Thursday 19 March 2015

Training Journalists To Condemn E-Cigs

Apart from a laughable story on Friday about their plan to eradicate legal and illegal tobacco sales by 2040, the latest tobacco control expenses-funded beano in Abu Dhabi (WCTOH) isn't producing much of any significance.

Except, of course, yet more examples of the almost frenzied neuroticism of the anti-smoking movement in general. Transparency was again a secondary concern as vapers who attempted to follow the junket's Twitter feed found when they were promptly blocked.

However, unlike COP6 last year where the press were banned in case they reported negatively, a group of lucky scribes were enthusiastically welcomed to WCTOH ... for training in what they should be writing about!
Eighteen distinguished journalists from 13 countries received fellowships to attend the National Press Foundation’s first training focused on global tobacco control. Held this week at the 16th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Abu Dhabi, the programme offers 2-1/2 days of intensive sessions prepping the journalists to attend the 5-day conference -- and cover the issue in their home countries.
So was this training impartial and evidence-based? I'll give you one guess.
Topics to be covered range from the impact of the first 10 years of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; emerging threats, such as the growing popularity of e-cigarettes and sheesha; the ongoing challenge of tobacco industry interference in public health policy; and the conference theme – tobacco and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). 
I was interested in how these lunatics (well, those that managed to get there, anyway) could possibly present e-cigs as a 'threat' when talking to journalists who - I presume - are fairly intelligent. The answer is that they tasked people like Dr. Dean Schraufnagel, professor of medicine and pathology at the University of Illinois, to make the presentations.

He is quoted as believing “there’s a lot of evidence [e-cigs] could be harmful", and is adamant that they should be banned, so exactly the kind of fruitcake the WCTOH organisers feel is qualified to brief journalists. Here is a clip from his Q&A where he tells assembled hacks that e-cigs are bad because, well, tobacco industry. Oh yeah, and that if you use e-cigs, you'll be hooked on cocaine before you can say "junk science".


I also enjoyed how the long-practiced mantra of "people smoke for nicotine but they die from the tar” advocated in the 1970s by Michael Russell - and the basis for pharma products being fanatically promoted by tobacco controllers worldwide ever since - has been replaced with the message that "nicotine itself is responsible for many of these diseases" now e-cigs have turned up.

It's pretty clear that there is more chance of a leopard opting for stripes over spots than there is the tobacco control movement embracing openness, objective impartiality and evidence-based integrity. Now that's a story that should be reported, perhaps one day there'll be a journalist brave enough to run it.

H/T @DikDeklan


26 comments:

JLTrader said...

I forced myself to watch that video. He comes across as an alien from a far away planet (ie no first hand experience of life on Earth) when he says that nicotine is not only addictive, but right up there with cocaine. Regarding the ads of tobacco companies promoting low tar, light, ultra-light cigarettes as 'safer', I would say that it was the prevailing theory at that time in public health. The 'tar' is the 'bad guy' and the less of it, the better. And speaking of ads, Tobacco control movement has no credibility or moral high ground to attack Big Tobacco for their advertising in the 50s, 60s and later. Because the anti smoking ads they've been producing for the past 20 years or so are a thousand times more disgusting, dishonest and deceitful than the laughable and silly claims made by Big Tobacco in their 1930-1940s hey days of ad malarkey. If anyone cares to compare http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/main.php

Jake6731 said...

Once again, I have heard an "expert" refer to an e-cig that looks like a memory stick. Try as I might, I have yet to find a device that looks like that. Are you or any of your followers aware of such a memory stick looking device?

jude said...

I think its a good thing, the more they show just how insane they are, the better informed the public are becoming on how they've been lied to, and manipulated, by the nasty little eugenicists.


I'm seeing far more people waking up to the lies and the fleecing of public monies, that has been going on, which has rather surprised me in my country of Australia.


The more they cry threat, in regards to vaping, the more lies and propaganda they spew out, the more chances to tell the truth. They simply can't get around the facts, no matter how they squirm. They are still living in the days when they got away with the lies, because people had no access to the facts, and they have failed to realise that things are different now. Our moronic politicians in Australia have the same mindset.


The more hysterical and arrogant they become, (and the cracks in the mask are freaking highways now), the more they let people see the insanity, the better, let em at it.


Tick tock, tick tock.........

Dick_Puddlecote said...

"He comes across as an alien from a far away planet"

Not only that, but also very old and out-of-touch. They seem to be the worst in tobacco control, like your Grandad telling you the same stories over and over again about their glory days in the long distant past.

Younger tobacco controllers are (IMO) less pathetic about e-cigs and more cautious about dismissing them, probably because they have a career to think about, unlike old fools such as Schraufnagel.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

That memory stick comment made me laugh out loud. It's just one of about a dozen nonsensical statements he came out with in a mere 7 minutes. Outstanding!

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Agree entirely, the more they speak up about their irrational e-cig phobias the more they embarrass themselves. I'm all for it. ;)

Dragonmum said...

So let's sue the government for allowing nicotine on the NHS - I thought Harold Shipman was a poor advert for the medical profession, but this guy is something else!! Where do they find these whackos?

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Do you know what? There was a session on just this kind of irresponsibility at WCTOH today!

https://twitter.com/LGraen/status/578532348355956736



The time has obviously come to serve criminal law suits against the tobacco control industry and Pfizer! ;)

Anja M ERF vaper said...

ok... just watched for one minute.. so let me get this straight... it all started with the tobacco companies experimenting with synthetic nicotine (huh?) which was given to sailors on submarines and then became known as Nicorette gum????

That guy is not playing with a full deck. Uhm.. he does not even have one card in that deck.. Duh....

JLTrader said...

It just crossed my mind, how come there's no WCAOH (with A for alcohol) ?

bakerb said...

Since e-cigs came on the scence PH/TC are slowly moving over to the so
called 'harms' of nicotine. This enables funding to keep flowing in the
form of a new thing to demonize and combat. Of course they never mention
NRT when talking about this, because NRT uses special type of nicotine
;)

alanxxx said...

It is frightening that a man with such a barren intellect holds any position at all - first rate fuckwittery.

GC said...

Probably refering to PAX e-cig
https://www.paxvapor.com/

Featalpositionrockingincorner said...

And THAT (the video clip) is what happens when an academic steps out of their echo chamber into the real world...

jude said...

The ignorance is astounding, and these people have the nerve to call themselves "experts", experts on what, avoiding knowledge, avoiding reality? This incontinence of verbal diarrhea, splattered freely by the silly old bugger in the video, was just one example, and a very good indicator of his own desperate need to retire.

Lollylulubes said...

OMG - well they've really scraped the barrel with him haven't they. He was seriously struggling to remember his lies; I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to tie him in knots with a few well placed questions. Trotting out the "as addictive as cocaine" nugget is so last century. Even the FDA say there's no significant concern for safety or abuse, hence giving pharma approval for long term and concomitant use of NRT with other nicotine containing products.


I'm certain they use soon to retire planks like him, Glantz, McKee and Chapman, who just did (I said did) but, sadly, is still blathering, because nobody else is prepared to commit professional career suicide. I'm sure he'll be paid well for his efforts. We see 3 million ads a day for NRT - they're even lecturing full tilt from the sound system in my local hospital doorway to drive the smokers barmy .... and yet suddenly nicotine is causing all sorts of diseases. That'll be why scientists have been studying it for decades and are now using it to treat cognitive problems, Schizophrenia, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Ulcerative Colitis and it's prescribed for 12 year olds, plus another plant in the species may be that, allegedly, elusive cure for cancer. Maybe he should have a few toots so he can remember his script.


We could do with finding out who the journalists are and educate them with the real research and facts, via Twitter, prior to their brainwashing sessions.

truckerlyn said...

experts perhaps in Bullsh**t?

Lepard said...

Tobacco control is digging a big hole for itself....keep digging fellas!

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I'd say that's something else for me to try ... but not at that price!

nisakiman said...

Yes, they are a tad pricey!

Jredheadgirl uses one, apparently, and thinks it's really good. It uses actual tobacco, rather than e-liquid, which if I was inclined to spend that kind of money would possibly suit me better.

JonathanBagley said...

"nicotine itself is responsible for many of these diseases"

Boots the Chemist, are you listening?

Lollylulubes said...

A very amusing blog from Grandad on the subject - All Aboard The Gravy Train http://headrambles.com/2015/03/18/all-aboard-the-gravy-train-2/

.... and if they want to talk about diseases and deaths from the Tobacco Industry, here's how they stack up against the 'health system' - The Leading Preventable Cause Of Death http://headrambles.com/2015/03/16/the-leading-preventable-cause-of-death/ ....... they clearly won't bite the hand that feeds, or give a damn about peoples' wellbeing!

Tony said...

I think that the mainstream media news sites also have to take some of the blame for a lot of the bullshit being spread around e-cigs by unquestioningly posting these journalists shite. It's almost as if the main news sites do not care about their own integrity.

jude said...

MSM and their minions, only care about money, thats it, end of story. There may be individual journalists that have integrity, but they soon find themselves isolated and hated if they tell the truth on anything about smoking or vaping. In the end they either leave their employment, or they toe the line like everyone else. This is why blogs like Dick's and a number of others, as well as all those that oppose the views of the puritans and corrupt parasites in tobacco control, are so important.

Tony said...

Oh absolutely Jude, that is why blogs like Dicks need to gain more coverage, as usually they will tell a totally different story to the BS in the mainstream. The problem that we still have is that many people still believe everything they are told by the mainstream media. It's tragic.

CarolAST said...

The World Conference on Smoking and Health gave the National Press Foundation a big pile of money - see in the "Chairman's Circle."

http://nationalpress.org/about/our-funders/
So that's how they maintain their "journalistic integrity."