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)

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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 !

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 !

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].
_______________
[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 !

Plagiarism and Flavors. Bertrand DAUTZENBERG, President OFT, Comes Back with a New Definition for Shisha: a ““War to Tobacco” Tobacco Product" !

From our correspondent attending the Berlin 2008 Congress of the European Respiratory Society:

Bertrand DAUTZENBERG and his team (Candice PENFORMIS, Pierre BIRKUI, Jacqueline RUBAL, and Marie-Dominique DAUTZENBERG, affiliated to ACTIF (Alliance Contre le Tabac en Ile de France) and/or PST (Paris Sans Tabac), will be presenting, on October 7, 2008, an abstract or poster titled :

“Water pipe and perfumed colour cigarettes: the new mode of initiation of smoking in Paris area teenagers”

QUOTEWORTHY: “If 8/10 of teenagers planned to quit regular cigarettes only 1/10 of perfumed cigarettes and water pipe users plan to quit these “war to tobacco” tobacco products. They consider to often these tobaccos as soft and safe.”

Full abstract of this new “study” here

We, at the Observatory on Hookah or Health, are proud to announce that we have stopped the Ban planned against Hookah Lounges in France thanks to our debunking of the "supporting evidence": HOOKAH “PASSIVE SMOKING” is HUGE SCIENTIFIC FRAUD [EN][FR].
We are ready to provide free consultancies to all cafe owners of the world. We are still standing here and more committed than never before to expose junk science, camouflaged conflicts of interests, propaganda, plagiarism, be it in French or in any other language.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Bertrand DAUTZENBERG (President OFT) and his friend Jean-Yves NAU (journalist with Le Monde) were recently harshly criticised by Véronique MAURUS, the “Mediatrice” (Ombuds(wo)man) of the French national newspaper Le Monde in a rare paper titled: Le fléau du tabac (Sept 27, 2008) ENGLISH VERSION HERE

FOR MEMORY (from The watchful-eyed Scaring Narghile)

Bertrand DAUTZENBERG and Jean-Yves NAU are authors of a « book » titled "Tout ce que vous ne savez pas sur la chicha", Paris, Ed. Margaux-Orange). They are respectively Chairman of OFT (Office Français du Tabagisme) and columnist in Le Monde daily newspaper.

Both are physicians and have actually pirated (or plagiarized, according to definitions) our friend’s own writings and publications (including materials censored by the two scientific pirates, themselves !).

DETAILS ON THIS DIRTY STORY (a lawsuit is likely to be prepared. An exhaustive complete comparative table (between the pirated materials and the original source) will be published soon on this site and others: Alternate Link 1 Alternate Link 2

“Plagiarism is globally recognised as a serious academic offence” (The Lancet)

NOTE: The “book”, apart from being an intellectual piracy (plagiarism) of a huge amount of scientific literature, contains countless errors and is therefore the greatest scientific fraud of the history of research on tobacco.

It was actually prepared by a crowd of experts. Just to mention a few of them, it is said that the OFT’s team members [free transl.]: particularly Joseph OSMAN, Pascale SOMMERA, Maria OELCHANIDIS and Lalla TRAOREL , have been major actors in the «chicha» (shisha, narghile, hookah) project… (pages VII et VIII).

Therefore, it is a collective institutional piracy.

In this masterpiece, you will also learn how these "experts" take a Shish-Kebab for a Shisha (page 30-31)... and warn you that "The great risk is that shisha, progressively, take the place of cigarettes" (page 58 of their book. A sentence put in bold characters by the authors themselves)... A "great risk" for whom ?


Note: The plagiarized book was cited in a recent study: Prignot JJ, Sasco AJ, Poulet E, Gupta PC, Aditama TY. Alternative forms of tobacco use. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2008 Jul;12(7):718-27

Since some of the co-authors (not all) were AWARE of this academic offence by their colleague, an official complaint was filed. You will be informed of its outcome.

Oh la la la France encore !! (no, it is from Germany this time, Geneviève !)

[note: backdated article]

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 !

World “Waterpipe”™ Experts Celebrate with 2 Comments 10,000 Hits (20,000) Reached by Critique of Erroneous WHO Report on Hookah Smoking

World Quatuor of “Waterpipe”™ Experts (Thomas EISSENBERG, Alan SHIHADEH, Wasim MAZIAK and Kenneth WARD) and their “Peer-Reviewers” Godfathers Celebrate with 2 Comments the 10,000 Hits (20,000) Reached by the Critique of the Erroneous WHO Report on “Waterpipe”™ Smoking (Sept. 2007).

In brief, the only scientific argument of the WHO-supported ““Waterpipe”™ experts is: defamation, lies and camouflage ! READ: Full story HERE

>> DON'T MISS: Letter (Sept, 7, 2007) to Dr Margaret CHAN, Director-general of WHO (World Health Organization) requesting the dissolution (winding up) of WHO TobReg

NEWS: The WHO report on “Waterpipe”™ smoking is MORE THAN NEVER ERRONEOUS !

MENU OF THE ABOVE POWERFUL LETTER:

A) "MISQUOTATIONS AND STUDIES CITED BUT NOT READ BY THE “EXPERTS”". What a shame...

B) "CONFUSION". You already knew, didn’t you ?

C) "VIOLATION OF WHO TOBREG RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING THE USE OF SMOKING MACHINES". God, what's that, a smoking machine ?

D) "REPEATED SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT". Quoteworthy:
“In the WHO report, key authors were systematically, and on purpose, dismissed in the “review” of the available literature. As a sole example, RAKOWER’s and HOFFMANN’s contributions in this field were brushed aside simply because they were pioneers in using smoking machines, 40 years before the one designed by Alan SHIHADEH, the co-author of the report.

Also, it is worth noting that Drs DYBING and HENNINGFIELD have actually lied when calling my 420 page transdisciplinary doctoral thesis an unpublished “graduate thesis”. They perfectly knew, for a very long time, and from the again [as in original document] bibliographical references, that it was not. Consequently, the aim was to try to justify, a posteriori, its meant dismissal from the WHO report based on a so-called “world review””

[Note : colors and bold characters added by Observatory]

E) "THE “PEER-REVIEW” FALSE OUTWARD SHOW". Humm... Sounds interesting for a place to hang out...

Quoteworthy: “Let me point out that the WHO report was supposed to have been peer-reviewed, particularly by The WHO Study Group experts TobReg). In one of the chief studies cited by Drs MAZIAK, EISSENBERG, WARD et al., supposed to have been peer-reviewed, I, have, as I said previously, early identified very serious errors [*]. Furthermore, the same “peer-reviewed” publication, published in a “prestigious” journal, contains up to 5 references (23, 97, 98, 99, 100) that are materials from the general public press. This also occurs in other publications of the same team. Alan SHIHADEH and Rawad SALEH [23] cite up to 4 references related to the popular press (Edds, Gangloff, Landphair, McNicoll). In these conditions, Dr CHAN, are not we definitely far from the academic world scientific rigour and the “peer-reviewed” criterion for sound science ? […]”

[*] 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: Serious Errors in this Study. Tobacco Control 2004 (2 Dec) (SEE ALSO: Responding to defamation and censorship by Editor Tobacco Control)

F) "WRONG PRIORITIES: “NICOTINE ADDICTION” VERSUS NEW CHARCOAL CARBON MONOXIDE INTOXICATION"

G) "COLLECTIVE DEFAMATION"

H) "NON-DECLARED CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS BY MAIN AUTHORS OF WHO REPORT".

On one hand, it appears that this team is made up of professional slanderers who feigned to know that the famous No-Carbon Monoxide Harm Reduction Hookah patent (for which our friend is a co-inventor), when they raised it as a ““conflict of interest””-, was terminated by 15 June 2005, that is more than one year (!) before the manuscript of the critique of the WHO report was submitted to JNRBM (Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine) and published (17 November 2006).

On the other hand, Dr Thomas EISSENBERG has, for years, not declared competing interests in the Pharmaceutical Industry products when he has apparently strong ones (see for instance the innocent devices produced by a company he has worked for: Plowshare ). As for Dr Jack HENNINGFIELD, he didn’t clarify the real activities of Pinney Associates… Pinney Associates doesn't sell bananas.... All of them have actually tried to camouflage Dr Wasim MAZIAK’s co-authorship of the erroneous WHO report, probably because their friend had multiple conflicting interests: as Head of the US-Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies , as staff member of the US University of Memphis (with his colleague Kenneth WARD, himself member of the last organization), and perhaps for being affiliated to University of Muenster (Germany)…

J) "COOPTATION AND LACK OF INDEPENDENCY AND TRANSPARENCY. The case of Ghazi ZAATARI". The TobReg Lebanese guy from the AUB (American [US, not “South”] University of Beirut) who personnally selected the "right "experts"" (Alan SHIHADEH and Thomas EISSENBERG) for the job....

QUOTEWORTHY:"if necessary -in view of the expected reluctance to commitment by influent involved parties-, the setting up of an International Tribunal (The Hague) to establish charges against those researchers and their affiliated organisations who have imposed, day after day over the past years, a mafia-like system [...]".

READ ALSO: >>> Time seems now ripe for a quick “bio” of these important people
(based on the recent Letter to Dr Margaret Chan)

WHAT'S THIS THINGAMABOB CALLED "TobReg" ? TobReg is the study group on Tobacco product Regulation of the World Health Organization. The word TobReg was coined on the same principle as another one: tobamel. Tobamel is the mu‘assel ("honeyed" in Arabic), the tobacco [or no-tobacco]-molasses (or honey) based smoking mixture that shook the world. "Tob" stands for tobacco and "mel" for honey (or molasses) in Latin. This is not plagiarism but only imitation that we don't reject...

TobReg is made up of 12 members (as the Apostles…). However, keep in mind our warning: “Don’t be afraid”[Jesus] of them ! It appears that half of them are based in the USA. A mere coincidence ? Not sure, let's see. The Lebanon member (Ghazi ZAATARI), who stands behind the erroneous WHO “advisory note” report on “waterpipe tobacco smoking”, works at the AUB (American [that is, US] University of Beirut)…So, after a quick review of the remaining ones, the only independent and cool researchers seem to be Dr Martin JARVIS (UK) and Dr K. Srinath REDDY (from India, who by the way, authored a study on the relation between temperature and tar that, in our opinion, should have been cited as a reference in the above-mentioned erroneous WHO report prepared by the US-Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies (Wasim MAZIAK, Thomas EISSENBERG, Kenneth WARD) and the AUB (Alan SHIHADEH).

Image: courtesy of 20000 jouets

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

Recent Book by French Scholar Pr DAUTZENBERG and French Journalist J.-Y. NAU Would be Intellectual Piracy According to Specialist

Independent Researcher (our friend) in this field confirmed that Pr Bertrand DAUTZENBERG and Jean-Yves NAU's book ("Tout ce que vous ne savez pas sur la chicha"), respectively Chairman of OFT (Office Français du Tabagisme) and columnist in Le Monde daily newspaper, have actually pirated (or plagiarized according to existing definitions) his own writings and publications (including materials censored by them, themselves).

[Added March 2009: IN A HURRY ? Have a look at the First Comparative Table HERE )]


NOTE: The book was actually prepared by a crowd of experts. Just to mention a few of them, it is said that the OFT’s team members [free transl.]: particularly Joseph Osman, Pascale Sommera, Maria Oelchanidis and Lalla Traore, have been major actors in the «chicha» (shisha, narghile, hookah) project… (pages VII et VIII)

The book would be libellous to the highest point (as far as the dignity of the researcher is concerned) and full of very serious scientific errors (e.g., page 30-31: Shish-Kebab is taken for Shisha... When will the turn of Sushis come ?... tables with wrong figures, etc.). It wouldn't be clear, also, whether or not its authors actually call for an open political conflict with the owners of hookah lounges and hookah users in France. Also, these "experts" warn that "The great risk is that shisha, progressively, take the place of cigarettes" (page 58 of their book. A sentence put in bold characters by the authors themselves)... A "great risk" for whom... ?

Same source said the scientist has prepared a 20 page document, is presently demanding redress and the withdrawal of the book from all bookshops. He has also written to the Home Office Secretary and to the Public Health Minister. See HERE

Picture: courtesy of the University of New South Wales

Related story: «Tout ce que vous ne savez pas sur la chicha» (Bertrand DAUTZENBERG et Jean-Yves NAU)

NOTE (about the No-Carbon Monoxide Hookah (narghile, shisha), called SHISH'ART in the market). We have to say a few words about it because it is behind all the recent attacks against our friend . So let's remind everybody that he worked with enthusiam on the prototype. He left the (certainly commercial but, above all, harm reduction-oriented) project before the product was commercialised. So, let's make it clear for everybody: he signed away his rights (official relinquishment) related to the patent on June 15, 2005.

The French "experts de la chicha", who insist a lot on CO (Carbon Monoxide) intoxication, actually describe this device in their book (page 11). However, they conclude that there is no evidence that it would be safer than any other charcoal-fuelled shisha", keeping strangely silent on the CO levels they have measured, for sure.... Is this science ? MORE DETAILS HERE

OH LA LA, LA FRANCE ............! Chaud Crâne Kamal !


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

«Tout ce que vous ne savez pas sur la chicha» (Bertrand DAUTZENBERG et Jean-Yves NAU)

[Added March 2009: IN A HURRY ? Have a look at the First Comparative Table HERE )]

READ in Voltaire's Language a few first comments on a new book (yes, a book !):

«Tout ce que vous ne savez pas sur la chicha» (Bertrand DAUTZENBERG et Jean-Yves NAU)

This important scientific publication REVEALS how in France:

1 Hookah Equals ONLY 2 packs of cigarettes (you're dead !)

while (cant' you remember, folks!) in the USA and the Middle East, it is scientifically established by the WHO (World Health Organization) experts that:

1 Hookah Equals 10 Packs of Cigarettes (you were shot dead 5 times, weren't you ?)


Automatic ENGLISH: PRESS HERE

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

Defamation: How Teams in Brown and Georgetown Universities, and beyond, are Trying, under the Mask of an “Undergradutate Student", to Silent Critics

Background of the Defamation Thriller. Part One: a so-called “Undergradutate Student” (Matthew GELFAND) from Brown and Georgetown Universities (USA) has, recently, openly defamated Dr Kamal T.C. in the columns of a biomedical journal.

While, in the past, independent researchers had professionnally accepted to address critiques, the interest of this "undergraduate student" was obviously elsewhere. Anyway, and as usual, Kamal stoically responded to the accusations and that's all there were going to be to it if this spook had not contacted him later to request his "collaboration" (help a cop do his libellous job against you...) in order to proceed with more defamation as he would be drafting a “paper” on hookah smoking “for his class”.

Dr Kamal T. C. first remembered that Dr C.L., a famous scientist (his full name will be given later if necessary) who actively participated in the preparation of the two flawed and erroneous WHO (World Health Organization) reports (first and second), is also affiliated with Georgetown University…

Then, he saw how this “undergraduate student” childlishly pretended "to look at the merits" of Kamal's "scientific claims"(!) that he woud have investigated (!). At the same time, he was -hold your breath !- (and as this happened in the second erroneous WHO report) citing Wikipedia pages (yes, Wikipedia !) as reliable scientific sources... Above all, he was strangely insisting on citing Dr Kamal T. C.’s first (and only that one) public comment (in English) on a famous study full of serious errors. Dr Kamal T. C. was consequently amazed because he has actually published numerous other peer-reviewed studies and comments on officially peer-reviewed scientific studies.

He then understood that, unlike all his other comments in biomedical journals, the short critique he published in Tobacco Control had been recently under attack for a so-called non-declared “conflict of interest” in relation to his participation in the No-CO [Carbon Monoxide] World Hookah Project

In fact, none of all the numerous comments published by Dr Kamal T. C. had any conflict of interest, simply because, as he said: “I have been busy for a full year working on the design of the new No-CO hookah prototype”. The only online comment in Tobacco Control, on which a debate was raised by his opponents, needed a clarification. It eventually shows that there was NO conflict of interest, even for this fist E-Letter. Read FULL STORY HERE

As a conclusion, this is a blatant and failed operation carried on by official incompetent scientists, affiliated with “well-regarded institutions” using the name of a snotty "undergraduate student". If necessary, his full names and the whole correspondence will be published here.

These people, probably from Brown and Georgetown Universities (and beyond) are trying to silence and stain the reputation of one of the very few independent researchers (vis a vis the Pharmaceutical Industry and the Tobacco Industry) who work only with their own brain and dare criticise official expertises and the so-called given-as-granted “good science”. These few researchers call a cat a cat and a junk study a junk study.

Picture: Courtesy of the International Federation of Journalists

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