION

This Autralian story about pig blood in cigarette filters is rubbish and the Observatory on Hookah or Health has decided to grant the “Haram Science” and “Treif Science” Award to Simon Chapman !

“Haram” and “Treif” ? … What’s this ?

Bad science, pseudo-science, are illicit in Religion !

RELEVANT READINGS

On Simon CHAPMAN and the world antismoking Globalink octopus (WHO, WHO TFI, WHO TobReg, Prohibition, etc.) : see “A Global Prison ?” (interview with historian of antismoking)

On his antismoking journal : Comfits of Interest, WHO TobReg, Globalink, Tobacco Control, etc. : Double Standard and/or Hypocrisy ?

On Jack HENNINGFIELD and his so big connections with Big Pharma that (poor man), he “forgets” to mention them…, see that ARTICLE:

On Ghazi ZAATARI, see Narghile, Sex and the US-American Univer-City of Beirut... Tobacco Control, Prostitution and the City of Bombay...

Read also: “E-Cigarettes, Hookah (Shisha, Narghile) and E-Hookah”. A comment on an article published in the British Medical Journal (Flouris AD, Oikonomou DN. Electronic cigarettes: miracle or menace ? BMJ. 2010 Jan 19;340:c311. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c311)

YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there !

Tetralogy of Hookah World Premieres Now Complete with Pioneering Study on Hookah and Cigarette Passive Smoking (Environmental Tobacco Smoke)

Completing the 3 first elements (Critique of the Flawed WHO Report, Study on Cancer Aetiology and Study on Radioactivity), the last component of the Tetralogy of Hookah World Premieres is now published in English and Open Access (full text free):

Hookah (Shisha, Narghile) Smoking and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS). A Critical Review of the Relevant Literature and the Public Health Consequences. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2009; 6(2):798-843.

50 pages of hard and debunking scientific facts to offer to your local Prohibition agent (FULL TEXT FREE). Table of contents (useful) here:

ABSTRACT

Hookah (narghile, shisha, “water-pipe”) smoking is now seen by public health officials as a global tobacco epidemic. Cigarette Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) is classically understood as a combination of Side-Stream Smoke (SSS) and Exhaled Main-Stream Smoke (EMSS), both diluted and aged. Some of the corresponding cigarette studies have served as the scientific basis for stringent legislation on indoor smoking across the world. Interestingly, one of the distinctive traits of the hookah device is that it generates almost no SSS. Indeed, its ETS is made up almost exclusively by the smoke exhaled by the smoker (EMSS), i.e. which has been filtered by the hookah at the level of the bowl, inside the water, along the hose and then by the smoker’s respiratory tract itself. The present paper reviews the sparse and scattered scientific evidence available about hookah EMSS and the corresponding inferences that can be drawn from the composition of cigarette EMSS. The reviewed literature shows that most of hookah ETS is made up of EMSS and that the latter qualitatively differs from MSS. Keeping in mind that the first victim of passive smoking is the active smoker her/himself, the toxicity of hookah ETS for non-smokers should not be overestimated and hyped in an unscientific way.

EXCERPTS

A “serious risk” for Non-Smokers (WHO report) . Yes or no ?

“In view of all the above described distinguishing traits, a central objective of the present review is to determine whether hookah ETS [Environmental Tobacco Smoke, i.e. “Passive Smoking”] represent a “serious risk” to non-smokers. It is recalled, once again, that what is at stake here is “passive smoking”, not active smoking. The latter has also been surrounded by a wide confusion. Consequently, the focus of the present review is on EMSS.” (page 808)

An Experiment Anti-Tobacco Organizations Did Not Want You To Know About

“Three decades ago, Russell et al. carried out a famous artificial experiment in which 20 volunteers spent about 78 minutes seated in an unventilated smoke-filled room of about 43 c.m. (15x12x8 ft). Eighty cigarettes and two cigars were burnt or smoked. The average ambient CO concentration reached 38 ppm. Thanks to COHb monitoring, the researchers concluded that “the amount of inhaled CO by non-smokers as a result of their exposure to ETS was about the same as would be expected if they had actively smoked and inhaled one cigarette”[105]. Other researchers have performed a more realistic although “acute natural exposure” experiment in which seven non-smokers were exposed to tobacco smoke under natural conditions for two hours in a public house. They found that the increase in expired CO of 5.9 ppm was similar to increases in smokers after a single cigarette [101]. Scherer et al. measured an active/passive ratio of CO varying between 2.7 and 4.2 (40 mg-400 mg / 14.4 mg-96 mg) [Table 3] [100]” (page 819).

So what ? A mere question of smell and odors ?

“Perhaps the only problem regarding hookah ETS might be odours. Experts had once noted that “although many people dislike the smell of burning tobacco, there are some who enjoy it” and added that “this is especially true of cigar or pipe smoke, which nevertheless contain higher concentrations of irritants than cigarette smoke” [74]. In the case of heated flavoured (apple, strawberry, rose, etc.) tobacco-molasses mixture (moassel/tobamel), it is noteworthy that non-smokers do not feel bothered by the smoke [2]. The only problems reported so far are social nuisances caused by the smell of flavours, particularly in urban settings.” (page 832)

Will US Americans Go on Smoking in 2010 in spite of Prohibition ?

“Citing a report of the Institute of Medicine (2001), a recent paper concludes that: "While prevention and cessation is the most effective way to eliminate the health risks of cigarette smoking, the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products will continue. In spite of stringent smoking restrictions in the United States, it is expected that, in 2010, approximately 10–15% of the adult population in this country will not be willing or able to give up tobacco consumption (Institute of Medicine, 2001). For these people it is most important to develop products of harm reduction" [26].” (page 832)

For researchers in Humanities: Environemental Tobacco Smoke in Italian and French literature...

Social and Human sciences are very important in this field. Don’t they say that smoking distinguishes humans from animals ?

« Qui venivano gli amici, e anch’essi si buttavano e, come diceva Muscarà, s’abbiavanu e sdavacàvanu, sui pagliericci e le ciambele di cuoio, rimpiendo presto la camera di un tale fumo di sigareta che, dal balcone socchiuso, i passanti vedevano uscire una sorta di lenzuolo grigio palpitante nell’aria. Fumo, caffè, e liquori... » (Vitaliano Brancati, 1940)

« ...sous les treilles aux pampres frais, sous les glycines, sous les platanes; des narguilés par myriades, le long des rues, exhalaient leur fumée enjôleuse. » (Pierre Loti, 1904)

FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS ON COMFITS OF INTERESTS...

Of course it is a “study flawed from the outset” or “fatally flawed” and there is obviously a pressing “need for clarification on comfit of interest” .... In any case, this is “irresponsible journalism” … and, in modern speak, ”DENIALISM” ...

Those under the influence of the above and other professional defamers (Wasim Maziak, Thomas Eissenberg, Kenneth Ward, Alan Shihadeh, Brian Primack, Michele Walsh, Cindy Bryce), undercover and proxy agents (Matthew GELFAND, “student” from Brown University, etc.), witch hunters (Pascal Diethelm, etc.) and other plagiarists and liars, are kindly requested to go:
THERE and contemplate Section 13 in particular. Good Bye.

RELEVANT READING

Denialism, Hookah Environmental Tobacco Smoke, and the «Overwhelming Consensus on the Evidence». Eur J Public Health; Feb 17, 2009


YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there !

What Do Anti-Smoking Researchers and Organizations Mean with Their Permanent Psychological War on So-Called Comfits of Interests ?

QUESTION: What do anti-smoking researchers and organizations mean with their permanent psychological war on so-called comfits of interests that would “invalidate” so many studies on tobacco ?

Our conclusion is that they would like every author who disagrees with the “overwhelming” “cumulating” “evidence” on the deadly hazards of “passive smoking” to declare (in the Comfits of interest section):

“The author is a smoker”... (the ultimate crime)

Image: Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos (Aljazeera English, Jan 18, 2009)

YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there !

The Pediatrics Journal Publishes ““Waterpipe””™ Millionaires' Renewed Libel & Lies about Their Own and Others' Comfits of Interests

Brian Primack, Michele Walsh, Cindy Bryce and Thomas Eissenberg have published a recent study in the Pediatrics journal (left). Not less than “Errors, Misrepresentations and Misquotations” were found in their so-called study on “Water-Pipe Tobacco Smoking in Arizona” (check out HERE ). Such a comment was welcome in a very scientific way by considering that it would be “not germane to the method, results, discussion, and implications of [their] manuscript”…

Primack, Walsh, Bryce and Eissenberg’s only argument (as is the case with most antismoking researchers of the (soon-to-be-freed-from-tobacco) world) is based on religiously repeated libel and ad hominem attacks. They always refer to past events often reported in anti-smoking journals and in which (this is easy to understand) the brave scientists who were one day accused of being "stooges of the Big Tobacco", were denied the right to respond, at least on a fifty-fifty basis. This phenomenon bears a scientific name. It is called McCarthysm, neo-MacCarthysm (see recent examples HERE).

More recently (and we are sorry to repeat this to returning visitors), two INNOVATIONS (!) were brought to the defense and attack system of antismoking researchers: PLAGIARISM and OPPROBRIUM. The latter is something different from defamation. It is believed to have a stronger impact on all social strata, not only in the science field. The point is to name independent tobacco researchers “DENIALISTS”. See how this whole thing works HERE

COMFITS OF INTERESTS...
The first author of the collective defamation is Brian Primack: «Dr Primack was supported in part by a physician faculty scholar award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation […]», the study says. This innocent organisation is, according to an independent observer “heavily underwritten by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson”… More scandals about this dodgy foundation helping Big Pharma to sell off its stuff can be found on the FORCES site.

What the Pediatrics study doesn’t say is that Brian Primack has been in charge (at the Fogarty International Center/National Institutes of Health) of managing the funding of the ““Waterpipe””™ US-Syrian Centre , author of dozens of prestigious publications (including the WHO calamitous report) which have proved to be useless (historical garbage). Certainly, this represents a potential serious comfit of interest, once again undeclared.

It’s indeed amazing to see these people behaving like religious uppish fanatics who consider that such connections (direct or indirect, with pharmaceutical companies) should not be declared.

As for Thomas Eissenberg, a world ""Waterpipe""™ expert, read about his undeclared competing interests swept under the carpet by Nicotine and Tobacco Research, the same journal known for having... Endorse[d] a Scientific Error as Big and Carcinogenic as a Yemeni Narghile Bowl !

We’ll try to give you more information about Michele Walsh and Cindy Bryce, the two female ""Waterpipe""™ experts and Defamation apprentices in a further article. Stay tuned.

THE LIES PUBLISHED BY THE PEDIATRICS JOURNAL
In their libellous E-Letter, Primack, Eissenberg and the two girls criminalize the use of E-Letters. Here is below the series of lies (to be found in the few lines they dropped there...). They cite a series of E-Letters which, for most of them, have no connection with the topic:

-Reference 2 was in Pediatrics and the authors of the study under critique (Knishkowy and Amitai [Ref 6]) had respectfully responded and acknowledged the value the critique. This is an intent to criminalize E-Letters.
-Reference 3 and 4 (Inhal Tox 2008; BJOG 2008) were NOT “E-Letters” but full Letters to the Editor that had nothing to do with what Primack et al purport. This is a double LIE.
-Bacha et al (Ref 5) praised several times the critique of the WHO flawed report in their study published in Inhalation Toxicology but only forgot to cite it properly. This is why a corrective full Letter to the Editor (and not a E-Letter) was published. This has nothing to do with what Primack et al purport. This is a another LIE.
-Tamim et al (no reference given: BJOG 2008) have respectfully responded to an official Letter to the Editor and acknowledged the value of the remarks. This is a another LIE on behalf of Primack et al.
-As for Reference 9, KC was not “banned from submitting to [that] academic journal” [they mean (don't laugh...) the antismoking "Tobacco Control" journal] but the E-Letter by Chapman there (to which he was not allowed to respond) clearly mentions E-Letters only, not any manuscript. Not only this was a fabricated « conflict of interest » (see below) but Primack et al, once again, LIE on purpose.
-As for Reference 10 (involving Pediatrics), Matthew Gelfand, played the role of a proxy (as a so-called "student"[full story here]) for Eissenberg and the other authors of the WHO flawed report.

CONCLUSION
All editorial ethics this kind of journal (Pediatrics) boasts of, just as all other nicotine and tobacco control journals, were actually trampled.

REMEMBER: COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics, is “a code of conduct for editors of biomedical journals”, “a suggested code of conduct for editors to guide them towards being fair to authors, researchers, and readers”.

OUR FRIEND’S COMFITS OF INTEREST
He is always proud to say, when he is invited to do so by those angry and heinous mobs of defamers:I have never received direct or indirect funding neither from pharmaceutical companies (nicotine "replacement" therapies and products) nor from the tobacco industry. I was the first to publish results of (ambient and alveolar) Carbon Monoxide levels in hookah lounges and their patrons (Tobaccology thesis 1998; Alcoologie 1999; Doctoral thesis 2000) and subsequently issued public health recommendations in this respect. Out of this concern, I have participated by year 2004 in the design of a harm reduction hookah (cutting down CO by 95%) of which I am an official co- inventor (Patent 2005. "Narguile a allumage simplifie" [Narghile with simplified ignition]. Appl. EP20050291196. Filed 3 June. Published 14 Dec). My participation in the project was frozen by Autumn 2004. However, the official termination was formalised only by 15 June 2005, date by which I have signed away and ceded all my rights regarding the invention (legally certified by State Attorney in Paris).More details here (about this world famous E-Letter that SHOOK THEIR WORLD …) : HERE and THERE

It is astounding that, while our friend has published numerous pioneering studies and critiques (on cancer, radioactivity, hookah active and passive smoking, etc.) –not to mention his numerous E-Letters-, these angry mobs couldn’t find, after almost 5 years of a neo McCarthyst witch hunt on the Internet, but one fabricated comfit of interest in the form of a E-Letter (the first of his life !) sent to Tobacco Control (an antismoking journal: “scientific” arm of the openly PFIZER sponsored Globalink anti-smoking network, aiming at implementing the World Prohibition of Tobacco thanks to the to the so-called FCTC, the brain Formatting Convention on Tobacco Control).

RELEVANT:

Comfits of Interest, WHO TobReg, Globalink, Tobacco Control, etc. : Double Standard and/or Hypocrisy ?

«Post hoc Censorship» Editor-in-Chief & World ““Waterpipe””™ Millionaire Experts Scared by The Sacred Narghile’s "Undeclared" Comfits of Interests !

““Waterpipe””™: Time for Action on Scientific Integrity and Accountability, Sacking, and Paying Back Funding of Useless Biased ““Waterpipe””™ Research

YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there !

«Post hoc Censorship» Editor-in-Chief and World ““Waterpipe””™ Millionaire Experts Scared by The Sacred Narghile’s "Undeclared" Comfits of Interests !

TOPIC: Wasim MAZIAK' call for action published in the Addiction journal (Sep 4, 2008) with a "For Debate" label. Here we go !

Returning readers will remember that the above libelous paper (which also sealed the calamitous bankruptcy of the almost one-decade old world ““waterpipe””™ “peer-reviewed” “good science”) was commented upon by the Observatory on Hookah or Health in a previous article

Finally, and for reasons that we still ignore, our friend decided to test whether the “For Debate” official label was sincere or, once again, mere hypocrisy. Poor Man ! He prepared a polite “Letter to the Editor” and sent it to the above journal. His article was titled: “Shisha Smoking. Time for a Radical Change in Research Methodology ».

No need to say that, as usual, he debunked each of the main ludicrous points raised by Wasim MAZIAK in his call for action (on ““waterpipe””™). He said the reception of his manuscript was acknowledged to him on October 23, 2008 by the journal. His paper was so powerful that on January 21, 2009, after back’n’forth’n’tug’of’war, it was officially accepted for publication by the Editor in Chief (Robert WEST).
Copy of the officially accepted Letter: HERE

Wasim MAZIAK was then informed of this acceptance and offered the right to respond. However, our friend was surprised to learn that he would not necessarily be authorized to publish a rebuttal to the second letter by Wasim MAZIAK. Strange fairplay and understanging of democracy in the Addiction journal, he thought...

Wasim MAZIAK had apparently not scientific argument to put forward, so he did what most of anti-smoking researchers of the world have been doing for two decades now (particularly in the Tobacco Control and Nicotine and Tobacco Research journals and, more recently, in Pediatrics [Don’t miss our NOTE about Brian PRIMACK and Thomas EISSENBERG at the end of this article]): resorting to LIBEL, with, of course, no possibility for the attacked individual to publish a response to defamation.

More recently, two INNOVATIONS (!) were brought to the defense and attack system of antismoking researchers: PLAGIARISM and OPPROBRIUM. The latter is something different from defamation. It is believed to have a stronger impact on all social strata, not only in the science field. The point is to name independent tobacco researchers “DENIALISTS”. See how this works: Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond ?

After 3 months of “peer-review’ of a simple Letter to the Editor, Robert WEST invented (hold your breath Folks !) the pretext that our friend (as the main scientific contributor since no other non-antismoking tobacco researcher was identified in the world…) of The Sacred Narghile )), had a VERY SERIOUS comfit of interest (sort of BIG MONEY) because there would be there (on this site) a mysterious link that would lead to another not less mysterious that would lead in its turn to a retailer (!), etc… My God, sounds like a game in Alice in Wonderland, Bob !

In his letter to Robert WEST (February 5, 2009), our friend wrote: “However, I should be grateful if you could tell me which mysterious “links” are those which lead to not less mysteriously secret wealthy funding sources… I am anxious to know. If you think of a site like Hookah Culture, non commercial and run (and not updated) by a US student, then why don’t you accuse the anti-smoking researchers of the BACCHUS team who cite it [7] ? I am afraid there is a great deal of double standard in your judgment… The Sacred Narghile has absolutely no conflict of interest to declare and, as its main scientific contributor, I can swear before God (as US-Americans do) or any other Super Supranational Power, including WHO TobReg, that it has never received a single dollar from any source”.

NOTES:
1. above URLs inserted by the Observatory.
2. The BACCHUS experts state: “Other websites promote hookah use as chic and elegant (hookahculture.com) or as part of a unique lifestyle (insidehookah.com) and hookahs as objects of religious veneration (sacrednarghile.com)”. Source: BACCHUS (White Paper on Hookah Use). FUNNY QUESTION: Since Bacchus is the Greek god of wine, is this an "Undeclared Competing Interest" ?

> Kamal’s integral response to Robert WEST (Feb 5, 2009) can be found: HERE

CALL TO ALL VISITORS: Help us identify the mysterious link on The Sacred Narghile !

ROBERT WEST AND THE CASE OF TWO BRAVE ISRAELI RESEARCHERS

With the above case concerning an independent researcher and a previous one, Robert WEST, Editor-in-chief of the Addiction journal, appears to be a “post hoc censorhip” expert, a phrase used by 3 prominent and independent experts in the field of Addiction (Damned and be unpublished ? in Addiction Research and Theory, 2002).

Robert WEST also attacked the two Israeli authors of a masterpiece in tobacco research: a book titled “A Critique of Nicotine Addiction”: « The book grew out of interest sparked in the authors who had done a partial review of the literature which was commissioned by a firm of lawyers one of whose clients was a tobacco company. That connection was used by the Editors of Addiction as the justification for a major editorial outcry (N.B. not a book review) under the banner "Another mirror shattered? Tobacco industry involvement suspected in a book which claims that nicotine is not addictive" (Edwards, G., Babor, T., Hall, W. West, R. 2002). »(same source as above)

A MONUMENT OF HYPOCRISY... DON'T MISS these brave Tel Aviv-based researchers' reaction to this global hypocrisy (Harm Reduction Journal: July 3, 2008). They also respond, from their own viewpoint, to Wasim MAZIAK, international lessons giver (*), and raise Jack HENNINGFIELD's (Top Tobacco and Nicotine Expert, WHO TobReg) blatant failure to declare his huge competing interests in a journal in which his colleagues (Wasim MAZIAK, Thomas EISSENBERG, Alan SHIHADEH, Kenneth WARD) had raised a fabricated comfit of interest against the author of the critique of the WHO flawed report.

(*) in twisted epidemiology, shoddy science, blindly-aligned geopolitics and double standard ethics.

What about Robert WEST’s conflicts of interest ?

« Robert West has received research funds, travel funds and consultancy fees from pharmaceutical companies which manufacture nicotine replacement products and other treatments for nicotine dependence ».

SOURCE : Edwards, G., Babor, T., Hall, W. & West, R. (2002). Editorial: Another mirror shattered? Tobacco industry involvement suspected in a book which claims that nicotine is not addictive. Addiction 97: 1-5.

Great !
However, Robert WEST, as one of the heads of such a “self-righteous crusade”, did not declare his comfits of interests in a recent book he has authored (Theory of Addiction. Blackwell Publ. 2006), therefore trampling underfoot the stringent ethics he wishes others to stick to…. How would you call this: HYPOCRISY, DOUBLE STANDARD OR BOTH ?

NOTE ABOUT Brian PRIMACK, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Thomas EISSENBERG

Brian PRIMACK, Michele WALSH, Cindy BRYCE and Thomas EISSENBERG have authored a recent libel in the Pediatrics journal. «Dr Primack was supported in part by a physician faculty scholar award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation […]», the study says. Apparently, their strong funding was not a guarantee against the numerous errors and misquotations in their study….Hummm...
Then, what about this Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ? It is, according to a Public Health professor at Boston University, “heavily underwritten by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson”… Humm…. More scandals about this dodgy foundation helping Big Pharma to sell off its stuff on the FORCES site.

As for Thomas EISSENBERG, a world ""Waterpipe""™ expert, read about his undeclared competing interests swept under the carpet by Nicotine and Tobacco Research, the same journal known for having... Endorse[d] a Scientific Error as Big and Carcinogenic as a Yemeni Narghile Bowl !

What a wonderful world we are a living in !

OUR FRIEND’S COMFITS OF INTEREST

He is always proud to say, when he is invited to do so by those angry and heinous mobs of defamers:
I have never received direct or indirect funding neither from pharmaceutical companies (nicotine "replacement" therapies and products) nor from the tobacco industry. I was the first to publish results of (ambient and alveolar) Carbon Monoxide levels in hookah lounges and their patrons (Tobaccology thesis 1998; Alcoologie 1999; Doctoral thesis 2000) and subsequently issued public health recommendations in this respect. Out of this concern, I have participated by year 2004 in the design of a harm reduction hookah (cutting down CO by 95%) of which I am an official co- inventor (Patent 2005. "Narguile a allumage simplifie" [Narghile with simplified ignition]. Appl. EP20050291196. Filed 3 June. Published 14 Dec). My participation in the project was frozen by Autumn 2004. However, the official termination was formalised only by 15 June 2005, date by which I have signed away and ceded all my rights regarding the invention (legally certified by State Attorney in Paris).

More details here (about this world famous E-Letter that SHOOK THEIR WORLD …) : HERE and THERE

It is astounding that, while Kamal has published numerous pioneering studies and critiques (on cancer, radioactivity, hookah active and passive smoking, etc.) –not to mention his numerous E-Letters-, these angry mobs couldn’t find, after almost 5 years of a neo McCarthyst witch hunt on the Internet, but one fabricated comfit of interest in the form of a E-Letter (the first of his life !) sent to Tobacco Control (an antismoking journal: “scientific” arm of the openly PFIZER sponsored Globalink anti-smoking network, aiming at implementing the World Prohibition of Tobacco thanks to the to the so-called FCTC, the brain Formatting Convention on Tobacco Control).


HIGHLY RELEVANT LINKS

Comfits of Interest, WHO TobReg, Globalink, Tobacco Control, etc. : Double Standard and/or Hypocrisy ?

““Waterpipe””™: Time for Action on Scientific Integrity and Accountability, Sacking, and Paying Back Funding of Useless Biased ““Waterpipe””™ Research

“Anti-Tobacco” Organisations Exposed: Official Scientific Trustworthy Source States that Their Objective is making "global public health" history

Global perspective on tobacco control. Part II. The future of tobacco control: making smoking history ? (Simon CHAPMAN, ex-Editor-in-chief of Tobacco Control)

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

NEXT TIME: if necessary, more and more on comfits of interest by world top "tobacco control" and ““waterpipe””™ experts: Hammond, Henningfield, and so on Old Chap !

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Comfits of Interest, WHO TobReg, Globalink, Tobacco Control, etc. : Double Standard and/or Hypocrisy ?

We realised, three years later…, that in his E-Letter dated 9 September 2005, PN LEE did NOT declare (for some reason and perhaps because he felt he had no reason to do it, or simply he did not pay attention to the small “Competing Interest” box to be ticked) that he was "a long term consultant to the Tobacco Industry"[1].

Amazingly, Simon CHAPMAN, Editor-in-chief (by that time) of the Tobacco Control journal (see left cover of current issue), did not subsequently launch an international defamation campaign against him. He even offered to publish that E-Letter as a “real” Letter to the Editor [2].

And since "The journal [Tobacco Control] requires authors to declare any competing interests at submission and, with the availability of internal documents, those failing to disclose can often be relatively easily exposed within a few minutes of internet searching"[3]… PN LEE did declare, this time: "Competing interests: Peter Lee is a long term consultant to the tobacco industry"….

Of course, the problem here is not PN LEE who is a great and brilliant epidemiologist who has worked on ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) and has also made excellent critical reviews of tobacco studies, including rare ones. He has the right to work as a consultant to the Tobacco Industry, the Pharmaceutical industry or any other institution. The scientific merit of his work has remained constant and unaffected. The problem is in fact the double standard applied by Simon CHAPMAN.

Why did not the latter trigger an international defamation campaign against PN LEE as he actually did with [KC] further to [his] E-Letter (2 Dec 2004)? He did not allow [kc] to post a response to his [Simon Chapman’s] libelous E-Letter. [kc] wish[es] to remind that the E-Letter [he] posted was the first one of [his] life, long before [he actually began to publishe devastating critiques in biomedical journals. We can say that his first official biomedical publication was the critique of the WHO flawed report on hookah smoking] . Few people will remember that this dangeroues E-Letter was in fact a message originally posted in the GLOBALINK forum (whose stringent and puritan policy is controlled, among others and above all, by Simon CHAPMAN)[QUESTION: sort of ethical comfit of interest, no ?]. [kc] was compelled by the latter, in person, to post it as an “E-Letter” to "his" journal. [kc] ignored what this thing was by that time. The full background of the related witch hunt can be found in an online document [4].
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[1] Lee PN. E-Letter: Response to E Yano and S Chapman. Tobacco Control 2005 (9 Sep) http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/14/4/234#410
[2] Lee PN. Response to E Yano and S Chapman. Tob. Control 2005;14;430-431
[3] Chapman S. Research from tobacco industry affiliated authors: need for particular vigilance. Tobacco Control 2005;14:217–219.
[4] Background of witch hunt: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgbz283m_83fdtkjd

PS: GLOBALINK, giving the image of a civil society grouping of
volunteers fighting for a “noble cause” [that of “Public Health”…, Heavens above !](it is not !), boasts of being supported by PFIZER, one of the major producers of NRT (nicotine “replacement” pharmaceuticals). The commercial logo of this company can be found on the homepage of GLOBALINK.

As for the UICC (International Union against Cancer), the umbrella organisation of Globalink, the “corporate partners” are a bit different (GlaxoSmithKline and other brands...) but belong the same Big Pharma family. QUESTION: is this ethicallly acceptable from a comfit-of-interest viewpoint ?

HIGHLY RELEVANT TO THIS WORLDWIDE HYPOCRISY. Jack HENNINGFIELD, who has been a “peer-reviewer” (as a member of WHO TobReg) of the WHO flawed report, had also posted a comment (similar to a E-Letter) on the critique of that document published by KC. The above expert did NOT declare his striking competing interests in the pharmaceutical industry as other highly respectable researchers and observers have noted.

In fact, Jack HENNINGFIELD is “Vice President, Research & Health Policy” of PINNEY ASSOCIATES whose business is not that of plastic shoes but officially "international pharmaceutical manufacturers and marketers, established specialty pharmaceutical companies, and start-up companies making their first forays into the development and marketing of drugs”.

Despite all this, Erik DYBING and Jack HENNINGFIELD had the cheek, in their common comment, to answer the “Competing interests ?” question by “None declared”. To top it all, this official comment was published simultaneously with one from their protégés (Wasim MAZIAK, Thomas EISSENBERG, Kenneth WARD and Alan SHIHADEH) who actually defamed the author of the critique of the WHO flawed report on the grounds of a purported comfit of interest…

The story is very long as Wasim MAZIAK and Thomas EISSENBERG failed to declare interests in relation to [the whole ""WaterPipeGate""™ file]. Finally], a recent case of hypocrisy/double standard in “tobacco control” is involving the Addiction journal (Editor-in-chief Robert WEST and his protégé Wasim MAZIAK) and has come to our attention. Readers will be briefed on it. Stay tuned.

HIGHLY RELEVANT READINGS

Thomas EISSENBERG's (a world ""Waterpipe""™ expert) Undeclared Competing Interests swept under the carpet by Nicotine and Tobacco Research, the same journal known for having...

Endorse[d] a Scientific Error as Big and Carcinogenic as a Yemeni Narghile Bowl !




Chaud-Crâne for your email, kamal !

YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there !