Liberal Vision

What hope is there for liberty if truth becomes a plaything of militant lobbyists?

Tobacco was unfortunately very much in the news again recently with the BMA launching a campaign to ban smoking in cars probably as a prelude to what will then seem a more reasonable move to get it banned when children are present. I want to focus here not on the ban but on the methods being used by its advocates.

On Radio 4s Today programme Vivienne Nathanson of the BMA was questioned about her evidence:

Nathanson: Well, the evidence is, in fact, that the levels of toxins that can build up in a car do reach 23 times the levels in a smoky bar…

Interviewer: And that is—sorry to interrupt you—but that is peer-reviewed?

Nathanson: Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer: Everyone in the scientific community accepts that it’s true?

Nathanson: Absolutely.

The BMA has since issued a major correction and apology with the explanation that the mistake was caused by human error.  These things happen but as Head of Science and Ethics, Nathanson has a duty to check. I find her glib assertions regarding peer review and scientific consensus indefensible. It is hard to see how they could be made in error.

The same day over on Radio 5, a phone in caller queried the general evidence base for passive smoke harm and Deborah Arnott of ASH countered by emphasizing claims that heart attacks have been reduced by smoking bans:

“There’s very good evidence supported by the BMA, the Royal College of Physicians, the World Health Organisation, the Standing Committee on Tobacco & Health which reported to the Department of Health. The Coalition Government very recently conducted a review of smokefree legislation, and what we’ve seen is a significant decline in heart attacks following the implementation of the legislation. The evidence is incontrovertible.”

In response to criticism that a fall in heart attacks in England post the 2006 Health Act was part of an existing trend, she said:

“Yes, but the decline is greater than trend. And that’s in a peer-reviewed article published in a very reputable journal, and it’s been found not just in England, Scotland, but everywhere that smokefree legislation in public places has been brought in.”

The statistics on heart attack hospital admissions in the UK are freely available to all on line. Here is a link to the NHS data for Scotland.

Using the measure preferred by the tobacco control industry and the hospital admissions data from NHS statisticians (table AC5) we can calculate emergency admissions for heart attacks as follows:

12 months pre ban:             7905
0-12 months post ban:        7250        (-8.29%)
12-24 months post ban:      8913        (+12.75%)
24-36 months post ban:      7707        (-2.50%)

() = % change from pre ban baseline

The word Arnott used was incontrovertible, the claim is a 17% reduction and the intervention was presented by some supporters as certain to have an immediate major impact on public health. Taking all that into account we should see a consistent, trend independent effect in the public record but whichever table or measure we use it is impossible to objectively claim that such an effect exists.

I value sober analysis of NHS statistics more than I do articles authored by tobacco control activists, peer reviewed or otherwise. I am not alone in this view and it is unlikely that Arnott is unaware of the serious credibility issues facing all the studies that support her claim or indeed of the existence of other work that contradicts it. The evidence is very far from incontrovertible.

Arnott is a skilled professional propagandist who is all too aware that, whatever the actual truth; provided that she sounds convincing her version will be believed by enough otherwise ill-informed people to achieve her objective. An article here gives some insight into her personality and the nature of her campaign.

Arnott is correct in saying that there has been a peer reviewed publication in the BMJ that supports her claim.  It claims a 2.4% decrease in heart attacks due to the ban but fails to adequately explain how the result was arrived at. This approach is sadly increasingly common in medical journals. Bearing in mind Arnott’s comment on trends, it is notable that, according to the NHS, the overall decline in heart attacks for the 12 months post ban was 4.26% compared to a 5.19% decline 2 years before the ban. The post ban decline was in fact neither large nor significant. The BMJ paper was produced by a team led by Anna Gilmore.

Arnott is also correct in saying that there has been a review of the 2006 Health Act. It was written by Linda Bauld.

The authorship of both these papers throws up some very searching questions about ethics at the Department of Health. Surely in a society that allegedly values honesty and transparency we have a right to expect government to review policy and measure its efficacy using the most qualified, objective and unimpeachable resources available. Why then did the DH directly commission two not especially qualified people both of whom have a notable history of anti-tobacco activism? The results were hardly likely to be seen as either credible or objective.

ASH is largely funded by the Department of Health and appears to be in firm control of the government’s agenda.

How can we possibly have a free and liberal society if we allow the truth to become the property of pressure groups directly funded by government departments?  The principles at stake here radiate way beyond tobacco. We urgently need to reform the charity sector and I would suggest also the Department of Health.

Thanks to Chris Snowdon and Frank Davis for giving their time to transcribe the radio interviews.

Written by Chris Oakley.

Tags: Andrew Lansley, ASH, BMA, Deborah Arnott, Department of health, Smoking in cars, tobacco, Vivienne Nathanson

ASH…We Really Must Do This More Often

A couple of days ago I wrote a small wee post on ASH . I thought it might be of  interest to those who read our blog and care about personal freedom and the nannying (and now “nudge”) state in which we live.  I was somewhat taken aback by the response (positive and negative). When Big ASH piles into the comments you know you have touched a nerve.

Anybody who thought that the debate on smoking was over, must surely think again.

Some of the comments were so astonishing that I was going to write a whole new post about them. Then I saw that Dick Puddlecote had done something already… “We Really Must Do This More Often” . To be honest, it wasn’t quite the post I had in mind, but it is really very funny and thought you might enjoy. And I will leave my  musings for another day. My thanks to Mr Puddlecote.

Tags: ASH, Dick Puddlecote

ASH abuse of public money must end

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is a campaigning health charity set up in 1971 by the Royal College of Physicians to work towards eliminating the harm caused by tobacco.  This could have been a force for good -  afterall there is nothing intrisically wrong with wishing to reduce the harm caused by tobacco.  It rather depends how you go about it – and that is so often  determined by who is footing the bills.

ASH receives huge amounts of money from the taxpayer  and sadly, like so many publicly funded bodies with too much money and too little scrutiny it has NOT gone about its task well. ASH has now become a fat, over-staffed, political, and single-minded organisation hell bent on eradicating smoking from the face of the earth, by whatever means necessary.  Where it could have worked with the industry to find solutions to the issues, it has set itself up against the manufacturers, the retailers and the consumers. And much of its so-called advice has been at best ineffecitve , and all too often counter-productive , with huge financial and social unintended consequences.

The future of ASH’s government funding must, now,  surely be in doubt.  Here we have an  organisation funded by government, actively lobbying government - often behind closed doors and with alarming success. I say “alarming” becuase it is. Government spending money to lobby itself makes ordinary folks blood boil at the best of times – indeed David Cameron said he would put a stop to it –  but this extraordinary abuse of public money surely can’t continue in the current economic climate.

I don’t say abolish ASH – we live in a free country. But government funding must cease. I came

 Read this letter from Kieran McDonnell, president of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, to David Cameron :

21 June 2011

Dear Prime Minister,

Formal complaint regarding breach of the Ministerial Code

I write to you in my capacity as President of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN), which represents 16,500 newsagent members across the UK, with a complaint regarding the conduct of your Public Health Minister Anne Milton with reference public statements made and circulated on 15th June when Ms Milton attended the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking & Health’s 40th anniversary for Action on Smoking & Health (ASH).

At the meeting, Ms Milton credited the Vice Chair of the group (and former Chair of the Health Select Committee) Kevin Barron MP for his help “behind the scenes” when addressing smoking legislation. In addition the Minister also accepted an award and presented an award to the Director of ASH.

This statement and public acceptance and deliverance of awards to an organisation that has been lobbying her department, MPs and other government departments (and indeed is granted government funding on the basis that it not be used for lobbying purposes) has called into question the manner in which recent tobacco display ban legislation has been made; and the ability of the Minister to be considered unbiased on the issue.

I attach a copy of the event report from an independent parliamentary reporting service and would ask that you formally conduct an investigation into the conduct of your minister in the light of her public admission that she had worked with an officer of an ASH funded parliamentary lobby group on recent legislation “behind the scenes”. Moreover, this inappropriate conduct necessitates a review of the legitimacy of the legislation itself.

We have long suspected that ‘behind the scenes’ dealings have been going on in the formation of this legislation in the manner in which it has been pushed through without running the legislation past the Reducing Regulation Committee; without identifying a ‘one out’ for the legislation; and indeed without fulfilling the BRE Guidance to undertake a Small Business Impact Assessment.

In light of these recent statements, I regrettably now see proof of these suspicions which is deeply offensive to our members who have campaigned so hard to see the government fulfil its pre-election commitments to bring the debate back to the House of Commons for a free vote and which the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats publically opposed in opposition.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Kieran McDonnell
President, National Federation of Retail Newsagents

Tags: ASH, NFRN, tobacco

Time to bin ASH before it trashes another part of the economy

Apologies for the delay in spotting this one, but it has just come to my attention that the ludicrously well-funded ASH Scotland (which has somehow reversed the Barnett Formula, receiving copiously more than its (also over-funded) English partner organisation… but more on this later) has just published it’s latest list of anti-smoking proposals for Scotland…

On the day that David Cameron has promised the business world a “forensic, relentless focus on growth“  my attention has been drawn to an excellent analysis of ASH Scotlands’ proposals by the Tobacco Retailers Alliance. You should check out the full article yourself, but to summarise, they identify two of ASH Scotland proposals that are particularly insane (my words not theirs!) as far as business is concerned.

1. Govt should increase the cost of smoking by 5% above the rate of inflation every year

2.Govt should look at options for introducing a positive award or incentives scheme for retailers who choose not to sell tobacco.

Both options are likely to result in only one thing - an INCREASE in the amount of tobacco that is sold illicitly – depriving the country of tax revenue (which we desperately need in case ASH had not noticed) whilst putting more money and influence into the hands of criminal gangs.  Do these people learn nothing?

Concerning the second proposal specifically, the Tobacco Retailers Alliance points out that for many small retailers tobacco sales accounts for a third of their trade, so the bill for such a policy to the Scottish Government would be stupendous…. So that, frankly is (almost certainly) a dead duck. At least while the country is broke… But don’t expect the drive to eliminate tobacco retailing to stop,  just because the powers that be have no money right now.  Read this and weep …

“…The idea that retailers should be discouraged from selling tobacco, and encouraged to sell other things in its place, is one that keeps coming up and I expect we’ll hear a lot more of it over the next few years. I once asked an official in the Scottish Government just what exactly retailers could sell in place of tobacco – what product would bring a hundred customers through a newsagent’s door every day, give him a profit equating to four Mars Bars per transaction and drive more add-on purchases than any other product category? After a long pause for thought, she shrugged her shoulders and replied, “Apples?”…. “

This, my friends, is what we are up against - idiotic dogma and evangelism – with no practical understanding (or just perhaps concern) as to the likely real impact of their insane ideas - all of it funded by taxpayer. And when it comes to ASH Scotland…WHAT FUNDING!!!!!  Simon Clark (Director of the smokers lobby group FOREST) highlighted the cost to the taxpayer of ASH Scotland just last week…

“In 2008-09 ASH Scotland received £921,837 from the Scottish Government. In December 2009 they received a further £500,000 grant from the Big Lottery to fund a three-year research project into smoke-free homes in Scotland.

“At a time when governments are reviewing public spending we would seriously question the use of public money to fund a group that employs almost three times as many staff as its sister organisation in England.

“How can that possibly be justified at a time when all taxpayers, smokers and non-smokers alike, are being asked to tighten their belts?”

The Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign will need to become the Save Our Pubs and Clubs and Newsagents campaign if ASH  & Co get their way…

.. I am hoping it won’t come to this. I trust that today’s rhetoric from the Prime Minister about supporting business will prove not to be empty words and that this coalition will get off the backs of SME’s (and “big tobacco” for that matter) trying to keep this country afloat.

I also thought that Mr Cameron had called a halt to government departments spending money to lobby other parts of Government..surely Government funding to ASH is all this is ? and should stop now.

And for those that missed it.. and specifically for ASH and other Government meddlars here is a video we highlighted recently pointing out the issues surrounding the illicit trade in tobacco.

Tags: ASH, ASH SCOTLAND, forest, simon clark, tobacco, Tobacco Retailers Alliance

Government-funded anti-smoking quangos funded by other government-funded quangos – agree with the Government – SHOCK!

Here we are knee deep in debt and all I see is a lot of government money – money we cant afford – being spent to shore up Government plans for more interference. Well this is just too rich for me..

And its not as though the money was spent on research, attributed to the Government. Oh no that would be too straightforward. No this bit of political manoeuvring is just about as devious as any I have seen in a while.

Widely credited as “a report from the Royal College of Physicians”, a document was released today concluding  that the  ”acceptability” of smoking must be changed (don’t you just cringe when that kind of language is used ?) and  that .. the easiest way to do this is a blanket ban in cars and vans, parks and play areas.

Naturally the media pounce on this explosive news. The illustrious Royal College bestow their views and we must all jump. We have to “save the kids” after all.

But look beyond the headlines and what you see is Government sponsored documentation that states X (a lot of kids suffer from asthma) and concludes that something completely disproportinate and over the top MUST be done … a blanket ban on smoking in cars and vans – not just those carrying children you note – and a ban on smoking in open spaces such as parks.

Er? How did they make that leap ?

The answer is fairly clear…. The government has already stated that it is  “looking at ways to go further to reduce the 9,500 children admitted to hospital every year as a direct result of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke“.  Andy Burnham, Health Secretary has also confirmed his  ”commitment to virtually eradicate the health harms caused by smoking..(and).. halve smoking by 2020″ 

So now the Royal College of Physicians is concluding that banning smoking in cars, vans and open spaces is the way to go. Surprised? Don’t be.

Look at who has funded this piece of research. Cancer Research UK and the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies (UKCTCS). What is the UKCTCS you may ask. A group of universities that develop ways to reduce numbers smoking. Aah but who funds the UKCTSC? Well, primarily this seems to be the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)  which is in turn primarily funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) and MRC (Medical Research Council  a tax-payer funded organisation dedicated “to improving human health”) …You see where I am going with this ? You cant move more than an inch in any direction and this report from the Royal College of Physicians has Government money oozing from every orifice.

And who is one of the primary authors quoted ? Martin Dockrell, director of policy at the vocal anti-smoking group ASH (funded by the Department of  Health no less) . Dockerall, by ASH’ own admission, ”specialises in using research data to make the case for policy reform”. If that doesn’t send alarm bells ringing out about the intention and validity of this “report” then I don’t know what does.

And lets not ignore the fact that the real agenda here is to ”eradicate” smoking (as Mr Burnham has stated). John Britton leads the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies (and who sits on the board of trustees of ASH) and is the principle author of this report who has gone on record stating…. “This report isn’t just about protecting children from passive smoking, it’s about taking smoking completely out of children’s lives. Adults need to think about who’s seeing them smoke.” 

Well they should have thought about that before they banned smoking in the one place where kids would not see smoking – in the pubs!

And if you want further evidence - Britton’s explanation for why there should be a blanket ban on smoking in vehicles – should suffice… “even drivers who never had child passengers should get out of their cars before lighting up for reasons of road safety” Hmmm road safety expert as well are we? I can’t actually find his credentials to speak on road safety but I am sure they are there – somewhere.

So what we have here is Government-funded anti-smoking quango’s working with other Government anti-smoking quango’s,  being funded by other Government quango’s all agreeing with Government published aims. Anyone here really expecting all those institutions, relying on Government cash, to conclude anything else?

Tags: ASH, cars, Royal College of Physicians, smoking ban