Lies, damned lies and public health

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It beats me why those promoting public health campaigns feel the need to (how do I put this) make stuff up.

I understand that some people have a nannying, controlling, interfering world view. They're brought up to believe it OK to go around telling other people that their choices are wrong. It's a world view I hate but why do its adherents feel the need to tell massive porkies all the time?

Don't believe me? Here are a couple of recent examples:

The rest of the story is that the European Respiratory Society is lying to the public. The Society claims that electronic cigarettes were developed by the tobacco industry. This is false. The tobacco industry played no role in the creation of electronic cigarettes and for the past four years, has had no involvement at all in the electronic cigarette industry. It was only recently, when Lorillard acquired Blu cigs, that the tobacco industry entered the electronic cigarette market. The claim that electronic cigarettes were developed by the tobacco industry is an outright lie.

And from the same set of public health campaigners and even worse lie:

The claim that electronic cigarettes cause cancer is without scientific evidence. While it is true that trace levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines have been detected in electronic cigarettes, similar trace levels are also present in nicotine gum and nicotine patches. If electronic cigarettes can be said to cause cancer, then so can nicotine replacement therapy.

There is simply no scientific evidence that NRT causes cancer, because it is unclear that the trace levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines in these products have any clinical significance, are capable of inducing cancer, or that there has ever been a human case of cancer caused by NRT.

Similarly, there is simply no scientific evidence that electronic cigarettes cause cancer, because it is unclear that the trace levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines in these products have any clinical significance, are capable of inducing cancer, or that there has ever been a human case of cancer caused by electronic cigarettes.

So you've never heard of the European Respiratory Society. How about the BBC?

Programme makers asked Sheffield University to model the effects of a 50p per unit minimum price, which would push the price of the cheapest bottle of vodka from about £9 to £13.

Statisticians estimated the effect would be 50,000 fewer alcohol-related deaths in England among over 65s, over the course of 10 years.

The current affairs programme, to be broadcast on BBC One at 7.30pm on Monday, examines problem drinking among Britain’s ever-growing population of older people. 

Let's be clear about these statistics. They are utter rubbish. Complete and absolute tosh. Yet the BBC proposes to broadcast them without challenge. Here are the facts on alcohol related deaths (or a close as we can get using the entirely questionable approach preferred by public health people).  The figure - allowing for estimates of homicides, suicides and drownings - is around 13,000 per year. And declining.

The BBC wants us to believe that introducing a 50p per unit minimum price will result in 5,000 fewer of these deaths. That's a 40% drop. More to the point these statistics mean that nearly every single death of someone aged over 65 currently listed as 'alcohol-related' is eliminated. This is complete nonsense as a moments perusal of the actual statistics would show.

I think you get the picture. On everything - from smoking in cars to the effect of salt consumption the public health lobby simply makes stuff up. And repeats it time and time again until everyone assumes it is correct. Policy affecting millions of people and their choices is being made on the basic of dodgy science, misrepresentation of statistics and, it seems, outright lies.

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