May, risks, according to, wants, less, more, would, if, could be, too much, can, can, recommended, about, said, around, estimated, could be, if, etc.

From the BBC:

Cutting back on salty foods such as bacon, bread and breakfast cereals may reduce people's risk of developing stomach cancer, according to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF).

It wants people to eat less salt and for the content of food to be labelled more clearly. In the UK, the WCRF said one-in-seven stomach cancers would be prevented if people kept to daily guidelines. Cancer Research UK said this figure could be even higher.

Too much salt is bad for blood pressure and can lead to heart disease and stroke, but it can also cause cancer. The recommended daily limit is 6g, about a level teaspoonful, but the World Cancer Research Fund said people were eating 8.6g a day. There are around 6,000 cases of stomach cancer every year in the UK. The WCRF estimated that 14% of cases, around 800, could be avoided if everyone stuck to their 6g a day.

Strip out all the conditional and vague words, and there's not much left of that is there?

TobaccoTactics replied to my email.

Many thanks for your email.

We will be reading all responses and will investigate your suggestions.

Kind regards,

The TobaccoTactics team.

----- Bericht van Mark Wadsworth ---------
Datum: Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:02:16 +0100
Van: Mark Wadsworth
Onderwerp: Your Naughty List.
Aan: TobaccoTactics@bath.ac.uk

Dear Sirs

I note that you've missed a couple of anti "Big Anti Tobacco" bloggers from the list.

I'm sure the following would be cheered up no end to have it officially recognised that they are a thorn in your taxpayer-funded side:

Nothing 2 Declare
Pat Nurse
Leg-Iron

I trust that you will update accordingly!

Kind regards

Mark Wadsworth
----------------------------------------------
The keen eyed reader will spot that their email came from The Netherlands.

"Six-year-old children attracted to cigarette adverts"

The Metro rehashes some of the most outrageously fraudulent research ever:

Children as young as six are falling for cigarette adverts as tobacco companies use ‘colourful and slick’ packaging to entice them, according to a cancer charity. They were drawn to the packets ‘without having a full understanding of how deadly the product is’, Cancer Research UK said.

Youngsters aged six to 11 were asked to describe what appealed to them about brand packaging. "It makes you feel like you’re in a wonderland of happiness," said one. Other responses – which were filmed by the charity for an anti-smoking campaign – included: "The pictures actually look quite nice. Ice cubes and mint", "It reminds me of a Ferrari", "Is that the royal sign?" and "Yeah. Pink, pink, pink".

Ho hum.

I thought that cigarette and tobacco advertising had been banned years ago? In any event, like the vast majority of smokers, I have had children of my own, and I can faithully report that none of them ever has showed any interest in smoking in general or tobacco packaging/advertising in particular, apart from the obligatory second-hand anti-smoking lectures faithfully delivered by my little lass. Who also tries to lecture me that it is better to take the train than to drive a car because of global warming, but who is first to ask whether she can be driven to school by car when it's raining (it's a five or six minute walk).

Of my two adult children, one of them became a social smoker at the age of 18 or 19 and the other one genuinely does not like smoke or smoking (I'm sure he's tried it). For sure, four children is not a representative sample, but I suspect it's a lot more representative than CRUK's sample.

Health Scare Story Du Jour

From the BBC:

Obesity is fuelling a major increase in the number of cases of kidney cancers diagnosed in Britain, experts say.

Cancer Research UK has published figures showing there were just over 9,000 cases in 2009, compared with just under 2,300 in 1975. Obesity increases kidney cancer risk by about 70%, compared with smoking which increases it by about 50%.

Cancer Research UK says too few people understand the cancer risk of being overweight. Kidney cancer is now the eighth most common cancer.

As per usual, it's made up figures time. The chances are there were plenty of kidney cancer deaths in 1975, they just weren't diagnosed or recorded as such. If there are 9,000 'cases' out of over sixty million people, of whom at least fifteen million have been aribtrarily classified as 'obese', that isn't terribly many. And what's a 'case'? A 'death' I understand, but how many of those 'cases' are treated successfully? An increase in the risk of 70% is meaningless unless you know the absolute risk to start off with, either way, only about a third of those 9,000 'cases' are down to obesity*. Smoking looks relatively safe, and if it is indeed true that smoking helps weight loss (supresses appetite), then an obese person can reduce his kidney cancer risk by having a cigarette when he feels hungry. And 'eighth most common cancer', what? What relevance does that have to anything? At a guess, that's only a couple of per cent of all cancer 'cases'. CRUK is a fakecharity. And so on.

* 45 million x normalised risk 1 = 45 million
15 million x heightened risk 1.7 = 25.5 million
25.5 + 45 = 70.5
25.5 ÷ 70.5 = 36%, a bit more than a third.

IMF Fun

Timeline:

1. IMF Managing Director Strauss Kahn is caught with his straussers down.

2. The UK's "Chancellor of the Exchequer" (that's Finance Minister, in plainspeak) George Osborne recommends yet another French politician for the job as IMF Managing Director (Directrix?).

3. IMF says no changes are needed to UK economic policy*.

* UK economic policy appear to consist of artificially low interest rates, high inflation, increases in the tax burden on the productive economy, a yawning budget deficit and - to top it all - cuts to front line services. Go figure.

Health Scare Story Du Jour

Yeah verily, we are all going to die unless we follow the Righteous path of abstinence and Righteousness, trumpets the BBC:

"Drinking more than a pint of beer a day can substantially increase the risk of some cancers, research suggests..."

And so it drones on for several paragraphs, my personal highlight in terms of lies-per-paragraph is this:

Cancer Research UK director of health information Sara Hiom said that many people did not know that drinking alcohol could increase their cancer risk. (1) "In the last 10 years, mouth cancer has become much more common and one reason for this could be because of higher levels of drinking (2) - as this study reflects (3) . Along with being a non-smoker (4) and keeping a healthy bodyweight (5), cutting back on alcohol is one of the most important ways of lowering your cancer risk. (6)"

1) We don't know it because it's not true. That's like saying "Many people don't know that Tiger Woods was born a girl".

2) Alcohol consumption has been flat or falling for the last ten years.

3) No it doesn't.

4) WTF does she drag smoking into it?*

5) WTF does she drag body weight into it?*

6) No it isn't.

* I accept that cumulative risks are not additive, i.e. drinking = not dangerous, driving a car = not dangerous, but drinking and driving at the same time = quite dangerous.

Fake Statistic Of The Day

From The Metro:

Children whose mothers smoked heavily during pregnancy are more likely to become career criminals, research suggests.

And the two are linked regardless of factors such as family wealth, the study shows. Children whose mothers smoked heavily were 31 per cent more likely to have been arrested than those whose mothers never smoked.

They were also more likely to be repeat offenders. The increased crime risk is found among children whose mothers had 20 or more cigarettes a day when pregnant, according to the report by Harvard School of Public Health in the US.

Prof Kate Pickett*, from the department of health sciences at the University of York, said: "The study adds to a substantial body of evidence linking smoking in pregnancy to difficult temperament in infants, behaviour problems in children and antisocial behaviour in adult offspring. These relationships seem to be robust and can be seen even after accounting for many differences between women who smoke and those who do not."

For the study, more than 3,700 new mothers were interviewed between 1959 and 1966. In 1999, criminal record checks were carried out on their offspring.

* Ahem: "Professor Kate Pickett is a Cancer Research UK-funded health researcher, and co-author of The Spirit Level."

"Research suggests..."

The BBC have started using the fakecharity article template again:

1. Kick off by quoting a bit of research 'suggesting' something or other:

Teenage smoking rates in England have dropped since the legal age for buying cigarettes rose from 16 to 18, research by University College London suggests. Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 teenagers aged 16 and 17 before and after the age rise in October 2007.

Well duh. It's illegal now, so some 16 or 17 year olds who smoke will simply not admit it.

2. Get a few rent-a-quotes from an appropriate fakecharity:

Jenny Fidler, who led the study and is based at Cancer Research UK's health behaviour research centre at University College London, said: "The new law looks to have helped reduce smoking prevalence among younger age groups. This is good news for the future health of this generation of young people and shows that tobacco policies can make a real difference."

So the research wasn't biased or skewed to try and get a particular result, then?

Jean King, Cancer Research UK's director of tobacco control, said "We need to do more to protect young people. We urge the government to prevent more lives being lost to an addiction that will kill half of all long term smokers."

She said putting tobacco out of sight in shops and removing cigarette vending machines would be a good place to start.

3. Finally, the most important element, and its presence here is most worrying (this element had been missing over the past few months), is for a government spokesman to agree that 'more must be done".

A Department of Health spokesman said they were in discussions across government on how best to progress to tackle smoking.

He added: "We welcome these findings as nearly all adults who smoke get hooked when they are young. Smoking is the biggest preventable cause of death in England, causing over 80,000 premature deaths in England each year."

Fun Online Polls: England's Future & Fergie

Thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll, there was a good turnout of 158 voters.

As we do these things by simple majority, there appear to be only two supra-national organisations of which England would remain a member:
The United Kingdom - 99 votes (although possibly as a looser federation)
European Free Trade Association - 90 votes

England/the UK will be leaving the following (the number of votes are votes to stay in):
NATO - 69 votes (I'm surprised, but pleasantly so)
United Nations - 46 votes
G7 to G20 - 44 votes
World Trade Organisation - 42 votes (I don't agree on this one, but that's democracy)
IMF and World Bank - 31 votes
European Union - 13 votes

England/the UK will not be joining:
Schengen Area - 9 votes
Euro-zone - 5 votes

The computer was playing up when I set up the poll, so in my rage and frustration I missed off 'Commonwealth', i.e. a putative 'Commonwealth Free Trade Area'. Seeing as the UK alone dwarfs EFTA, I suppose it wouldn't so much be a question of the UK joining EFTA but the Commonwealth Free Trade Association concluding a mutual free trade agreement with EFTA. Details, details.
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It appears that Fergie is in trouble again. What puzzled me is that she says she will repay the $40,000 that the undercover reporter gave her. In her position I'd make the best of a bad job and keep it.

What would you do?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Excellent April Fool's over at the BBC

From the BBC:

Cheap holidays 'prompted rise in skin cancer rates'

The advent of cheap package holidays in the 1970s has led to a "generational shift" in the rates of deadly skin cancer, a charity has warned...

The article goes on to explain that you're much less likely to get skin cancer if you go on safari in Africa, or skiing at Closters or on a round-the-world cruise.

The 'charity' concerned is of course Cancer Research UK, who are such bansturbators that you'd expect them to be a government-funded fakecharity by now. I have skim read the accounts, and apart from a couple of questionable joint ventures mentioned in notes 13 and 14 (or thereabouts), they look legit. Damn. I'll get them next time.

If you eat meat you will die a horrible, lingering death ...

... says a study funded by Cancer Research UK.

You'd expect CRUK to be a fakecharity by now, given how righteous they have become, but I have scrutinised their 2008 accounts and although they bristle with mentions of 'partnerships' with the Department of Health, universities and other quangoes and fakecharities (notably ASH), there's no evidence that CRUK receives major funding from the government.

Yet.

Die, you bastards!

Here's something I overlooked, a report co-published by fakecharities ASH, Cancer Research UK and The British Heart Foundation last October:

...when "Smoking Kills" was published ten years ago the cost of smoking to the NHS in England was estimated to be up to £1.7 billion a year. Using NHS spending data this new report reveals this cost has risen by £1 billion despite a drop in the number of smokers.

The reason behind the continued rise is a combination of factors. These include more expensive treatments and better survival times for people with smoking-related diseases, combined with a better understanding of the range of diseases caused by smoking.

So, er, they'd prefer worse survival times, or what?

Also, let's put that £2.7 billion (assuming it to be accurate) in the overall context of the £27 billion in extra taxes that smokers pay plus old age benefits that they never get to collect.