Pakistani-French Team Publishes Historic Study on Hookah Smoking and Cancer
Interviewed over the phone, one of the authors -who is by chance our consultant for international and scientific affairs- said he had no comment. However, we have received later this morning the following cryptical communiqué from his secretariat:
What may happen to exclusive/ever users who, for decades, have been smoking: “only hookah (no cigarettes, bidis, etc.), prepared between 1 and 4 times a day with a quantity of up to 120 g of a tobacco-molasses mixture each (i.e. the tobacco weight equivalent of up to 60 cigarettes of 1 g each) and consumed in 1 to 8 sessions” ?
The answer can be found online, and for free, with the Harm Reduction Journal in which the study was published:
What may happen to exclusive/ever users who, for decades, have been smoking: “only hookah (no cigarettes, bidis, etc.), prepared between 1 and 4 times a day with a quantity of up to 120 g of a tobacco-molasses mixture each (i.e. the tobacco weight equivalent of up to 60 cigarettes of 1 g each) and consumed in 1 to 8 sessions” ?
The answer can be found online, and for free, with the Harm Reduction Journal in which the study was published:
http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/19
Ad hoc linguistic versions are available for your friends who cannot read English (not a crime but a world norm !): Chinese Spanish French Arabic Russian English
Therefore, we understand that this unexpected original study, the first ever done on this issue, confirms the findings of a previous one commented in our columns one semester back:
Revelations about Hookah and Cancer
We have also noted that the new study contains even more satanic verses about Hookah and Passive Smoking Such a metaphor refers to the scientific findings published in early studies (Fifties, Sixties, etc.) led by the most prestigious and independent tobacco experts of the world (Ernest Wynder, Dietrich Hoffmann, and many others).
Nonetheless, these official documents have been systematically swept under the carpet by the WHO (Word Health Organization) ““waterpipe””™ “experts, particularly Wasim MAZIAK, Thomas EISSENBERG and Kenneth WARD, who are, as our returning visitors now know, authors of a series of other "historic" reports: 7 FATAL Errors in WHO report
Cochrane Review Scientific Credibility Stained by "Waterpipe"™ Group
Most recently, they have tried to sell to the drugged planet the huge scientific fraud about Hookah "Passive Smoking" ("Environmental Tobacco Smoke") in the name of which assaults on civil liberties have been witnessed all over the world...
Dismissing the academic and scientific work of world tobacco and cancer experts qualifies for Scientific Misconduct, not less. This fault also bears a name in biomedical edition: Publication Bias (See COPE: Code of Conduct for Editors of Biomedical Journals )
For instance, you will see in the study on Hookah Smoking and cancer how Dr Angel ROFFO’s pioneering study on the narghile filter was NOT cited by Robert PROCTOR in a “review” of his work supposed to be comprehensive.
The historic study warns however: “If traditional hookah smoking, as exemplified by the Pakistani context, has fewer carcinogenic effects than cigarette smoking, it is important to bear in mind that it still produces smoke. What is hazardous with tobacco use is the smoke, not the tobacco itself. In other words, smoked tobacco is much more dangerous than tobacco used in other forms as renowned scholars have early warned…”
So, folks, take care because the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is not, unlike Hookah “Passive Smoking” , any human invention. Just keep in mind that: BREATHE IS LIFE (*) as our friend has been recalling -againt the enemies of public health- for one decade now.
(*) note that this motto -as well as the "Tobacco Control" phrase- have sometimes been tarnished by hardline anti-tobacco organizations.
Image: courtesy of Paktribune
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[MATERIAL ADDED 19 SEPT 2008]
SUBJECT: VIOLATION OF EDITORIAL ETHICS BY JPMA (JOURNAL OF PAKISTAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION)
The authors of the first etiologic study on hookah and cancer were not allowed by the above journal to respond to a Letter to the Editor by Wasim Maziak. Fortunately, they had the opportunity to do this with the other journal in which they published their second study (Harm Reduction Journal, a truly independent journal, which does not accept any external pressure):
The authors stated: "We were informed only by chance of the existence of a previous comment by Maziak on our first study. Consequently, we sent a detailed response to JPMA on the 7th of April 2008. In spite of our good faith, and for some unclear, reason, the journal did not accept to publish our short and right-to-the-point letter whereas it published Maziak’s comment with no delay. This is certainly a violation of editorial ethics [5]."
[5] 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”
SOURCE: REBUTTAL: INTRODUCTORY KEY-POINTS to Our Reply to Purported “Methodological Problems…” (16 June 2008)
#######################################
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 !
Ad hoc linguistic versions are available for your friends who cannot read English (not a crime but a world norm !): Chinese Spanish French Arabic Russian English
Therefore, we understand that this unexpected original study, the first ever done on this issue, confirms the findings of a previous one commented in our columns one semester back:
Revelations about Hookah and Cancer
We have also noted that the new study contains even more satanic verses about Hookah and Passive Smoking Such a metaphor refers to the scientific findings published in early studies (Fifties, Sixties, etc.) led by the most prestigious and independent tobacco experts of the world (Ernest Wynder, Dietrich Hoffmann, and many others).
Nonetheless, these official documents have been systematically swept under the carpet by the WHO (Word Health Organization) ““waterpipe””™ “experts, particularly Wasim MAZIAK, Thomas EISSENBERG and Kenneth WARD, who are, as our returning visitors now know, authors of a series of other "historic" reports: 7 FATAL Errors in WHO report
Cochrane Review Scientific Credibility Stained by "Waterpipe"™ Group
Most recently, they have tried to sell to the drugged planet the huge scientific fraud about Hookah "Passive Smoking" ("Environmental Tobacco Smoke") in the name of which assaults on civil liberties have been witnessed all over the world...
Dismissing the academic and scientific work of world tobacco and cancer experts qualifies for Scientific Misconduct, not less. This fault also bears a name in biomedical edition: Publication Bias (See COPE: Code of Conduct for Editors of Biomedical Journals )
For instance, you will see in the study on Hookah Smoking and cancer how Dr Angel ROFFO’s pioneering study on the narghile filter was NOT cited by Robert PROCTOR in a “review” of his work supposed to be comprehensive.
The historic study warns however: “If traditional hookah smoking, as exemplified by the Pakistani context, has fewer carcinogenic effects than cigarette smoking, it is important to bear in mind that it still produces smoke. What is hazardous with tobacco use is the smoke, not the tobacco itself. In other words, smoked tobacco is much more dangerous than tobacco used in other forms as renowned scholars have early warned…”
So, folks, take care because the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is not, unlike Hookah “Passive Smoking” , any human invention. Just keep in mind that: BREATHE IS LIFE (*) as our friend has been recalling -againt the enemies of public health- for one decade now.
(*) note that this motto -as well as the "Tobacco Control" phrase- have sometimes been tarnished by hardline anti-tobacco organizations.
Image: courtesy of Paktribune
#######################################
[MATERIAL ADDED 19 SEPT 2008]
SUBJECT: VIOLATION OF EDITORIAL ETHICS BY JPMA (JOURNAL OF PAKISTAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION)
The authors of the first etiologic study on hookah and cancer were not allowed by the above journal to respond to a Letter to the Editor by Wasim Maziak. Fortunately, they had the opportunity to do this with the other journal in which they published their second study (Harm Reduction Journal, a truly independent journal, which does not accept any external pressure):
The authors stated: "We were informed only by chance of the existence of a previous comment by Maziak on our first study. Consequently, we sent a detailed response to JPMA on the 7th of April 2008. In spite of our good faith, and for some unclear, reason, the journal did not accept to publish our short and right-to-the-point letter whereas it published Maziak’s comment with no delay. This is certainly a violation of editorial ethics [5]."
[5] 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”
SOURCE: REBUTTAL: INTRODUCTORY KEY-POINTS to Our Reply to Purported “Methodological Problems…” (16 June 2008)
#######################################
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 !
Original post in French (French side of the 
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