Garbage and spin leave campaigners depressed and exasperated
There are two fascinating 'discussions' taking place online.
On Tuesday Dr Michael Siegel, author of The Rest of the Story blog, published this post, Tobacco control science deteriorating to an all-time low.
Commenting on an article on Liberty Voice (Third-hand smoke poses real dangers), Siegel wrote:
The rest of the story is that this is complete garbage. It is truly depressing to me to watch this - day in and day out.
When the tobacco industry decided - sometime back around 2000 or so - to stop monitoring tobacco control science and to just let us say anything we wanted to - I thought they had made a poor decision. But in retrospect, I think it may have been brilliant. They apparently knew that before long, without the restraints of having to answer to Big Tobacco's public questioning, our science would deteriorate and we would just start saying anything we wanted to. Unrestrained, the tobacco control movement's scientific rigor would fall to such a low level that we would end up discrediting ourselves and undermining our own credibility.
Well, we're there. We're officially there. I'm sure I'll have more to say about this later. But for now, I'm just too damn depressed.
While I welcome Dr Siegel's admission that claims about third-hand smoke are "complete garbage", the revelation that this sort of thing leaves him "depressed" is, frankly, hard to stomach.
But read the comments. He seems to have struck a nerve because the 'dear Doc' (or 'poor Mik') is getting a bit of a roasting.
Meanwhile, over on Clive Bates' blog, there is an equally interesting discussion about e-cigarettes (Cease and desist: making false claims about the gateway effect).
Echoing Siegel, Clive begins, "I am totally exasperated by spin about the so-called gateway effect."
You should read the whole thing but if you haven't got time scroll down to the comments where someone called Stan Shatenstein intervenes (click here).
I've never heard of Shatenstein but Clive seems to know him so I guess he must be some sort of tobacco control campaigner.
The subsequent exchange of views is worth reading, not least for Shatenstein's extraordinary comment that "Taking a stick of anything, a cigarette or a vapestick, is a pathetic, juvenile act ..."
In response Clive wrote:
Can you see how you appear to seethe with contempt for the people who are supposed to be beneficiaries to the work done in public health? This sort of statement betrays a disturbing and intolerant world view. Is it really about health? Or is it a judgemental attitude to bodily purity, authority and control?
My problem with all this is very simple. The war on tobacco has evolved to the stage where two high profile tobacco control campaigners are either "depressed" or "exasperated" by the "garbage" and "spin" that spews forth from the industry for which they once worked.
Using different words, perhaps, Forest and others have been accusing tobacco controllers of garbage and spin for years, but did they listen? Of course not, and even to this day Siegel and Bates support public smoking bans in every workplace, including pubs and bars.
With this in mind, and in response to a tweet by Bates linking to the Siegel post, nisakiman tweeted:
Perhaps you should read the comments, Clive. They apply to you, too.
To which Clive replied:
@nisakiman can you point to something unscientific I have said? I'm not sure what you are referring to ...
Unable to resist, Forest tweeted:
@nisakiman is referring to the fact that you & Siegel helped create the monster that is Tobacco Control and look where we are.
Sadly, it's true. As much as I like Clive (I can't keep saying this!) he and Michael Siegel have to take some responsibility for the situation we're in.
In their day each played a small part in the development of the juggernaut we now call the tobacco control industry.
Three years ago I wrote a post entitled Michael Siegel: friend or foe?. Reading it again, the question still seems relevant.