Interesting book about snuff and anti-smoking campaign

[msante]

Jumping from one link to other following references from a SOTT reader comment (http://es.sott.net/article/22393-Alerta-de-propaganda-Los-lugares-donde-se-ha-fumado-entranan-riesgos-para-la-salud#comment3233) I found a book titled "Smoke is good for you" by William Whitby.

About the author from here http://www.iberlibro.com/Vive-Tabac-William-T-Whitby-M.A/4348132634/bd (with google traslate)

William T. Whitby is an Australian medical. Best known as a critic of the anti-snuff, negating the harmful effects of smoke snuff and even supports the benefit and healing. The life of William T. Whitby, Australian medical and attorney, very little is known [True, It's so difficult to find information about him. In wikipedia the only reference to him is in Italian (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whitby) ] . It operates as a general practitioner in Bondi Junction, a suburb of Sydney, maybe around the 60s of XX century. Indeed, in 1979, the date of publication of his first book, and has retired from profession. In the medical profession combines a passion for the law, so that graduate in law and practice as a lawyer for some time.The public May 16, 1979 Whitby Sydney Daily Telegraph the following advertisement paid "$ 10,000 REWARD. I to pay $ 10,000 to anyone who can prove according to scientific criteria that smoking has caused a single case of lung cancer, heart disease or other illness. "announcement is not answered, the fact that Whitby interpreted as evidence in support of its critical argumentos.La campaign against snuff:. Based on his experience as a medical and smoking (pipe), Whitby gradually comes to believe that the anti-snuff, which started from the 60s of XX century in the major Western countries, is unfounded. In 1979 he published a book in which they first presented their ideas, smoking is good for you (The smoke is good for you), soon translated into eight languages ​​including Italian (Rizzoli, 1983), followed by a second Released in 1986 , Smoking Scare-bunk (demystified smoke alarm.) Whitby's main thesis can be summarized as follows: snuff smoke is not harmful to human health, and especially not the cause nor a risk factor for the occurrence of lung cancer, and this is true for the "active" smoke (ie, directly inhaled by the smoker) and smoke-called "passive" (which is breathed by people close to the smoker), by the Conversely, smoking (active) can be a major factor in the prevention and / or cure for lung cancer, asthma, heart disease and several other disorders. According to Whitby, the campaign against snuff, smoking link to lung cancer and several other diseases, is entirely based on junk science, misuse of statistics, the political motivations and mass hysteria. In particular, the U.S. government who have supported and funded the smoke alarm back in the 50s, to distract attention from the public and the media for damage caused by radioactivity and the development of of nuclear weapons. Whitby arguments are based both on experience smoker and his personal medical practice, both in the critique of the scientific basis of the campaign against smoking. For example, Whitby argues that many patients suffering from cough and asthma relief found in smoke, which in most cases has curative effects. The author suggests that, in fact, exactly these beneficial effects of the consumption of snuff are why mankind for thousands of years smoking and smoking art was invented and perfected over the centuries. As for scientific criticism, Whitby particular emphasis on three points: first, all clues suggesting that smoking as a cause of lung cancer and other diseases consists solely on statistical correlations, and second, a statistical correlation can not prove a cause and effect relationship, and thirdly, many studies show that these correlations are unreliable, inaccurate or compromised by smoke prejudices of their authors. Many of his criticisms are based on scientific studies of other researchers and scientists, as Ronald Fisher, who in 1959 had criticized the validating.

In google the results of search "William Whitby" are one handful of links. Very few!! This, I think, is some strange, I did waited more. Some of his books can found in pdf format. Two of the main are here:

_http://www.scribd.com/doc/44685607/Smoking-is-Good-for-You-William-T-Whitby
_http://wispofsmoke.net/PDFs/Whitby.pdf

I started to read "Smoke is good for you" and I must to say that until the moment is so interesting. Only as reference leave here the books index:


"Smoke is good for you"

Anti-Smoking - The new religion I
Why People Smoke 3
Why Smoking is Good for You 5
Why People are Against Smoking 12
Persecution of smokers
Modern Day Persecution 20
The Bogy of Lung Cancer 25
Big Brother's Campaign 29
The New Crusaders 34
The Sad Failure of the Campaign 41
Trickery with Statistics 45
"Experts" 51
Antics of the Anti-Smokers 54
Can you Believe a Word they Say? 5$
The "Passive Smoking" Hoax 65
The Heart Bogy 70
Cancer - "Causes" Gal'ore 78
The Innocence of Tobacco 83
The Case against Radioactivity 89
Some Questions 95
What smokers should do 96
Conclusion 98



"The Smoking scare de-bunked"

I THE NEW RELIGION 7
2 THE LUNG CANCER HOAX 11
3 CANCER IN THE WORK PLACE 18
4 GIFT OF THE GODS 24
5 WHY SMOKING IS BENEFICIAL 27
6 THE GREAT CAMPAIGN 36
7 THE PASSIVE SMOKING HOAX 44
8 THE HEART BOGY 52
9 FRIGHTENING THE LADIES 60
10 WHY PEOPLE ARE AGAINST SMOKING 65
11 PERSECUTION OF SMOKERS 70
12 MODERN DAY PERSECUTION 73
13 FAILURE OF CAMPAIGN ADMITTED 77
14 TRICKERY WITH STATISTICS 81
15 'EXPERTS' 87
16 ANTICS OF THE SMOKING HATERS 91
17 CAN YOU BELIEVE A WORD THEY SAY? 94
18 THE INNOCENCE OF TOBACCO 103
19 THE CASE AGAINST RADIOACTIVITY 108
20 WHAT SMOKERS SHOULD DO 113
21 CONCLUSION 115


and some passages of the books:

There's a new religion - the anti-smoking religion . A
new religion with its puritanical hierarchy ; its powerful
state-supported office of propaganda of the faith ; its virulent
missionaries ardent in the field ; its hoodwinked disciples,
bored people eager to escape the tedium of their lives with
a new cause, now displaying hysterical zeal and intolerance
rarely seen before in human history. A religion founded on
patently false dogma . A religion that has succeeded by its
insidious and repetitive brainwashing in lowering a black
curtain over the harmless virtues of tobacco .

Smokers don't object to people who don't smoke, but the
converse is not always true . Many non-smokers do not mind
people smoking, but unfortunately most do . These anti-
smokers may be placed in several categories . There are
people who, while disliking it, are not actively against it,
since they recognise the rights of others . There are people
who actively hate it and try to stop it . Some of these are
purely puritans, having a religious bias . Some are psy-
chological (or psychotic) haters . All these people would
still be against smoking even if the scientific world pro-
nounced tomorrow that it was absolutely harmless . Then we
have the large segment of brainwashed people who have
fallen for the big lie that smoking is harmful to health,
converts being the worst . A good proportion are militant
campaigners, many now breaking the laws of the land by
painting slogans on property and also committing assaults
on smokers. The most obnoxious are the paid campaigners .
Many of these are highly educated people, often with a
scientific background . I cannot believe some of them do
' not realise what a lie the whole thing is, or at least have some
grave doubts .

For moments, while read it, I remember some thoughts from Laura's article http://www.sott.net/article/139304-Let-s-All-Light-Up and Psyche's article http://www.sott.net/article/254745-Nicotine-The-Zombie-Antidote .

In the following days I will go ahead with reading and I will tell more about it. ;)

 

[James Henry]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Searching further I found this:

_http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/

The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL) contains more than 14 million documents (80 million pages) created by major tobacco companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and scientific research activities.

...>>>

These collections are comprised of tobacco industry documents from the late nineteenth century up through the present with the bulk of the collections dated 1950 through 2002

Of course this is the big business side of things. But there is probably some interesting gems in those 80 million pages that were not originally meant to be public documents.

 

[msante]

I did finished "Smoke is good for you". This is a sympathetic book and easy to read. Along it there is interesting points that worth noting.

The chapters that talk about anti-smokers personality are very descriptives. These descriptions coincide with the material of autoritarian followers. I think that there is here good examples to illustrate the autoritarian profile. Also there are several references to researchs that put the anti-smokers arguments in serious trouble.

On the other hand I think that the author lacks certain information, but have a strong intuition about certain topics. I paste some pieces of text as example:

It takes something like the controversy. On smoking to bring out the worst in people . Many anti-smoking fanatics have exhibited such spitefulness, hatred, intolerance, meanness, vindictiveness, character assassination, barefaced lies and lack of fair play that it opens one's eyes to the dark side of human nature and makes one wonder if these people may be called human beings.

In reference to this http://es.sott.net/article/17805-Proponen-crear-una-licencia-para-fumar the author said several year ago:

What do the campaigners want? It seems nothing less than total prohibition of smoking . Some smokers don't seem to worry because they think that restrictions will be limited, if any, but the campaign is being run in deadly seriousness and unless these pests are stopped they will make it impossible for anyone to smoke . The strategy of the campaign is to do it in stages . First they have succeeded in having it banned in trains and buses, and in many other places . Next will be aircraft . No doubt drivers of private cars who smoke will be held to pollute the atmosphere and that will be banned . (Of course the exhaust gas of the car -doesn't matter) . Shops of all kinds, offices, workshops, restaurants, theatres are all on their program . When they have got all this, smokers will have to have a licence to be able to buy tobacco, even to use in their own homes . Dr Joseph B . Mizgerd, President, Lung Association, Maryland recently said, "Cigarettes should be banned, except to the rare certified addicts" . This will be only for existing smokers . Licences won't be issued for new smokers and after a while there will be no one left smoking .
And they'll all be happy and turn their odd minds to stopping people drinking alcohol and putting a dollar on the favourite . So it's not only smokers who should stop them but all free people who might enjoy something that the puritans don't .

And then at analyze the root causes of lung cancer and another diseases, the author say:

Noise is another possibility . Sonic and ultrasonic waves are known to be capable of affecting body tissues and are used for this purpose in some medical procedures. There is certainly enough noise around in this age for it not to be dismissed lightly. Another possibility is cosmic waves and perhaps waves that are affecting us but have not yet been detected. We should remember that only a little over a century ago such things as extraterrestial waves had not been discovered. The famous astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, seriously suggests that the earth is subjected to periodic showers of virus containing dust from comets and meteors. These could be responsible for various plagues including cancer.

Also the author spent several paragraphs to expose corruption in medical science and government. He talk about the "Big Brother", conspirations, and information manipulation.

I think that it is a read recommended.

 

[Gaby]

And then at analyze the root causes of lung cancer and another diseases, the author say:

Noise is another possibility . Sonic and ultrasonic waves are known to be capable of affecting body tissues and are used for this purpose in some medical procedures. There is certainly enough noise around in this age for it not to be dismissed lightly. Another possibility is cosmic waves and perhaps waves that are affecting us but have not yet been detected. We should remember that only a little over a century ago such things as extraterrestial waves had not been discovered. The famous astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, seriously suggests that the earth is subjected to periodic showers of virus containing dust from comets and meteors. These could be responsible for various plagues including cancer.

Also the author spent several paragraphs to expose corruption in medical science and government. He talk about the "Big Brother", conspirations, and information manipulation.

I think that it is a read recommended.

And he wrote in the early 80s!? Fascinating :)

 

[l apprenti de forgeron]

Indeed!. Thanks msante!