FOREST daagt Engelse regering uit
De Engelse regering moet maar eens, door instelling van een onafhankelijke commissie van experts, aantonen dat het bewijs voor de schadelijkheid van omgevingsrook boven elke twijfel verheven is. De rokersorganisatie FOREST daagt hiermee de Engelse regering uit om keihard bewijs te leveren voor de basis van een rookverbod voor de horeca.
“The truth is that the dozens of studies conducted around the world over the past 25 years fail spectacularly to yield any reliably stable, uniform or statistically significant link between lifetime exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in non-smokers.”
The group, publishing its report Smoking Out The Truth: A Challenge to the Chief Medical Officer, also called on Health Secretary John Reid to set up an independent panel of experts to assess the scientific evidence on passive smoking.
But anti-smoking campaigners condemned FOREST’s claims on passive smoking as “nonsense”
Forest president Lord Harris of High Cross said the smoking bans being proposed were based on scientific studies that had failed “spectacularly” to establish any significant link between passive smoking and ill health.
Launching the report at the House of Lords, Lord Harris said: “Proposals to ban smoking in all public places would be understandable if they were based on incontrovertible scientific evidence of harm to others.
“But this is very far from the truth.
“The truth is that the dozens of studies conducted around the world over the past 25 years fail spectacularly to yield any reliably stable, uniform or statistically significant link between lifetime exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in non-smokers.”
Lord Harris said anti-smoking groups displayed “a cavalier contempt for the serious discipline of epidemiology which studies the relative risks of various diseases with a single identifiable cause”.
“Instead, these passive thinkers follow a strict party line, twisting and stretching their calculations beyond breaking point.”
Lord Harris said in particular, he was challenging Sir Liam to face up to several key questions.
“These included claims that smoking bans were an economic success and the reliability of measurement of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.
“Instead of more propaganda, I am suggesting a temperate and civilised discussion on how far we can narrow the important differences between us.
“At the same time, I am formally inviting the embattled Secretary of State for Health, Dr John Reid, to help inform the debate by appointing an independent, expert panel to establish and publicise the true facts about so-called passive smoking and how they compare with other risk factors inherent in everyday living,” the peer added.
