Nieuw anti-onderzoek ter ondersteuning zwart-wit aanpak
Alweer slaan de anti-rokenonderzoekers op de Universiteit van Minnesota toe.
Gingen ze pas geleden in een casino onderzoek de fout in, nu wordt op Fox News door Steven Milloy (schrijver van Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams) aangetoond dat ze niet hebben onderzocht wat ze beweren te hebben gevonden.
Onderwerp van dit onderzoek: lopen rokers die minder gaan roken minder kans op longkanker?
De onderzoekers maten bepaalde stoffen in de urine van rokers die tot 75% minder gingen roken en constateerden dat de hoeveelheden van deze stoffen nauwelijks afnamen. Conclusie: minder roken helpt niet….
As the smokers reduced the number of cigarettes smoked per day, statistically significant reductions in the levels of urinary NNAL and NNAL-Gluc were reported by the researchers.
“However, the observed decreases were generally modest, always proportionally less than the reductions in cigarettes smoked per day, and sometimes transient,” noted the researchers. Reducing the number of cigarettes smoked per day, whether by 50 percent or by 75 percent, reportedly only reduced urinary levels of NNAL and NNAL-Gluc by about 30 percent.
The researchers suggested that the comparatively small reduction in urinary levels of NNAL and NNAL-Gluc compared to the reduction in cigarettes smoked per day may be due to the smokers’ “compensation” ― that is, dragging longer and harder on every cigarette.
“The results indicate that some smokers may benefit from reduced smoking, but for most the effects are modest,” concluded the researchers.
The University of Minnesota group, led by anti-tobacco activist-researcher Stephen Hecht (search), thereby teed up the study for its real purpose ― a broader attack on the notion of “harm reduction” with respect to tobacco use.
[…]
The University of Minnesota study was accompanied by a Journal of the National Cancer Institute editorial hailing its results and concluding that there are “certainly insufficient data to support the practice of encouraging smokers to pursue reduced smoking as a harm reduction strategy.”
That statement is demonstrably false.
Anyone who knows anything about the research on smoking and health ― and presumably that would include the authors of the study and editorial ― knows that the risk of smoking-related disease increases with the number of cigarettes smoked.
[…]
The University of Minnesota study does not change this fact for at least two reasons: (1) the researchers did not study the impact of reduced smoking on health and so cannot claim that it has no effect on health; and (2) what they did study (urinary levels of the NNK metabolites) may not even be biologically related to cancer risk in smokers and so may be utterly meaningless in terms of health consequences.
The condemnation of harm reduction on the basis of this study is so unjustified as to be blatantly dishonest. Lying to smokers about the health effects of smoking less is simply despicable ― and isn’t that one of the anti-tobacco activists’ primary criticisms of the tobacco industry?
Many people are going to smoke no matter what. Rather than accept and work within this reality to reduce the consequences of such smoking, the anti-tobacco industry is taking an “our way (tobacco prohibition) or the highway (more smoking-related disease)” approach.
It’s a disturbing attitude that seems to be driven more by a blind hatred of the tobacco industry than concern for the health of smokers.
Kortom, het is stoppen of niet-stoppen geblazen. Vermindering past niet in de ideologie van de anti-rokers. En onderzoekers voeren graag wat junk-science uit om dat te bewijzen.
Gelukkig zijn er nog mensen die deze junk-science doorzien…
