We are members of a forum that is accessed around the world. Sharing stories with each other we gain a perspective that is global in nature. It is from reading your stories that I noticed the common timelines associated with the legislative persecution of tobacco. It became obvious to me that this persecution was not originating from within our States or the people that lived among our diverse cultures. So I looked into it.
After reading hundreds of pages from anti-tobacco NGOs, dozens of publications from many different government agencies, dozens of peer reviewed journal studies, and hundreds of pages from the forced-release tobacco industry documents, I was able to discern what is going on. It can best be described as a Conspiracy among the United Nations and a couple of billionaire subversives to change the beliefs, culture and sovereignty of everyone on the planet. Below is a relatively brief but thorough explanation of what is actually taking place.
For this research I had to utilize advanced techniques to reveal some documents that had been removed from normal access. If you want any sources mentioned in this post it would be prudent to locate and save them now. I would also recommend that you copy and save this post as its future existence is not guaranteed.
The main players in order of importance as I see it.
1. The United Nations acting through the World Health Organization (WHO)
2. Bloomberg Philanthropies and Michael Bloomberg (WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Disease)
3. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
4. Center for Disease Control and Prevention - USA
5. The World Bank
And in no particular order, various government sponsored initiatives from: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, Spain, as well as many NGOs.
While the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is an enormous contributor to the World Health Organization and tobacco control, they do not focus specifically on tobacco control. The Bloomberg Philanthropies does focus on tobacco control, and the World Health Organization has even given Michael Bloomberg the position of Global Ambassador. If you want to know what the political philosophy of the World Health Organization is, a brief search of their Representative, Mr. Bloomberg, will give you some idea. It is the World Health Organization and its tobacco control policies that are the main method used to enforce tobacco legislation. The United Nations formed and controls the World Health Organization.
All sources are in Bold. All excerpts are in Italics and unless specified should be considered from the last source mentioned. Some excerpts may seem out of place, they are listed to maintain association with the source document and will be reconsidered later on.
While this is a long post, reading it in entirety is worthwhile. In reading my commentary you may initially disagree with my presentation, know that I wrote it after reviewing all of the data. I would ask you to keep an open mind until you reach the end. First a little history, then we will get to more shocking disclosures.
From a July 15, 1997 document titled INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROPOSED US LEGAL SETTLEMENT ON TOBACCO MANUFACTURE, PRODUCTION AND MARKETING
The World Bank has strong working relationships with the Department of Health and Human
Services, the Centers for Disease Control and WHO. The WHO is discussing a "Framework
Convention for Tobacco Control" as a treaty-based approach, similar to some international treaties
and conventions on environmental issues. However, the Convention has not been widely publicized
and remains a low priority for most countries.
A World Bank working group will begin detailed review of the proposed US settlement over
the next few months. Plans are underway for an international consultation with invited experts at the
University of Lausanne, Switzerland in the fall of 1997 to help guide Bank policy.
From Confronting A Global Agenda For Tobacco Control Research published by the World Health Organization in July 1999.
In July 1998, the incoming Director-General of WHO, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, established a Cabinet project- the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI)...In response to the Director-General's call to action, the World Bank and UNICEF have also identified tobacco use as a top-prioroty health problem and a threat to children's rights...The $206 billion multi-state settlement achieved in the USA in November 1998 promises to ensure effective tobacco control programmes in every state as well as leading to renewed collaboration, networking and capacity-building.
In this document there is the expression of a difficulty in convincing people of the need for tobacco legislation because of the fact that...
Most health consequences of smoking are not manifested until three to four decades after the onset of persistent smoking.
In the publication Tools for advancing tobacco control in the 21st century Tobacco control legislation: an introductory guide published by the World Health Organization in 2004 we find this
the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC). This historic treaty obligates signatory countries to adopt or strengthen legislation addressing tobacco advertising, packaging, sales practices, smuggling, public smoking, and more. The treaty sets a floor of minimum standards for comprehensive tobacco control programmes around the world, while encouraging countries to go beyond these minimum requirements to adopt recognized best practices...Most fundamentally, a society’s laws are the most solemn and formal articulation of its values; they recognize, reinforce and make more permanent the society’s important norms. When a government prohibits the sale of cigarettes to minors, for example, it not only regulates business practices, but also declares the will of the society that children not smoke...Furthermore, comprehensive measures require steps to restrict the conduct of tobacco companies, private businesses and individuals—steps that can be taken only through legislation.
It is important to gain an awareness that a foreign power is establishing laws that affect private businesses and individuals within countries, laws that are intended to change the norms and values of each country's society. These laws are not reviewed by any citizen but instead are decided by delegates of the WHO FCTC Conference of the Parties. They plan to enforce compliance with their fiat claim to authority, and to restrict the conduct of every individual on Earth. To them, a society's established culture is seen as an obstacle that interferes with that objective.
Cultural practices in particular societies may also complicate the challenge of raising public awareness. Long-accepted practices associated with tobacco use—water pipes in coffee-houses, smoking in pubs and bars, the use of snus, bidis or kretek—may be so deeply rooted in a local culture that it is difficult for members of the culture even to conceive of them as dangerous...
But they have a plan for change.
Another, equally important key to success is the active involvement of civil society. In many countries, outspoken advocates from NGOs have established themselves as the leading voices for tobacco control and the driving force behind governmental action...abundant opportunities exist for creative use
of the news media and other unpaid channels to educate the public. Developing the capacity to do this effectively is important to the success of a long-term tobacco control effort....Working imaginatively, these spokespeople should then create opportunities to make news. This can be done in many ways. human-interest stories: for example, stories involving victims of smoking-related diseases, people affected by second-hand smoke or young people working for tobacco control; the release of a report about patterns of tobacco use or the impact of a tobacco control policy; analysis of tobacco industry documents for evidence of activities in the country; celebrity spokespeople; public opinion polls; a presentation by a prominent visiting expert; support for tobacco control from a nontraditional source, e.g. religious leaders or labour unions; and organized events, e.g. a protest against the volume of point-of-sale advertising at a retail store or the circulation of a petition for a workplace to go smoke-free. Over time, creative news-making using these and similar approaches can raise public awareness, re-shape opinions and build a supportive environment for legislation.
Instead of passing laws as representatives of the people, they pass laws that increase their own power and then think of ways to sell their decisions to the public. Suggesting that manipulating people through protests, victim testimony, opinion polls, manufactured news stories, the use of religious leaders and other methods designed to re-shape opinions in order to artificially create a supportive environment is the proper behavior of government.
Ultimately, the goal of capacity-building and, indeed, of all tobacco control, is to change the society’s culture..to transform the society’s culture—from one that tolerates tobacco as a legal product used by people exercising supposedly free “choice,” to one that rejects tobacco as a deadly and highly addictive product that injures not only tobacco users, but also their families, innocent bystanders and society as a whole.
At least they admit that their goal is to change how we think about tobacco, and not to educate us so that we can make an informed decision.
Large, sustained public information campaigns are an important part of changing the attitudes, beliefs and norms of society. The WHO FCTC recognizes this. It requires countries to adopt legislative, executive, administrative or other measures that promote public awareness and access to information about the addictiveness of tobacco, the health risks of tobacco use and exposure to smoke, the benefits of cessation and the actions of the tobacco industry...Legislation can be used to create, test and implement effective school curricula and to require the adoption of strong policies about tobacco use in and around schools and by teachers and other school representatives.
They force countries to provide evidence to citizens exclusively about the supposed negative aspects of tobacco use, a balanced presentation of evidence is not to be made available. They want students taught and tested to ensure that they adopt these beliefs. As can be seen in any country, most of the anti-tobacco rhetoric is focused on shaping children's beliefs.
The ultimate goal of the legislation is to re-shape public attitudes and norms. As this shift takes place, the pressure of society’s expectations becomes the strongest force for compliance. This can happen very quickly...Similarly, when selling tobacco to young people comes to be seen by society as an unacceptable action that exploits and endangers children, sellers and their employees begin to police their own behaviour.
Here they express the desire to create a societal Panopticon, a society that is designed to instill self-policing behavior due to everyone watching and condemning their neighbors.
After entry into force of the WHO FCTC, the Conference of the Parties will be the governing body of the Convention which advances implementation of the Convention through the decisions it takes at its periodic meetings. Article 23 of the WHO FCTC provides for the establishment of a Conference of the Parties, the governing body of the Convention, immediately upon its entry into force.
The whimsical conniving decisions of their periodic meetings will become the new correct way to think for the rest of the world. I have always thought how funny it is to see "intellectuals" preaching party lines that are currently in vogue with the media. If their ideas were so intelligent you would think they could weather at least a little bit of time. Instead their interviews and speeches can accurately be dated to within a few years, even when taken out of context. Truth about the purpose of government is not an ephemeral fashion, you can find it clearly described in the founding documents of the USA, and see that unchanged, it is remarkably relevant to our modern age.
Of all the rights cherished by human beings and enshrined in international law, none is more fundamental than the right to health. Asked to rank their aspirations, men and women around the world name good health as their number one desire. One of the greatest global threats to that desire today is the epidemic of tobacco use. About one-third of the world’s adults are tobacco users. Half of them will die from it.
Here they are pretending to care about the desires of men and women around the world. Yet without the contributions of a couple of billionaires, the only people funding their attack against tobacco are smokers themselves. The excessive earmarked taxes on tobacco products and the theft from tobacco companies through law suits are essentially the only the source of financing that keeps their campaign alive. The fact that they are so well supported is an indication of how much the men and women of the world care about tobacco. If they were representing the desires of the men and women that are paying their bills they would be encouraging a friendlier world for tobacco.
The right to health? Do they mean the right to make our own decisions about health? Not at all. By stating that a person's lifestyle choice endangers their right to health, it seems they are claiming the right to legislate the very behaviors we will be allowed to engage in.
Half will die from it? That is quite the claim,. Half is an easy figure to remember for propaganda purposes, but it is an unlikely figure to come up with if using real data. We will look at the honesty of their studies later on. As far as I know, there is no lifestyle that grants biological immortality. Making choices in life is not something I will abdicate.
Here is a graphic showing the extent of the World Health Organization's FCTC treaty jurisdiction. It was published in 2015 by the CDC Foundation in a book titled The GATS Atlas.
Let's look at another document.
From Health Legislation at the dawn of the XXIst Century published by the World Health Organization in 1998. We are first presented with an example of an historical argument for taking an individual's right to make their own health decisions.
Dr Charlotte Olivier... In 1917 she wrote: "The experience of a century has demonstrated that as soon as public health is at stake, particularly the health of children, nothing is more harmful than freedom. Constraint alone assures the health of the public"; further on, she continues: "In a State economy, the child is too precious a member for us to continue to abandon his physical development entirely to his parents".
Then reference is made to a modern example.
The Swiss Federal Tribunal recently defined the concept of health as being a public concern that justified the restriction of individual freedoms.
After that, ideas are given on how to punish a state's citizenry, which they assume will be at their mercy due to dependence on government handouts.
We may also mention the possibility of reducing the disability allowances of patients who show that they are incapable of giving up the consumption of a product (alcohol or tobacco, in particular)... From the standpoint of stimulating individual responsibility, which is an important factor, such decisions may seem justified. Even if their objective responsibility is clear, it must be admitted that these individuals are not entirely free in their choice.
I certainly agree with them here. If your are dependent on someone, they control you. There is no such thing as a free ride. With every handout you take, you give away more of your freedom.
Here is a more modern document.
Draft thirteenth general programme of work 2019−2023 a WHO Document with a date of Jan. 5 2018
“Health is a human right. No one should get sick or die just because they are poor, or because they cannot access the services they need.” − Dr Tedros
It appears that socialized healthcare is their gospel belief. At least we know where they stand politically. World Socialism is their answer for everyone. Unalienable Creator endowed rights, that everyone posses, are not the rights they are referring to, their definition of “right” is “decided by us.” A decision that is subject to change at their next meeting.
WHO has used human rights principles to argue for public health measures to address issues ranging from climate change and tobacco control to mental health.
Giving a small group of tyrants control over the mental health of the everyone in the world has got to be one of the worst ideas I have ever heard of. The technology available to today's mental health practitioners has advanced far beyond the research of Pavlov. Inside of doctor's offices, they can force changes to take place in a person's mind that cannot be undone. As you will soon see, the World Health Organization does not like dissenting opinions to be expressed. Personally, I like to examine all of the evidence and to consider as many different opinions as I can find, only then can I come up with a fully informed decision.
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control shows how WHO’s normative work leads to healthy lives. The Convention relies upon legally-binding commitments by the States Parties, multisectoral dialogue, and collaboration with a range of stakeholders, excluding the tobacco industry.
Not only does the World Health Organization exclude the tobacco industry from participating, or providing information that could contribute in the decision making process, they legally-bind all State Parties from considering information from the tobacco companies as well.
From WHO FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON TOBACCO CONTROL Guidelines for implementation 2013 EDITION
The corporate social responsibility of the tobacco industry is, according to WHO, an inherent contradiction, as industry’s core functions are in conflict with the goals of public health policies with respect to tobacco control...Parties should not endorse, support, form partnerships with or participate in activities of the tobacco industry described as socially responsible...Denormalize and, to the extent possible, regulate activities described as “socially responsible” by the tobacco industry, including but not limited to activities described as “corporate social responsibility”.
The World Health Organization wants signatory states to regulate and to publicly demoralize every effort by the tobacco industry that could be considered socially responsible. The World Health Organization seems bent on labeling the tobacco industry as being inherently evil, and they are using their regulatory power to keep them from being portrayed any other way.
Parties should not allow public disclosure by the tobacco industry or any other person acting on its behalf of activities described as socially responsible or of the expenditures made for these activities, except when legally required to report on such expenditures, such as in an annual report...Parties should not allow acceptance by any branch of government or the public sector of political, social, financial, educational, community or other contributions from the tobacco industry or from those working to further its interests, except for compensations due to legal settlements or mandated by law or legally binding and enforceable agreements...Some tobacco companies make financial or in-kind contributions to organizations, such as community, health, welfare or environmental organizations, either directly or through other entities. Such contributions fall within the definition of tobacco sponsorship in Article 1(g) of the Convention and should be prohibited as part of a comprehensive ban,...identify and publicize the efforts made by the tobacco industry to undermine the implementation measures.
Let's see how this document describes the World Health Organization's plan to ensure our “rights” and “freedom.”
The duty to protect individuals from tobacco smoke corresponds to an obligation by governments to enact legislation to protect individuals against threats to their fundamental rights and freedoms. This obligation extends to all persons, and not merely to certain populations...Effective measures to provide protection from exposure to tobacco smoke, as envisioned by Article 8 of the WHO FCTC, require the total elimination of smoking and tobacco smoke in a particular space or environment in order to create a 100% smoke free environment. There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke, and notions such as a threshold value for toxicity from second-hand smoke should be rejected, as they are contradicted by scientific evidence. Approaches other than 100% smoke free environments, including ventilation, air filtration and the use of designated smoking areas (whether with separate ventilation systems or not), have repeatedly been shown to be ineffective and there is conclusive evidence, scientific and otherwise, that engineering approaches do not protect against exposure to tobacco smoke...This creates an obligation to provide universal protection by ensuring that all indoor public places, all indoor workplaces, all public transport and possibly other (outdoor or quasi-outdoor) public places are free from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. No exemptions are justified on the basis of health or law arguments.
To say that no arguments based on health or law are justified indicates that they are unwilling to entertain them. Not only is the World Health Organization unwilling to be reasonable, but their pronouncement that separate rooms with separate ventilation systems are unacceptable makes them sound like hysterical fanatics. Their policy in this situation is not to protect other people's health, but to segregate smokers from society, to shame them, and to label them as being unworthy of civil accommodations.
In an effort to avoid trouble with language, the World Health Organization advises states what words to use when talking with people about exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Here is an excerpt from a discussion about non-smokers that choose to be around smokers.
The phrase
“involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke” should be avoided, as experience in France and elsewhere suggests that the tobacco industry may use these terms to support a position that “voluntary” exposure is acceptable.
Even though they appear fanatical, they have enough common sense to realize change cannot happen overnight.
if a Party is unable to achieve universal coverage immediately, Article 8 creates a continuing obligation to move as quickly as possible to remove any exemptions and make the protection universal...Many jurisdictions recommend an initial period of soft enforcement, during which violators are cautioned but not penalized. This approach should be combined with an active campaign to educate business owners about their responsibilities under the law, and businesses should understand that the initial grace period or phase-in period will be followed by more rigorous enforcement...When active enforcement begins, many jurisdictions recommend the use of high-profile prosecutions to enhance deterrence...While smoke free laws quickly become self-enforcing, it is nevertheless essential that authorities be prepared to respond swiftly and decisively to any isolated instances of outright defiance...Engaging the support of the community and encouraging members of the community to monitor compliance and report violations greatly extends the reach of enforcement agencies
After the society has become conditioned to these policies through incrementalism, and citizen's consciences have started to self-enforce the World Health Organization's behavior modifications, they recommend that states encourage citizens to become informants for police agencies. Besides opinions on smoking, it is clear that they want to radically alter all of the norms, values and beliefs in our society.
We have seen how they prohibit the tobacco industry from being able to portray themselves in a responsible way, and actively tarnish their image with state sponsored smear campaigns designed to undermine their intentions if they choose to make a charitable donation. The World Health Organization also has the intent to make the tobacco industry alter their products so that they become uncomfortable to smoke.
The guidelines on implementation of Article 13 of the WHO FCTC, on tobacco product advertising, promotion and sponsorship, recommend that restrictions apply to as many as possible of the features that make tobacco products more attractive to consumers...From the perspective of public health, there is no justification for permitting the use of ingredients, such as flavouring agents, which help make tobacco products attractive...“Attractiveness” refers to factors such as taste, smell and other sensory attributes, ease of use, flexibility of the dosing system, cost, reputation or image, assumed risks and benefits, and other characteristics of a product designed to stimulate use...Harshness can be reduced in a variety of ways including: adding various ingredients, eliminating substances with known irritant properties, balancing irritation alongside other significant sensory effects, or altering the chemical properties of tobacco product emissions by adding or removing specific substances...Parties should regulate, by prohibiting or restricting, ingredients that may be used to increase palatability in tobacco products...Parties should prohibit ingredients in tobacco products that may create the impression that they have a health benefit.
Here is the image the World Health Organization wants you to have when thinking about tobacco. It comes from a March 11, 2016 WHO publication titled PROMOTING HEALTH AND SAVING LIVES BY REDUCING TOBACCO USE.
To show evidence that the WHO's treaty policies are prevalent throughout our society, let's look at the Statement on the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World signed by the Deans of 19 different high profile schools of Public Health on Jan. 25, 2018, I found it posted on the John Hopkins School of Public Health website. Thanks to this forum and the investigative threads we have contributed to, many of us are well aware that Phillip Morris' efforts to move their business away from cigarettes is real. Phillip Morris has been making huge shifts in policy ever since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and has been extremely compliant and helpful to the anti-smoking politicians ever since.
On September 13, 2017, it was announced that Philip Morris International plans to contribute close to $1 billion to fund an organization to be known as the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The Foundation has the stated mission of reducing illness and death from smoking and lists as its priorities: supporting research on harm reduction and smoking cessation, identifying the right interventions, monitoring industry actions, and preparing tobacco farmers for a future of reduced demand.
Phillip Morris has completely invested their future into the vaping business, and has gone beyond the obligations of the MSA in working with the anti-smoking activists. Yet due to the influence the WHO FCTC has on the intellectual-sheep, not only are there no state sponsored organizations taking this money, but universities and colleges are also following suit and refusing the money.
Our schools of public health consider funding from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World to be equivalent to funding from the tobacco industry and, as a result, we are not collaborating with the Foundation.
Colleges and universities are supposed to support critical thinking and teach people how to make more educated decisions. It is obvious that these universities cannot come up with a better reason to turn down millions of dollars than to parrot an idiotic United Nations policy, a policy they are not even obligated to. By looking at the World Health Organization publications we know the real intent of that policy, it is to smear an industry and sacrifice it on the altar of Tyranny, creating precedent for further legislation that takes away our freedom to make health related decisions. The independence of universities is called into question by their position statement. It has been well documented that many universities have been covertly financed or infiltrated by Communist, CIA and Military groups. This official statement indicates that we should also be mindful of U.N. influence in universities and colleges.
The World Health Organization is not only trying wield influence in press releases, with university intellectuals and local businesses, they are also making efforts to keep tobacco from being grown in countries that benefit from it economically. While the World Bank is incorporating prohibitive terms for loans to countries that produce tobacco, the World Health Organization campaigns to their political leaders. From a 2004 WHO publication titled The Millennium Development Goals And Tobacco Control, we find the World Health Organization trying to convince low income countries from growing tobacco.
More recently, tobacco companies, keen to be seen to engage in what is known as “corporate social responsibility”, have devoted a portion of their profits to activities that appear to be in the public interest...offering education scholarships and research and other grants to universities, involvement in community development projects... and investing in employee health clinics. Many of these activities have taken place in developing countries that are clearly in need of assistance...The WHO Tobacco Free Initiative has described efforts at corporate social responsibility by tobacco companies as “an inherent contradiction”...Historically, tobacco has been an attractive crop because of its high yield per unit of land, which is greater than that for many food crops, and for its relatively high returns, stable prices and certain market. In Zimbabwe, tobacco is 6.5 times more profitable than the next-best alternative crop in areas with the best soil for tobacco. It is less perishable than food, fetches a stable price and attracts in-kind support and loans from tobacco companies...Historically, as incomes have risen within different countries, the number of smokers has risen too. It would be cruelly ironic if increasing affluence in some of the world’s poorest nations were to contribute to an increase in tobacco expenditure by individuals with very tight financial margins, and to impact to even a small degree on expenditure on food, education or health services...Tobacco farming and curing are not kind to the environment: they cause deforestation due to land clearance for tobacco cultivation and, in many countries, farmers use wood for the fires and smoke used to cure the tobacco leaves, and to build the barns in which the leaves are cured...Clearly tobacco cultivation, curing and waste are a serious problem in many low income countries, and should be included in environmental protocols and targets in relation to MDG 7. It should be noted here that a provision on the protection of the environment is included in Article 18 of the WHO FCTC.
Regardless of the financial improvement to the economy, the World Health Organization claims that tobacco growing will encourage people to smoke and thereby cause them to lose any benefits from the cash crop. The World Health Organization then claims that the damage to the environment from cutting down trees to build curing barns is a more important issue to defend than the benefit provided by those barns to the people and their economy.
And a couple of random excerpts that may help later on.
Household survey data show that poor families are more likely to include one or more smokers than richer families.
About one in two long-term smokers will die from a tobacco-related disease, many of them before age 65.28 Smokers inflict damage not just on themselves but on others, via second-hand smoke.
From the World Health Organization 2008 publication titled WHO Report On The Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008 The MPOWER package
All epidemics have a means of contagion, a vector that spreads disease and death. For the tobacco epidemic, the vector is not a virus, bacterium or other microorganism – it is an industry and its business strategy.
People need to associate tobacco with its extreme addictiveness and dangerous health consequences, and to see it as socially undesirable and negative. All this can be achieved through action by governments and civil society.
Pictorial warnings are overwhelmingly supported by the public and generally encounter little resistance except from the tobacco industry itself.
The world is accustomed to thinking of the law as an instrument of justice, but not as an instrument of health...It is time that the tools of law be harnessed in the service of global health and global justice.
Such an extreme position we see the World Health Organization taking. No longer should you doubt their intentions to establish law as an instrument to force health decisions on everyone. They claim the tobacco industry is the vector of a disease epidemic, therefore they must see smokers as being diseased. In western medicine, it is total removal removal of diseased tissue that is used to restore health. This type of philosophy has shown its face in the past with the eugenics policies of the early 20th century. Such beliefs dehumanize people, strip them of their rights, and castrate their manhood. They want to change culture and assign a social stigma on smokers. Then they have the gall to claim that the public wants obscene graphics plastered of tobacco products, even caricatured war propaganda of enemies did not offend people's sensibilities the way their gore porn does. What principles are their abilities to differentiate right from wrong based on? Not only should they stop advocating their dehumanizing campaign against the people they represent, they should stop acting like they are better than everyone else on the planet.
From the 2013 WHO publication Making Your City Smoke-Free
Each year, 600 000 deaths are attributed to exposure to SHS.
There is also new evidence to show that SHS can alter DNA even after brief exposure.
I will now add, to these two statements, a few more statements made by the World Health Organization earlier in this post. You can refer back to the original documents by searching above.
About one-third of the world’s adults are tobacco users. Half of them will die from it.
Most health consequences of smoking are not manifested until three to four decades after the onset of persistent smoking.
About one in two long-term smokers will die from a tobacco-related disease, many of them before age 65.28 Smokers inflict damage not just on themselves but on others, via second-hand smoke.
There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke, and notions such as a threshold value for toxicity from second-hand smoke should be rejected, as they are contradicted by scientific evidence.
According to the World Health Organization, it takes 30-40 years of persistent smoking to manifest health consequences, and another decade or two of persistent smoking to die from those health manifestations. At the same time they say there is no safe level of second hand smoke, and that even a brief exposure to it can alter one's DNA. They claim that second hand smoke causes at least 600,000 deaths each year. It all sounds fishy to me.
Let's turn our attention to tobacco research.
Research studies can be daunting for lay readers. I want you to be aware that there are common practices used in scientific studies that can manipulate data in order to create significant results, practices that find results where they did not initially exist, and that results from those studies that can be used to further an agenda.
From a May 21, 2016 article published in the European Journal of Epidemiology titled Statistical tests, P values, confidence intervals, and power: a guide to misinterpretations
In closing, we note that no statistical method is immune to misinterpretation and misuse, but prudent users of statistics will avoid approaches especially prone to serious abuse. In this regard, we join others in singling out the degradation of P values into “significant” and “nonsignificant” as an especially pernicious statistical practice
Statistically Significant as defined by www.cancer.gov
Describes a mathematical measure of difference between groups. The difference is said to be statistically significant if it is greater than what might be expected to happen by chance alone. Also called significant.
In other words, groups that want to find a significant result can easily manipulate the data to show such a result. But, if after their attempts to manipulate the data, they find an insignificant result that counters what they wanted, it is solid proof that no relationship exists for the data tested. Even so, if enough studies are carried out using the statistically manipulative tricks, eventually a significant result will be found in one of them, due simply to the randomness of chance. In such a case, even though the significant result will be small, they would be able to claim significance.
The field of tobacco research came to a tipping point in 1998. Understanding the specifics of what happened is not easy but I will do my best to piece it together for you. This case may actually be the most significant event in the history of tobacco and tobacco control. Even though the FCTC was already being designed before 1998, I believe the events of March 1998 induced the U.N., WHO and the World Bank to pressure the U.S. into amending the settlement proposal with tobacco companies to severely restrict their Constitutional rights, ability to do research and contact the press about health studies. The outcome set the stage for the global monopoly on conducting and interpreting tobacco research by the World Health Organization.
It all started when BAT (British American Tobacco) was able to get the results of a major WHO environmental tobacco smoke study from an IARC (The cancer research arm of the U.N. and the World Health Organization) Biennial Report. They then released the results of that study to the public. The study was conducted by twelve different research centers throughout Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, the U.K., and Portugal. The research began in 1988 and continued for many years, the results were finally made available in 1998. I was able to access the BAT press release using the website industrydocumentslibrary commonly known as Truth Tobacco Industry Documents.
BAT Press Release, March 1998 titled Europe's largest ever passive smoking study has failed to establish a meaningful risk of lung cancer to non-smokers.
In it we find.
Dr Chris Proctor, Head of Science for British American Tobacco said : "New scientific research from the World Health Organization has shown the risk of lung cancer from environmental tobacco smoke to be either non-existent or too small to be measured at a meaningful level.” ...The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is part the World Health Organization. In IARC's Biennial Report 1996-1997 it reports the results of a study of non-smokers from seven European countries, including the UK The statistical study compared samples of the non-smoking population to see if living, working or growing up with a smoker increases the risk of lung cancer. None of the data reported by IARC found a statistically valid increase of risk for lung cancer among non-smokers. Dr Chris Proctor said: 'This study from the World Heath Organization is the largest ever undertaken on environmental tobacco smoke in Europe. If this study cannot find any statistically valid risk, you have to ask whether there can be any risk at all."In short, the study failed to find any statistically valid increase in lung cancer risk in nonsmokers who have lived, worked or grew up with smokers. Dr Chris Proctor said: 'We welcome this new study which confirms what we and other scientists have long believed, that while smoking may annoy some non-smokers, the science does not show that being around a smoker is a lung cancer risk.
BAT released this statement to the UK Sunday Telegraph and on March 8th they published a short story titled Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official
The world's leading health organisation has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could even have a protective effect.
The astounding results are set to throw wide open the debate on passive smoking health risks. The World Health Organisation, which commissioned the 12-centre, seven-country European study has failed to make the findings public, and has instead produced only a summary of the results in an internal report.
Despite repeated approaches, nobody at the WHO headquarters in Geneva would comment on the findings last week. At its International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, which coordinated the study, a spokesman would say only that the full report had been submitted to a science journal and no publication date had been set.
The findings are certain to be an embarrassment to the WHO, which has spent years and vast sums on antismoking and anti-tobacco campaigns. The study is one of the largest ever to look at the link between passive smoking - or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) - and lung cancer, and had been eagerly awaited by medical experts and campaigning groups.
Yet the scientists have found that there was no statistical evidence that passive smoking caused lung cancer.
On March 9th the World Health Organization responded to the UK Sunday Telegraph with a press release of their own. Headlined as PASSIVE SMOKING DOES CAUSE LUNG CANCER, DO NOT LET THEM FOOL YOU.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been publicly accused of suppressing information. Its opponents say that WHO has withheld from publication its own report that was aimed at but supposedly failed to scientifically prove that there is an association between passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and a number of diseases, lung cancer in particular. Both statements are untrue.
The study in question is a case-control study on the effects of ETS on lung cancer risk in European populations, which has been carried out over the last seven years by 12 research centres in 7 European countries under the leadership of WHO's cancer research branch -- the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
The results of this study, which have been completely misrepresented in recent news reports, are very much in line with the results of similar studies both in Europe and elsewhere: passive smoking causes lung cancer in non-smokers.
...In February 1998, according to usual scientific practice, a paper reporting the main study results was sent to a reputable scientific journal for consideration and peer review. That is why the full report is not yet publicly available.
..."IARC is proud of the careful scientific work done by the European scientific team responsible for this study", commented Dr Paul Kleihues, the Agency's director. "We are very concerned about the false and misleading statements recently published in the mass media.
...All WHO Press Releases, Fact Sheets and Features as well as other information on this subject can be obtained on Internet on the WHO home page
You should be aware that the web page where this WHO press release is supposed to be located
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-1998/en/pr98-29.html no longer hosted this press release. This all that was on the page.
This page cannot be found
The page or file you are trying to access cannot be found. This is because the web address is incorrect or the file has been moved or deleted.
I could not find their press release hosted anywhere else on the web. I only knew that the press release existed because reference was made to it in a March 14th, 1998 Lancet article. Locating the press releases url was difficult in itself, although it initially proved fruitless due to the press release being deleted, it did help in the end. Because I had found the url address, I was able to search cached web crawler data from 1998 and view a screenshot of the press release, which is presented above for you to read.
I found the results of the peer reviewed journal mentioned in the WHO press release.
In October of 1998 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published this article about the WHO/IARC study. The article is titled Multicenter case-control study of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in Europe.
They concluded.
We found no increased risk for childhood exposure, a result consistent with most of the available data. The risk from ever exposure to spousal ETS was consistent with the combined available evidence from European studies, but it was lower than some previous estimates... There was also a nonsignificant dose–response relationship with duration of exposure... Dose–response relationships were more consistent and risks were higher, although in most cases they were not statistically significant...
This National Cancer Institute study used all of the data manipulative techniques described earlier to try to obtain significance. It is clear that the BAT press release was telling the truth. The World Health Organization press release made claims that turned out to be bold faced lies. The attempt to delete evidence of lies may be why they deleted it.
BAT revealing the study in March caused a lot of anger in those who were seeking political control through “scientific” justifications. In November, events culminated to ensure that the tobacco industry would not be able to expose science that disagreed with the World Health Organization's official statement ever again.
Do you remember this statement from an earlier WHO publication “The $206 billion multi-state settlement achieved in the USA in November 1998”. They are referring to the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). While we are told of the financial penalty of $206 billion, the tobacco companies also had to reimburse the prosecution against themselves, totaling $1,250 million in litigation fees. The $206,000 million dollars was divided 56 ways. It included all 50 states, Washington D.C. and all of the federal territories. While 54 of the suing parties split 75%, 2 of the parties got to split 25% of the money. Those two states were California and New York. These two states have a long history of challenging the U.S. Constitution. The MSA even forbade the tobacco companies from arguing for Constitutional protection as can be seen here.
From the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement
Each Participating Manufacturer agrees that following State-Specific Finality in a Settling State it will not initiate, or cause to be initiated, a facial challenge against the enforceability or constitutionality of such Settling State's (or such Settling State's political subdivisions') statutes, ordinances and administrative rules relating to tobacco control enacted prior to June 1, 1998
and here
Each Participating Manufacturer further acknowledges that it understands that certain provisions of this Agreement may require it to act or refrain from acting in a manner that could otherwise give rise to state or federal constitutional challenges and that...it...waives for purposes of performance of this Agreement any and all claims that the provisions of this Agreement violate the state or federal constitutions.
Included in the settlement were many other unprecedented demands.
For instance, the tobacco companies had to destroy their research centers.
The Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A. Inc...shall ...cease all operations and be dissolved in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.
The Tobacco Institute, Inc...shall...cease all operations and be dissolved in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.
the Center for Indoor Air Research, Inc. (“C1AR") shall cease all operations and be dissolved in a manner consistent with applicable law.
They are then given many limitations and extra measures that they must do if any future research is carried out. Including provisions against their motivations for research, how money can be spent for research, they would also have to provide all of the meetings minutes that discussed testing to the government. All of the data and results of their research would likewise have to be handed over. In addition, all of their data from the preexisting research centers was to be preserved for the government to go through.
The MSA forbade the Tobacco Institute from releasing anything about tobacco to the press.
No public statement Except as necessary in the course of litigation defense as set forth in section (e) above, upon court approval of a plan of dissolution, neither TI nor any of its employees or agents acting in their official capacity on behalf of TI will issue any statements, press releases, or other public statement concerning tobacco.
What research were they wanting to gag?
The 1997 proposed settlement was not as strict on the tobacco companies' research, press and constitutional rights. All of these new amendments in the 1998 settlement proposal came a few months after the World Health Organization's secondhand smoke study was discovered by BAT, a study that most likely was not going to be released until BAT forced its hand by notifying the press. After the MSA forced the tobacco companies to release their documents, the World Health Organization immediately spent great effort reading through them trying to uncover how BAT obtained the results for the IARC study. They finally found the information they were looking for and changed their policies to ensure it would not happen again.
From the July 2000 WHO publication Tobacco Company Strategies to Undermine Tobacco Control Activities at the World Health Organization.
Industry officials successfully established contacts with the IARC investigators and funded and publicized research designed to cast doubt on the validity of the IARC study. Through their contacts with IARC investigators and collaborators, the tobacco companies were able to gain a great deal of information about the design, conduct, and analysis of the study, as well as information on preliminary results. Some of this information was intended to be kept confidential.
The publication then listed several recommendations to counteract this type of leak to tobacco companies or the media from happening again.
IARC should develop written guidelines for IARC investigators and collaborators about handling contacts by tobacco companies or organizations substantially controlled by tobacco companies, and for disclosing information about ongoing trials. IARC should consider including in the guidelines prospective rules about what information from ongoing studies is publicly available and what is confidential.
IARC and WHO should consider a policy of embargoing information about the results of tobacco-related studies, e.g., through annual reports and bulletins, until the full report is ready for release
If IARC initiates a monograph on ETS, it should ask all potential participants and observers to disclose any ties to the tobacco industry. Individuals who are, or have been recently, employed by the tobacco industry as consultants or otherwise should not be included as voting members of the monograph working group.
It is apparent that the World Health Organization will not tolerate any information to be released, unless they approve it for release. I do not expect to see any “scientific” health study, from 1999 or later, that concludes anything differently from the World Health Organization's official policy. From an earlier citation, here is their official policy.
Ultimately, the goal of...all tobacco control, is to change the society’s culture..to transform the society’s culture—from one that tolerates tobacco as a legal product used by people exercising supposedly free “choice,” to one that rejects tobacco as a deadly and highly addictive product that injures not only tobacco users, but also their families, innocent bystanders and society as a whole.
Let's look at this free-choice vs. injures bystanders argument a little closer. The only argument suggested by WHO resources to counter people, who claim the right to smoke, is to point out the rights of non-smokers. According to them, this claim is justified as second hand smoke is proven to be dangerous. Regardless of the IARC study that proved secondhand smoke is not dangerous, they often cite the Surgeon General to back up their position. This quote comes from The 2006 Report of the Surgeon General titled The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke
The scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Of course we don't often see the common dissenting opinion, expressed even among anti tobacco activists who believe the party line, but also care about being taken seriously. This comes from an article in Tobacco Control titled Banning smoking outdoors is seldom ethically justifiable published in 2000.
it would seem certain that for some rare individuals with exquisite sensitivity, an acute exposure at such a level might precipitate an adverse episode. Similar claims are sometimes made about a large range of environmental agents, but in general public policy is not based on cocooning such people from exposures that are inconsequential to nearly everyone.
I want to point out the extreme danger that the argument of non smoker's rights has. If we allow a government to enact laws that prohibit us from doing something because it could possibly affect the health of someone else, we open a Pandora's box of possible new legislation. Car exhaust contains carcinogens, so they could ban internal combustion engines. Burning wood releases carcinogens, so campfires and wood stoves could become banned. Not being vaccinated endangers public health, so vaccines could become mandatory. While they have yet to directly attack the right of the individual to make a choice for himself, they do attack your rights to make decisions with your own family.
From Goldstein AO. Is exposure to secondhand smoke child abuse? Yes. Annals of Family Medicine 2015;13(2):103–4.
Our task as medical professionals is clear: given the number of lives at risk, medical and public health communities must accelerate their efforts to protect children from exposure to secondhand smoke...our perception of secondhand smoke as a form of child abuse reflects a paradigm shift. As our understanding of the harms of secondhand smoke increases, so does our responsibility to advocate for those involuntarily placed in harm’s way. Today, parents who willfully and continually expose their children to secondhand smoke are committing child abuse. We must intervene to stop this abuse.
While Adam Goldstein reported None under Conflicts of Interest for this peer-reviewed journal article. I found some conflicts during a brief search of his name. From a 2014 article northcarolinahealthnews
For nearly 20 years, he’s been the guy showing the world how tobacco use in the media turns kids onto smoking and dipping...Goldstein said he was under a lot of pressure by his peers in research to forgo practicing family medicine and focus on tobacco investigations...Goldstein set out to change the culture of smoking in North Carolina too.
And here fda.gov as well here projectreporter.nih.gov we see he is is awarded $3,538,066 from the NIH to conduct research on how the Center for Regulatory Research on Tobacco Communication can use communication science to improve messages about the FDA's regulatory authority over tobacco products and emerging tobacco products. He is clearly a biased doctor with a strong tendency towards activism. He also receives a lot of money to convince people that tobacco legislation is needed, and that it is the government's duty to regulate it. If he doesn't reveal Conflicts of Interest in peer reviewed medical journals, his honesty as a reliable source is called into question. He definitely is an unreliable source to use as a basis for legislation.
When I was a child my father would sit with us around the campfire and smoke his pipe while telling stories. Being exposed to the occasional whiff of tobacco smoke was not abuse. Neither was the occasional drift of much more concentrated smoke from the campfire. I have heard of emotional neglect being described as abuse, but this overly dramatic claim of abuse due to secondhand smoke not only undermines a child's image of their parents, it also teaches them to identify as a victim. I would much rather have fond memories of my father telling stories with his pipe, than feel like he was abusing me when he smoked. Attacking someone's concern for their child's health, due to smoke that is diluted beyond the point of invisibility, is unwarranted character assassination. To suggest that it is child abuse and grounds for prosecution is an assault on the parents and the family. These officially titled and degree carrying extremists are blinded by their faith in WHO's phony science, and they behave more like a cult member than a person of education.
Knowing that this policy comes from those whose intent is to manage the vast populations of the world, it should be obvious that the effects on your life, family and children are of no concern to them. What is important to them is the ability to convince people that it is in their interests, thereby creating an ability to defend their position, and a justification for the loss of our individual and family rights. It is also good to keep in mind the general principle of how people are controlled. When we are children living in our parent's house, we have to do as our parents say, go to bed when they say, ask permission to leave the house, eat when and what they say, and otherwise do as we are told. The same thing happens on a larger scale in our society. When we accept socialized healthcare, welfare and other handouts, our life soon comes to be dependent on the government. They become our daddy, and we give up our responsibilities and our ability to make our own decisions. When our schools accept federal grants or subsidies, they are forced to follow policies from the federal government. If a school board and superintendent want the “free” money, they follow federal directions in order to collect their checks. The laws placed on you are only disguised as being for you, in reality they are about control and power. Perhaps it is best to review this earlier statement by the World Health Organization, “We may also mention the possibility of reducing the disability allowances of patients who show that they are incapable of giving up the consumption of a product...it must be admitted that these individuals are not entirely free in their choice.”
We can now attempt to understand what is happening to our children when they go to school and are educated in this political doctrine. Here is an example from the time period just before it became taboo for the press to mention anything that may inhibit the anti-tobacco formation of beliefs by children.
From US News and World Report June 16 1997 “Don't Listen To Miranda” by John Leo.
Parents: Be on the lookout for Miranda, the toucan. She shows up in Here's Looking at You, 2000, a health curriculum used in several thousand public schools. Because she knows that parents can't be trusted, Miranda encourages children to check the family cupboards for "poisons," including alcohol or tobacco. The busybody curriculum also urges them to confess "problems at home" by writing secret messages to the teacher.
New York has been at the forefront of anti-tobacco campaigns for a long time. While tobacco control legislation is not the same across the nation, if you want to know what the dystopian future may be like for your child, their news is a good place to look. Here is an article from 1993 about the “Zero Tolerance” for smokers in Chautauqua County New York tobaccocontrol
Students caught smoking in school would now be petitioned to appear before the Chautauqua county board either in person or with an attorney. If found guilty, they would receive penalties in the form of fines, community service, and mandated smoking cessation classes.
So much for the innocent act of sneaking a smoke as a teen. This seems like a good policy if you want to label someone a criminal. I don't think that the child would be excused from school to do community service,or take smoking cessation classes, that would surely come from the time you have with your child. Children are not allowed to get jobs, so the fines would really be against the parents. Are schools working with and for parents, or are they really institutions designed to indoctrinate children, and to identify and condition the non-compliant to become future inmates for the prison system? The prison/school comparison is nothing new, and with the prevalence of cameras, police, metal detectors, fences and guard houses at exits this is no surprise.
After reading hundreds of pages from anti-tobacco NGOs, dozens of publications from many different government agencies, dozens of peer reviewed journal studies, and hundreds of pages from the forced-release tobacco industry documents, I was able to discern what is going on. It can best be described as a Conspiracy among the United Nations and a couple of billionaire subversives to change the beliefs, culture and sovereignty of everyone on the planet. Below is a relatively brief but thorough explanation of what is actually taking place.
For this research I had to utilize advanced techniques to reveal some documents that had been removed from normal access. If you want any sources mentioned in this post it would be prudent to locate and save them now. I would also recommend that you copy and save this post as its future existence is not guaranteed.
The main players in order of importance as I see it.
1. The United Nations acting through the World Health Organization (WHO)
2. Bloomberg Philanthropies and Michael Bloomberg (WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Disease)
3. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
4. Center for Disease Control and Prevention - USA
5. The World Bank
And in no particular order, various government sponsored initiatives from: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea, Spain, as well as many NGOs.
While the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is an enormous contributor to the World Health Organization and tobacco control, they do not focus specifically on tobacco control. The Bloomberg Philanthropies does focus on tobacco control, and the World Health Organization has even given Michael Bloomberg the position of Global Ambassador. If you want to know what the political philosophy of the World Health Organization is, a brief search of their Representative, Mr. Bloomberg, will give you some idea. It is the World Health Organization and its tobacco control policies that are the main method used to enforce tobacco legislation. The United Nations formed and controls the World Health Organization.
All sources are in Bold. All excerpts are in Italics and unless specified should be considered from the last source mentioned. Some excerpts may seem out of place, they are listed to maintain association with the source document and will be reconsidered later on.
While this is a long post, reading it in entirety is worthwhile. In reading my commentary you may initially disagree with my presentation, know that I wrote it after reviewing all of the data. I would ask you to keep an open mind until you reach the end. First a little history, then we will get to more shocking disclosures.
From a July 15, 1997 document titled INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROPOSED US LEGAL SETTLEMENT ON TOBACCO MANUFACTURE, PRODUCTION AND MARKETING
The World Bank has strong working relationships with the Department of Health and Human
Services, the Centers for Disease Control and WHO. The WHO is discussing a "Framework
Convention for Tobacco Control" as a treaty-based approach, similar to some international treaties
and conventions on environmental issues. However, the Convention has not been widely publicized
and remains a low priority for most countries.
A World Bank working group will begin detailed review of the proposed US settlement over
the next few months. Plans are underway for an international consultation with invited experts at the
University of Lausanne, Switzerland in the fall of 1997 to help guide Bank policy.
From Confronting A Global Agenda For Tobacco Control Research published by the World Health Organization in July 1999.
In July 1998, the incoming Director-General of WHO, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, established a Cabinet project- the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI)...In response to the Director-General's call to action, the World Bank and UNICEF have also identified tobacco use as a top-prioroty health problem and a threat to children's rights...The $206 billion multi-state settlement achieved in the USA in November 1998 promises to ensure effective tobacco control programmes in every state as well as leading to renewed collaboration, networking and capacity-building.
In this document there is the expression of a difficulty in convincing people of the need for tobacco legislation because of the fact that...
Most health consequences of smoking are not manifested until three to four decades after the onset of persistent smoking.
In the publication Tools for advancing tobacco control in the 21st century Tobacco control legislation: an introductory guide published by the World Health Organization in 2004 we find this
the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC). This historic treaty obligates signatory countries to adopt or strengthen legislation addressing tobacco advertising, packaging, sales practices, smuggling, public smoking, and more. The treaty sets a floor of minimum standards for comprehensive tobacco control programmes around the world, while encouraging countries to go beyond these minimum requirements to adopt recognized best practices...Most fundamentally, a society’s laws are the most solemn and formal articulation of its values; they recognize, reinforce and make more permanent the society’s important norms. When a government prohibits the sale of cigarettes to minors, for example, it not only regulates business practices, but also declares the will of the society that children not smoke...Furthermore, comprehensive measures require steps to restrict the conduct of tobacco companies, private businesses and individuals—steps that can be taken only through legislation.
It is important to gain an awareness that a foreign power is establishing laws that affect private businesses and individuals within countries, laws that are intended to change the norms and values of each country's society. These laws are not reviewed by any citizen but instead are decided by delegates of the WHO FCTC Conference of the Parties. They plan to enforce compliance with their fiat claim to authority, and to restrict the conduct of every individual on Earth. To them, a society's established culture is seen as an obstacle that interferes with that objective.
Cultural practices in particular societies may also complicate the challenge of raising public awareness. Long-accepted practices associated with tobacco use—water pipes in coffee-houses, smoking in pubs and bars, the use of snus, bidis or kretek—may be so deeply rooted in a local culture that it is difficult for members of the culture even to conceive of them as dangerous...
But they have a plan for change.
Another, equally important key to success is the active involvement of civil society. In many countries, outspoken advocates from NGOs have established themselves as the leading voices for tobacco control and the driving force behind governmental action...abundant opportunities exist for creative use
of the news media and other unpaid channels to educate the public. Developing the capacity to do this effectively is important to the success of a long-term tobacco control effort....Working imaginatively, these spokespeople should then create opportunities to make news. This can be done in many ways. human-interest stories: for example, stories involving victims of smoking-related diseases, people affected by second-hand smoke or young people working for tobacco control; the release of a report about patterns of tobacco use or the impact of a tobacco control policy; analysis of tobacco industry documents for evidence of activities in the country; celebrity spokespeople; public opinion polls; a presentation by a prominent visiting expert; support for tobacco control from a nontraditional source, e.g. religious leaders or labour unions; and organized events, e.g. a protest against the volume of point-of-sale advertising at a retail store or the circulation of a petition for a workplace to go smoke-free. Over time, creative news-making using these and similar approaches can raise public awareness, re-shape opinions and build a supportive environment for legislation.
Instead of passing laws as representatives of the people, they pass laws that increase their own power and then think of ways to sell their decisions to the public. Suggesting that manipulating people through protests, victim testimony, opinion polls, manufactured news stories, the use of religious leaders and other methods designed to re-shape opinions in order to artificially create a supportive environment is the proper behavior of government.
Ultimately, the goal of capacity-building and, indeed, of all tobacco control, is to change the society’s culture..to transform the society’s culture—from one that tolerates tobacco as a legal product used by people exercising supposedly free “choice,” to one that rejects tobacco as a deadly and highly addictive product that injures not only tobacco users, but also their families, innocent bystanders and society as a whole.
At least they admit that their goal is to change how we think about tobacco, and not to educate us so that we can make an informed decision.
Large, sustained public information campaigns are an important part of changing the attitudes, beliefs and norms of society. The WHO FCTC recognizes this. It requires countries to adopt legislative, executive, administrative or other measures that promote public awareness and access to information about the addictiveness of tobacco, the health risks of tobacco use and exposure to smoke, the benefits of cessation and the actions of the tobacco industry...Legislation can be used to create, test and implement effective school curricula and to require the adoption of strong policies about tobacco use in and around schools and by teachers and other school representatives.
They force countries to provide evidence to citizens exclusively about the supposed negative aspects of tobacco use, a balanced presentation of evidence is not to be made available. They want students taught and tested to ensure that they adopt these beliefs. As can be seen in any country, most of the anti-tobacco rhetoric is focused on shaping children's beliefs.
The ultimate goal of the legislation is to re-shape public attitudes and norms. As this shift takes place, the pressure of society’s expectations becomes the strongest force for compliance. This can happen very quickly...Similarly, when selling tobacco to young people comes to be seen by society as an unacceptable action that exploits and endangers children, sellers and their employees begin to police their own behaviour.
Here they express the desire to create a societal Panopticon, a society that is designed to instill self-policing behavior due to everyone watching and condemning their neighbors.
After entry into force of the WHO FCTC, the Conference of the Parties will be the governing body of the Convention which advances implementation of the Convention through the decisions it takes at its periodic meetings. Article 23 of the WHO FCTC provides for the establishment of a Conference of the Parties, the governing body of the Convention, immediately upon its entry into force.
The whimsical conniving decisions of their periodic meetings will become the new correct way to think for the rest of the world. I have always thought how funny it is to see "intellectuals" preaching party lines that are currently in vogue with the media. If their ideas were so intelligent you would think they could weather at least a little bit of time. Instead their interviews and speeches can accurately be dated to within a few years, even when taken out of context. Truth about the purpose of government is not an ephemeral fashion, you can find it clearly described in the founding documents of the USA, and see that unchanged, it is remarkably relevant to our modern age.
Of all the rights cherished by human beings and enshrined in international law, none is more fundamental than the right to health. Asked to rank their aspirations, men and women around the world name good health as their number one desire. One of the greatest global threats to that desire today is the epidemic of tobacco use. About one-third of the world’s adults are tobacco users. Half of them will die from it.
Here they are pretending to care about the desires of men and women around the world. Yet without the contributions of a couple of billionaires, the only people funding their attack against tobacco are smokers themselves. The excessive earmarked taxes on tobacco products and the theft from tobacco companies through law suits are essentially the only the source of financing that keeps their campaign alive. The fact that they are so well supported is an indication of how much the men and women of the world care about tobacco. If they were representing the desires of the men and women that are paying their bills they would be encouraging a friendlier world for tobacco.
The right to health? Do they mean the right to make our own decisions about health? Not at all. By stating that a person's lifestyle choice endangers their right to health, it seems they are claiming the right to legislate the very behaviors we will be allowed to engage in.
Half will die from it? That is quite the claim,. Half is an easy figure to remember for propaganda purposes, but it is an unlikely figure to come up with if using real data. We will look at the honesty of their studies later on. As far as I know, there is no lifestyle that grants biological immortality. Making choices in life is not something I will abdicate.
Here is a graphic showing the extent of the World Health Organization's FCTC treaty jurisdiction. It was published in 2015 by the CDC Foundation in a book titled The GATS Atlas.
Let's look at another document.
From Health Legislation at the dawn of the XXIst Century published by the World Health Organization in 1998. We are first presented with an example of an historical argument for taking an individual's right to make their own health decisions.
Dr Charlotte Olivier... In 1917 she wrote: "The experience of a century has demonstrated that as soon as public health is at stake, particularly the health of children, nothing is more harmful than freedom. Constraint alone assures the health of the public"; further on, she continues: "In a State economy, the child is too precious a member for us to continue to abandon his physical development entirely to his parents".
Then reference is made to a modern example.
The Swiss Federal Tribunal recently defined the concept of health as being a public concern that justified the restriction of individual freedoms.
After that, ideas are given on how to punish a state's citizenry, which they assume will be at their mercy due to dependence on government handouts.
We may also mention the possibility of reducing the disability allowances of patients who show that they are incapable of giving up the consumption of a product (alcohol or tobacco, in particular)... From the standpoint of stimulating individual responsibility, which is an important factor, such decisions may seem justified. Even if their objective responsibility is clear, it must be admitted that these individuals are not entirely free in their choice.
I certainly agree with them here. If your are dependent on someone, they control you. There is no such thing as a free ride. With every handout you take, you give away more of your freedom.
Here is a more modern document.
Draft thirteenth general programme of work 2019−2023 a WHO Document with a date of Jan. 5 2018
“Health is a human right. No one should get sick or die just because they are poor, or because they cannot access the services they need.” − Dr Tedros
It appears that socialized healthcare is their gospel belief. At least we know where they stand politically. World Socialism is their answer for everyone. Unalienable Creator endowed rights, that everyone posses, are not the rights they are referring to, their definition of “right” is “decided by us.” A decision that is subject to change at their next meeting.
WHO has used human rights principles to argue for public health measures to address issues ranging from climate change and tobacco control to mental health.
Giving a small group of tyrants control over the mental health of the everyone in the world has got to be one of the worst ideas I have ever heard of. The technology available to today's mental health practitioners has advanced far beyond the research of Pavlov. Inside of doctor's offices, they can force changes to take place in a person's mind that cannot be undone. As you will soon see, the World Health Organization does not like dissenting opinions to be expressed. Personally, I like to examine all of the evidence and to consider as many different opinions as I can find, only then can I come up with a fully informed decision.
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control shows how WHO’s normative work leads to healthy lives. The Convention relies upon legally-binding commitments by the States Parties, multisectoral dialogue, and collaboration with a range of stakeholders, excluding the tobacco industry.
Not only does the World Health Organization exclude the tobacco industry from participating, or providing information that could contribute in the decision making process, they legally-bind all State Parties from considering information from the tobacco companies as well.
From WHO FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON TOBACCO CONTROL Guidelines for implementation 2013 EDITION
The corporate social responsibility of the tobacco industry is, according to WHO, an inherent contradiction, as industry’s core functions are in conflict with the goals of public health policies with respect to tobacco control...Parties should not endorse, support, form partnerships with or participate in activities of the tobacco industry described as socially responsible...Denormalize and, to the extent possible, regulate activities described as “socially responsible” by the tobacco industry, including but not limited to activities described as “corporate social responsibility”.
The World Health Organization wants signatory states to regulate and to publicly demoralize every effort by the tobacco industry that could be considered socially responsible. The World Health Organization seems bent on labeling the tobacco industry as being inherently evil, and they are using their regulatory power to keep them from being portrayed any other way.
Parties should not allow public disclosure by the tobacco industry or any other person acting on its behalf of activities described as socially responsible or of the expenditures made for these activities, except when legally required to report on such expenditures, such as in an annual report...Parties should not allow acceptance by any branch of government or the public sector of political, social, financial, educational, community or other contributions from the tobacco industry or from those working to further its interests, except for compensations due to legal settlements or mandated by law or legally binding and enforceable agreements...Some tobacco companies make financial or in-kind contributions to organizations, such as community, health, welfare or environmental organizations, either directly or through other entities. Such contributions fall within the definition of tobacco sponsorship in Article 1(g) of the Convention and should be prohibited as part of a comprehensive ban,...identify and publicize the efforts made by the tobacco industry to undermine the implementation measures.
Let's see how this document describes the World Health Organization's plan to ensure our “rights” and “freedom.”
The duty to protect individuals from tobacco smoke corresponds to an obligation by governments to enact legislation to protect individuals against threats to their fundamental rights and freedoms. This obligation extends to all persons, and not merely to certain populations...Effective measures to provide protection from exposure to tobacco smoke, as envisioned by Article 8 of the WHO FCTC, require the total elimination of smoking and tobacco smoke in a particular space or environment in order to create a 100% smoke free environment. There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke, and notions such as a threshold value for toxicity from second-hand smoke should be rejected, as they are contradicted by scientific evidence. Approaches other than 100% smoke free environments, including ventilation, air filtration and the use of designated smoking areas (whether with separate ventilation systems or not), have repeatedly been shown to be ineffective and there is conclusive evidence, scientific and otherwise, that engineering approaches do not protect against exposure to tobacco smoke...This creates an obligation to provide universal protection by ensuring that all indoor public places, all indoor workplaces, all public transport and possibly other (outdoor or quasi-outdoor) public places are free from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. No exemptions are justified on the basis of health or law arguments.
To say that no arguments based on health or law are justified indicates that they are unwilling to entertain them. Not only is the World Health Organization unwilling to be reasonable, but their pronouncement that separate rooms with separate ventilation systems are unacceptable makes them sound like hysterical fanatics. Their policy in this situation is not to protect other people's health, but to segregate smokers from society, to shame them, and to label them as being unworthy of civil accommodations.
In an effort to avoid trouble with language, the World Health Organization advises states what words to use when talking with people about exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Here is an excerpt from a discussion about non-smokers that choose to be around smokers.
The phrase
“involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke” should be avoided, as experience in France and elsewhere suggests that the tobacco industry may use these terms to support a position that “voluntary” exposure is acceptable.
Even though they appear fanatical, they have enough common sense to realize change cannot happen overnight.
if a Party is unable to achieve universal coverage immediately, Article 8 creates a continuing obligation to move as quickly as possible to remove any exemptions and make the protection universal...Many jurisdictions recommend an initial period of soft enforcement, during which violators are cautioned but not penalized. This approach should be combined with an active campaign to educate business owners about their responsibilities under the law, and businesses should understand that the initial grace period or phase-in period will be followed by more rigorous enforcement...When active enforcement begins, many jurisdictions recommend the use of high-profile prosecutions to enhance deterrence...While smoke free laws quickly become self-enforcing, it is nevertheless essential that authorities be prepared to respond swiftly and decisively to any isolated instances of outright defiance...Engaging the support of the community and encouraging members of the community to monitor compliance and report violations greatly extends the reach of enforcement agencies
After the society has become conditioned to these policies through incrementalism, and citizen's consciences have started to self-enforce the World Health Organization's behavior modifications, they recommend that states encourage citizens to become informants for police agencies. Besides opinions on smoking, it is clear that they want to radically alter all of the norms, values and beliefs in our society.
We have seen how they prohibit the tobacco industry from being able to portray themselves in a responsible way, and actively tarnish their image with state sponsored smear campaigns designed to undermine their intentions if they choose to make a charitable donation. The World Health Organization also has the intent to make the tobacco industry alter their products so that they become uncomfortable to smoke.
The guidelines on implementation of Article 13 of the WHO FCTC, on tobacco product advertising, promotion and sponsorship, recommend that restrictions apply to as many as possible of the features that make tobacco products more attractive to consumers...From the perspective of public health, there is no justification for permitting the use of ingredients, such as flavouring agents, which help make tobacco products attractive...“Attractiveness” refers to factors such as taste, smell and other sensory attributes, ease of use, flexibility of the dosing system, cost, reputation or image, assumed risks and benefits, and other characteristics of a product designed to stimulate use...Harshness can be reduced in a variety of ways including: adding various ingredients, eliminating substances with known irritant properties, balancing irritation alongside other significant sensory effects, or altering the chemical properties of tobacco product emissions by adding or removing specific substances...Parties should regulate, by prohibiting or restricting, ingredients that may be used to increase palatability in tobacco products...Parties should prohibit ingredients in tobacco products that may create the impression that they have a health benefit.
Here is the image the World Health Organization wants you to have when thinking about tobacco. It comes from a March 11, 2016 WHO publication titled PROMOTING HEALTH AND SAVING LIVES BY REDUCING TOBACCO USE.
To show evidence that the WHO's treaty policies are prevalent throughout our society, let's look at the Statement on the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World signed by the Deans of 19 different high profile schools of Public Health on Jan. 25, 2018, I found it posted on the John Hopkins School of Public Health website. Thanks to this forum and the investigative threads we have contributed to, many of us are well aware that Phillip Morris' efforts to move their business away from cigarettes is real. Phillip Morris has been making huge shifts in policy ever since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and has been extremely compliant and helpful to the anti-smoking politicians ever since.
On September 13, 2017, it was announced that Philip Morris International plans to contribute close to $1 billion to fund an organization to be known as the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. The Foundation has the stated mission of reducing illness and death from smoking and lists as its priorities: supporting research on harm reduction and smoking cessation, identifying the right interventions, monitoring industry actions, and preparing tobacco farmers for a future of reduced demand.
Phillip Morris has completely invested their future into the vaping business, and has gone beyond the obligations of the MSA in working with the anti-smoking activists. Yet due to the influence the WHO FCTC has on the intellectual-sheep, not only are there no state sponsored organizations taking this money, but universities and colleges are also following suit and refusing the money.
Our schools of public health consider funding from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World to be equivalent to funding from the tobacco industry and, as a result, we are not collaborating with the Foundation.
Colleges and universities are supposed to support critical thinking and teach people how to make more educated decisions. It is obvious that these universities cannot come up with a better reason to turn down millions of dollars than to parrot an idiotic United Nations policy, a policy they are not even obligated to. By looking at the World Health Organization publications we know the real intent of that policy, it is to smear an industry and sacrifice it on the altar of Tyranny, creating precedent for further legislation that takes away our freedom to make health related decisions. The independence of universities is called into question by their position statement. It has been well documented that many universities have been covertly financed or infiltrated by Communist, CIA and Military groups. This official statement indicates that we should also be mindful of U.N. influence in universities and colleges.
The World Health Organization is not only trying wield influence in press releases, with university intellectuals and local businesses, they are also making efforts to keep tobacco from being grown in countries that benefit from it economically. While the World Bank is incorporating prohibitive terms for loans to countries that produce tobacco, the World Health Organization campaigns to their political leaders. From a 2004 WHO publication titled The Millennium Development Goals And Tobacco Control, we find the World Health Organization trying to convince low income countries from growing tobacco.
More recently, tobacco companies, keen to be seen to engage in what is known as “corporate social responsibility”, have devoted a portion of their profits to activities that appear to be in the public interest...offering education scholarships and research and other grants to universities, involvement in community development projects... and investing in employee health clinics. Many of these activities have taken place in developing countries that are clearly in need of assistance...The WHO Tobacco Free Initiative has described efforts at corporate social responsibility by tobacco companies as “an inherent contradiction”...Historically, tobacco has been an attractive crop because of its high yield per unit of land, which is greater than that for many food crops, and for its relatively high returns, stable prices and certain market. In Zimbabwe, tobacco is 6.5 times more profitable than the next-best alternative crop in areas with the best soil for tobacco. It is less perishable than food, fetches a stable price and attracts in-kind support and loans from tobacco companies...Historically, as incomes have risen within different countries, the number of smokers has risen too. It would be cruelly ironic if increasing affluence in some of the world’s poorest nations were to contribute to an increase in tobacco expenditure by individuals with very tight financial margins, and to impact to even a small degree on expenditure on food, education or health services...Tobacco farming and curing are not kind to the environment: they cause deforestation due to land clearance for tobacco cultivation and, in many countries, farmers use wood for the fires and smoke used to cure the tobacco leaves, and to build the barns in which the leaves are cured...Clearly tobacco cultivation, curing and waste are a serious problem in many low income countries, and should be included in environmental protocols and targets in relation to MDG 7. It should be noted here that a provision on the protection of the environment is included in Article 18 of the WHO FCTC.
Regardless of the financial improvement to the economy, the World Health Organization claims that tobacco growing will encourage people to smoke and thereby cause them to lose any benefits from the cash crop. The World Health Organization then claims that the damage to the environment from cutting down trees to build curing barns is a more important issue to defend than the benefit provided by those barns to the people and their economy.
And a couple of random excerpts that may help later on.
Household survey data show that poor families are more likely to include one or more smokers than richer families.
About one in two long-term smokers will die from a tobacco-related disease, many of them before age 65.28 Smokers inflict damage not just on themselves but on others, via second-hand smoke.
From the World Health Organization 2008 publication titled WHO Report On The Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2008 The MPOWER package
All epidemics have a means of contagion, a vector that spreads disease and death. For the tobacco epidemic, the vector is not a virus, bacterium or other microorganism – it is an industry and its business strategy.
People need to associate tobacco with its extreme addictiveness and dangerous health consequences, and to see it as socially undesirable and negative. All this can be achieved through action by governments and civil society.
Pictorial warnings are overwhelmingly supported by the public and generally encounter little resistance except from the tobacco industry itself.
The world is accustomed to thinking of the law as an instrument of justice, but not as an instrument of health...It is time that the tools of law be harnessed in the service of global health and global justice.
Such an extreme position we see the World Health Organization taking. No longer should you doubt their intentions to establish law as an instrument to force health decisions on everyone. They claim the tobacco industry is the vector of a disease epidemic, therefore they must see smokers as being diseased. In western medicine, it is total removal removal of diseased tissue that is used to restore health. This type of philosophy has shown its face in the past with the eugenics policies of the early 20th century. Such beliefs dehumanize people, strip them of their rights, and castrate their manhood. They want to change culture and assign a social stigma on smokers. Then they have the gall to claim that the public wants obscene graphics plastered of tobacco products, even caricatured war propaganda of enemies did not offend people's sensibilities the way their gore porn does. What principles are their abilities to differentiate right from wrong based on? Not only should they stop advocating their dehumanizing campaign against the people they represent, they should stop acting like they are better than everyone else on the planet.
From the 2013 WHO publication Making Your City Smoke-Free
Each year, 600 000 deaths are attributed to exposure to SHS.
There is also new evidence to show that SHS can alter DNA even after brief exposure.
I will now add, to these two statements, a few more statements made by the World Health Organization earlier in this post. You can refer back to the original documents by searching above.
About one-third of the world’s adults are tobacco users. Half of them will die from it.
Most health consequences of smoking are not manifested until three to four decades after the onset of persistent smoking.
About one in two long-term smokers will die from a tobacco-related disease, many of them before age 65.28 Smokers inflict damage not just on themselves but on others, via second-hand smoke.
There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke, and notions such as a threshold value for toxicity from second-hand smoke should be rejected, as they are contradicted by scientific evidence.
According to the World Health Organization, it takes 30-40 years of persistent smoking to manifest health consequences, and another decade or two of persistent smoking to die from those health manifestations. At the same time they say there is no safe level of second hand smoke, and that even a brief exposure to it can alter one's DNA. They claim that second hand smoke causes at least 600,000 deaths each year. It all sounds fishy to me.
Let's turn our attention to tobacco research.
Research studies can be daunting for lay readers. I want you to be aware that there are common practices used in scientific studies that can manipulate data in order to create significant results, practices that find results where they did not initially exist, and that results from those studies that can be used to further an agenda.
From a May 21, 2016 article published in the European Journal of Epidemiology titled Statistical tests, P values, confidence intervals, and power: a guide to misinterpretations
In closing, we note that no statistical method is immune to misinterpretation and misuse, but prudent users of statistics will avoid approaches especially prone to serious abuse. In this regard, we join others in singling out the degradation of P values into “significant” and “nonsignificant” as an especially pernicious statistical practice
Statistically Significant as defined by www.cancer.gov
Describes a mathematical measure of difference between groups. The difference is said to be statistically significant if it is greater than what might be expected to happen by chance alone. Also called significant.
In other words, groups that want to find a significant result can easily manipulate the data to show such a result. But, if after their attempts to manipulate the data, they find an insignificant result that counters what they wanted, it is solid proof that no relationship exists for the data tested. Even so, if enough studies are carried out using the statistically manipulative tricks, eventually a significant result will be found in one of them, due simply to the randomness of chance. In such a case, even though the significant result will be small, they would be able to claim significance.
The field of tobacco research came to a tipping point in 1998. Understanding the specifics of what happened is not easy but I will do my best to piece it together for you. This case may actually be the most significant event in the history of tobacco and tobacco control. Even though the FCTC was already being designed before 1998, I believe the events of March 1998 induced the U.N., WHO and the World Bank to pressure the U.S. into amending the settlement proposal with tobacco companies to severely restrict their Constitutional rights, ability to do research and contact the press about health studies. The outcome set the stage for the global monopoly on conducting and interpreting tobacco research by the World Health Organization.
It all started when BAT (British American Tobacco) was able to get the results of a major WHO environmental tobacco smoke study from an IARC (The cancer research arm of the U.N. and the World Health Organization) Biennial Report. They then released the results of that study to the public. The study was conducted by twelve different research centers throughout Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, the U.K., and Portugal. The research began in 1988 and continued for many years, the results were finally made available in 1998. I was able to access the BAT press release using the website industrydocumentslibrary commonly known as Truth Tobacco Industry Documents.
BAT Press Release, March 1998 titled Europe's largest ever passive smoking study has failed to establish a meaningful risk of lung cancer to non-smokers.
In it we find.
Dr Chris Proctor, Head of Science for British American Tobacco said : "New scientific research from the World Health Organization has shown the risk of lung cancer from environmental tobacco smoke to be either non-existent or too small to be measured at a meaningful level.” ...The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is part the World Health Organization. In IARC's Biennial Report 1996-1997 it reports the results of a study of non-smokers from seven European countries, including the UK The statistical study compared samples of the non-smoking population to see if living, working or growing up with a smoker increases the risk of lung cancer. None of the data reported by IARC found a statistically valid increase of risk for lung cancer among non-smokers. Dr Chris Proctor said: 'This study from the World Heath Organization is the largest ever undertaken on environmental tobacco smoke in Europe. If this study cannot find any statistically valid risk, you have to ask whether there can be any risk at all."In short, the study failed to find any statistically valid increase in lung cancer risk in nonsmokers who have lived, worked or grew up with smokers. Dr Chris Proctor said: 'We welcome this new study which confirms what we and other scientists have long believed, that while smoking may annoy some non-smokers, the science does not show that being around a smoker is a lung cancer risk.
BAT released this statement to the UK Sunday Telegraph and on March 8th they published a short story titled Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official
The world's leading health organisation has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could even have a protective effect.
The astounding results are set to throw wide open the debate on passive smoking health risks. The World Health Organisation, which commissioned the 12-centre, seven-country European study has failed to make the findings public, and has instead produced only a summary of the results in an internal report.
Despite repeated approaches, nobody at the WHO headquarters in Geneva would comment on the findings last week. At its International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, which coordinated the study, a spokesman would say only that the full report had been submitted to a science journal and no publication date had been set.
The findings are certain to be an embarrassment to the WHO, which has spent years and vast sums on antismoking and anti-tobacco campaigns. The study is one of the largest ever to look at the link between passive smoking - or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) - and lung cancer, and had been eagerly awaited by medical experts and campaigning groups.
Yet the scientists have found that there was no statistical evidence that passive smoking caused lung cancer.
On March 9th the World Health Organization responded to the UK Sunday Telegraph with a press release of their own. Headlined as PASSIVE SMOKING DOES CAUSE LUNG CANCER, DO NOT LET THEM FOOL YOU.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been publicly accused of suppressing information. Its opponents say that WHO has withheld from publication its own report that was aimed at but supposedly failed to scientifically prove that there is an association between passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and a number of diseases, lung cancer in particular. Both statements are untrue.
The study in question is a case-control study on the effects of ETS on lung cancer risk in European populations, which has been carried out over the last seven years by 12 research centres in 7 European countries under the leadership of WHO's cancer research branch -- the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
The results of this study, which have been completely misrepresented in recent news reports, are very much in line with the results of similar studies both in Europe and elsewhere: passive smoking causes lung cancer in non-smokers.
...In February 1998, according to usual scientific practice, a paper reporting the main study results was sent to a reputable scientific journal for consideration and peer review. That is why the full report is not yet publicly available.
..."IARC is proud of the careful scientific work done by the European scientific team responsible for this study", commented Dr Paul Kleihues, the Agency's director. "We are very concerned about the false and misleading statements recently published in the mass media.
...All WHO Press Releases, Fact Sheets and Features as well as other information on this subject can be obtained on Internet on the WHO home page
You should be aware that the web page where this WHO press release is supposed to be located
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-1998/en/pr98-29.html no longer hosted this press release. This all that was on the page.
This page cannot be found
The page or file you are trying to access cannot be found. This is because the web address is incorrect or the file has been moved or deleted.
I could not find their press release hosted anywhere else on the web. I only knew that the press release existed because reference was made to it in a March 14th, 1998 Lancet article. Locating the press releases url was difficult in itself, although it initially proved fruitless due to the press release being deleted, it did help in the end. Because I had found the url address, I was able to search cached web crawler data from 1998 and view a screenshot of the press release, which is presented above for you to read.
I found the results of the peer reviewed journal mentioned in the WHO press release.
In October of 1998 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published this article about the WHO/IARC study. The article is titled Multicenter case-control study of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in Europe.
They concluded.
We found no increased risk for childhood exposure, a result consistent with most of the available data. The risk from ever exposure to spousal ETS was consistent with the combined available evidence from European studies, but it was lower than some previous estimates... There was also a nonsignificant dose–response relationship with duration of exposure... Dose–response relationships were more consistent and risks were higher, although in most cases they were not statistically significant...
This National Cancer Institute study used all of the data manipulative techniques described earlier to try to obtain significance. It is clear that the BAT press release was telling the truth. The World Health Organization press release made claims that turned out to be bold faced lies. The attempt to delete evidence of lies may be why they deleted it.
BAT revealing the study in March caused a lot of anger in those who were seeking political control through “scientific” justifications. In November, events culminated to ensure that the tobacco industry would not be able to expose science that disagreed with the World Health Organization's official statement ever again.
Do you remember this statement from an earlier WHO publication “The $206 billion multi-state settlement achieved in the USA in November 1998”. They are referring to the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). While we are told of the financial penalty of $206 billion, the tobacco companies also had to reimburse the prosecution against themselves, totaling $1,250 million in litigation fees. The $206,000 million dollars was divided 56 ways. It included all 50 states, Washington D.C. and all of the federal territories. While 54 of the suing parties split 75%, 2 of the parties got to split 25% of the money. Those two states were California and New York. These two states have a long history of challenging the U.S. Constitution. The MSA even forbade the tobacco companies from arguing for Constitutional protection as can be seen here.
From the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement
Each Participating Manufacturer agrees that following State-Specific Finality in a Settling State it will not initiate, or cause to be initiated, a facial challenge against the enforceability or constitutionality of such Settling State's (or such Settling State's political subdivisions') statutes, ordinances and administrative rules relating to tobacco control enacted prior to June 1, 1998
and here
Each Participating Manufacturer further acknowledges that it understands that certain provisions of this Agreement may require it to act or refrain from acting in a manner that could otherwise give rise to state or federal constitutional challenges and that...it...waives for purposes of performance of this Agreement any and all claims that the provisions of this Agreement violate the state or federal constitutions.
Included in the settlement were many other unprecedented demands.
For instance, the tobacco companies had to destroy their research centers.
The Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A. Inc...shall ...cease all operations and be dissolved in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.
The Tobacco Institute, Inc...shall...cease all operations and be dissolved in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.
the Center for Indoor Air Research, Inc. (“C1AR") shall cease all operations and be dissolved in a manner consistent with applicable law.
They are then given many limitations and extra measures that they must do if any future research is carried out. Including provisions against their motivations for research, how money can be spent for research, they would also have to provide all of the meetings minutes that discussed testing to the government. All of the data and results of their research would likewise have to be handed over. In addition, all of their data from the preexisting research centers was to be preserved for the government to go through.
The MSA forbade the Tobacco Institute from releasing anything about tobacco to the press.
No public statement Except as necessary in the course of litigation defense as set forth in section (e) above, upon court approval of a plan of dissolution, neither TI nor any of its employees or agents acting in their official capacity on behalf of TI will issue any statements, press releases, or other public statement concerning tobacco.
What research were they wanting to gag?
The 1997 proposed settlement was not as strict on the tobacco companies' research, press and constitutional rights. All of these new amendments in the 1998 settlement proposal came a few months after the World Health Organization's secondhand smoke study was discovered by BAT, a study that most likely was not going to be released until BAT forced its hand by notifying the press. After the MSA forced the tobacco companies to release their documents, the World Health Organization immediately spent great effort reading through them trying to uncover how BAT obtained the results for the IARC study. They finally found the information they were looking for and changed their policies to ensure it would not happen again.
From the July 2000 WHO publication Tobacco Company Strategies to Undermine Tobacco Control Activities at the World Health Organization.
Industry officials successfully established contacts with the IARC investigators and funded and publicized research designed to cast doubt on the validity of the IARC study. Through their contacts with IARC investigators and collaborators, the tobacco companies were able to gain a great deal of information about the design, conduct, and analysis of the study, as well as information on preliminary results. Some of this information was intended to be kept confidential.
The publication then listed several recommendations to counteract this type of leak to tobacco companies or the media from happening again.
IARC should develop written guidelines for IARC investigators and collaborators about handling contacts by tobacco companies or organizations substantially controlled by tobacco companies, and for disclosing information about ongoing trials. IARC should consider including in the guidelines prospective rules about what information from ongoing studies is publicly available and what is confidential.
IARC and WHO should consider a policy of embargoing information about the results of tobacco-related studies, e.g., through annual reports and bulletins, until the full report is ready for release
If IARC initiates a monograph on ETS, it should ask all potential participants and observers to disclose any ties to the tobacco industry. Individuals who are, or have been recently, employed by the tobacco industry as consultants or otherwise should not be included as voting members of the monograph working group.
It is apparent that the World Health Organization will not tolerate any information to be released, unless they approve it for release. I do not expect to see any “scientific” health study, from 1999 or later, that concludes anything differently from the World Health Organization's official policy. From an earlier citation, here is their official policy.
Ultimately, the goal of...all tobacco control, is to change the society’s culture..to transform the society’s culture—from one that tolerates tobacco as a legal product used by people exercising supposedly free “choice,” to one that rejects tobacco as a deadly and highly addictive product that injures not only tobacco users, but also their families, innocent bystanders and society as a whole.
Let's look at this free-choice vs. injures bystanders argument a little closer. The only argument suggested by WHO resources to counter people, who claim the right to smoke, is to point out the rights of non-smokers. According to them, this claim is justified as second hand smoke is proven to be dangerous. Regardless of the IARC study that proved secondhand smoke is not dangerous, they often cite the Surgeon General to back up their position. This quote comes from The 2006 Report of the Surgeon General titled The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke
The scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Of course we don't often see the common dissenting opinion, expressed even among anti tobacco activists who believe the party line, but also care about being taken seriously. This comes from an article in Tobacco Control titled Banning smoking outdoors is seldom ethically justifiable published in 2000.
it would seem certain that for some rare individuals with exquisite sensitivity, an acute exposure at such a level might precipitate an adverse episode. Similar claims are sometimes made about a large range of environmental agents, but in general public policy is not based on cocooning such people from exposures that are inconsequential to nearly everyone.
I want to point out the extreme danger that the argument of non smoker's rights has. If we allow a government to enact laws that prohibit us from doing something because it could possibly affect the health of someone else, we open a Pandora's box of possible new legislation. Car exhaust contains carcinogens, so they could ban internal combustion engines. Burning wood releases carcinogens, so campfires and wood stoves could become banned. Not being vaccinated endangers public health, so vaccines could become mandatory. While they have yet to directly attack the right of the individual to make a choice for himself, they do attack your rights to make decisions with your own family.
From Goldstein AO. Is exposure to secondhand smoke child abuse? Yes. Annals of Family Medicine 2015;13(2):103–4.
Our task as medical professionals is clear: given the number of lives at risk, medical and public health communities must accelerate their efforts to protect children from exposure to secondhand smoke...our perception of secondhand smoke as a form of child abuse reflects a paradigm shift. As our understanding of the harms of secondhand smoke increases, so does our responsibility to advocate for those involuntarily placed in harm’s way. Today, parents who willfully and continually expose their children to secondhand smoke are committing child abuse. We must intervene to stop this abuse.
While Adam Goldstein reported None under Conflicts of Interest for this peer-reviewed journal article. I found some conflicts during a brief search of his name. From a 2014 article northcarolinahealthnews
For nearly 20 years, he’s been the guy showing the world how tobacco use in the media turns kids onto smoking and dipping...Goldstein said he was under a lot of pressure by his peers in research to forgo practicing family medicine and focus on tobacco investigations...Goldstein set out to change the culture of smoking in North Carolina too.
And here fda.gov as well here projectreporter.nih.gov we see he is is awarded $3,538,066 from the NIH to conduct research on how the Center for Regulatory Research on Tobacco Communication can use communication science to improve messages about the FDA's regulatory authority over tobacco products and emerging tobacco products. He is clearly a biased doctor with a strong tendency towards activism. He also receives a lot of money to convince people that tobacco legislation is needed, and that it is the government's duty to regulate it. If he doesn't reveal Conflicts of Interest in peer reviewed medical journals, his honesty as a reliable source is called into question. He definitely is an unreliable source to use as a basis for legislation.
When I was a child my father would sit with us around the campfire and smoke his pipe while telling stories. Being exposed to the occasional whiff of tobacco smoke was not abuse. Neither was the occasional drift of much more concentrated smoke from the campfire. I have heard of emotional neglect being described as abuse, but this overly dramatic claim of abuse due to secondhand smoke not only undermines a child's image of their parents, it also teaches them to identify as a victim. I would much rather have fond memories of my father telling stories with his pipe, than feel like he was abusing me when he smoked. Attacking someone's concern for their child's health, due to smoke that is diluted beyond the point of invisibility, is unwarranted character assassination. To suggest that it is child abuse and grounds for prosecution is an assault on the parents and the family. These officially titled and degree carrying extremists are blinded by their faith in WHO's phony science, and they behave more like a cult member than a person of education.
Knowing that this policy comes from those whose intent is to manage the vast populations of the world, it should be obvious that the effects on your life, family and children are of no concern to them. What is important to them is the ability to convince people that it is in their interests, thereby creating an ability to defend their position, and a justification for the loss of our individual and family rights. It is also good to keep in mind the general principle of how people are controlled. When we are children living in our parent's house, we have to do as our parents say, go to bed when they say, ask permission to leave the house, eat when and what they say, and otherwise do as we are told. The same thing happens on a larger scale in our society. When we accept socialized healthcare, welfare and other handouts, our life soon comes to be dependent on the government. They become our daddy, and we give up our responsibilities and our ability to make our own decisions. When our schools accept federal grants or subsidies, they are forced to follow policies from the federal government. If a school board and superintendent want the “free” money, they follow federal directions in order to collect their checks. The laws placed on you are only disguised as being for you, in reality they are about control and power. Perhaps it is best to review this earlier statement by the World Health Organization, “We may also mention the possibility of reducing the disability allowances of patients who show that they are incapable of giving up the consumption of a product...it must be admitted that these individuals are not entirely free in their choice.”
We can now attempt to understand what is happening to our children when they go to school and are educated in this political doctrine. Here is an example from the time period just before it became taboo for the press to mention anything that may inhibit the anti-tobacco formation of beliefs by children.
From US News and World Report June 16 1997 “Don't Listen To Miranda” by John Leo.
Parents: Be on the lookout for Miranda, the toucan. She shows up in Here's Looking at You, 2000, a health curriculum used in several thousand public schools. Because she knows that parents can't be trusted, Miranda encourages children to check the family cupboards for "poisons," including alcohol or tobacco. The busybody curriculum also urges them to confess "problems at home" by writing secret messages to the teacher.
New York has been at the forefront of anti-tobacco campaigns for a long time. While tobacco control legislation is not the same across the nation, if you want to know what the dystopian future may be like for your child, their news is a good place to look. Here is an article from 1993 about the “Zero Tolerance” for smokers in Chautauqua County New York tobaccocontrol
Students caught smoking in school would now be petitioned to appear before the Chautauqua county board either in person or with an attorney. If found guilty, they would receive penalties in the form of fines, community service, and mandated smoking cessation classes.
So much for the innocent act of sneaking a smoke as a teen. This seems like a good policy if you want to label someone a criminal. I don't think that the child would be excused from school to do community service,or take smoking cessation classes, that would surely come from the time you have with your child. Children are not allowed to get jobs, so the fines would really be against the parents. Are schools working with and for parents, or are they really institutions designed to indoctrinate children, and to identify and condition the non-compliant to become future inmates for the prison system? The prison/school comparison is nothing new, and with the prevalence of cameras, police, metal detectors, fences and guard houses at exits this is no surprise.
