Let’s Talk… As Joan Rivers was wont to say.
But really, let’s have a nice chat about the fact that our whole planet seems to have descended into lunacy!
Yesterday I noticed an interesting article the SOTT editors picked up:
Brain cells work differently than previously thought: Nicotine helps to spark creativity
which tells us:
Increasingly, studies are beginning to show that complex information processing, and perhaps consciousness itself, may result from coordinated activity among many parts of the brain connected by bundles of long axons. Cognitive problems may occur when these areas don’t communicate properly with each other. […]
Using nicotine, they stimulated the axon to determine how it would affect a signal the brain cell sent to the cortex. Without applying nicotine, about 35 percent of the messages sent by the brain cell reached the cortex. But when nicotine was applied to the axon, the success rate nearly doubled to about 70 percent.
Nicotine DOUBLES the efficiency of our thinking. Hmmm… I think that makes it pretty clear why the PTB (Powers That Be) wish to stamp out smoking. After all, as one comment to the article mentioned, “if our immunity to emotional manipulation and psychopathic propaganda is directly proportional to the cortical control we can exert over the knee-jerk emotional reactions programmed into the amygdala. If smoking can DOUBLE the effective communication between the cortex and other parts of the brain, then what does that say about efforts to do away with smoking in the general population? Can’t have any of the hysterical sheeple accidentally waking up and thinking rationally about their actions.”
How true.
One only has to consider the History of Smoking Bans;
Throughout history smoking bans and prohibitions introduced by despots and totalitarian regimes have come and gone. The most recent in Europe prior to the introduction of Ireland’s repressive smoking legislation were the anti smoking laws of the Third Reich, introduced by the Nazi’s during their brief but devastating regime in Germany.
Despite some harsh punishments throughout the decades for those disobeying smoking bans including death, smoking and smokers have continued to thrive. Below are some of the failed smoking bans and prohibitions introduced throughout the ages including the proliferation of bans revoked after the failure of prohibition in America.
1575: Mexico: The first recorded passing of legislation prohibiting the use of Tobacco occurs when the Roman Catholic Church passes a law which prohibits smoking in any place of worship throughout the Spanish Colonies
1600s: World-wide Popes ban smoking in holy places and all places of worship. Pope Urban VIII (1623-44) threatens excommunication for those who smoke or take snuff in holy places.
1612: China Royal decree forbids the use and cultivation of tobacco
1617: Mongolia Mongolian Emperor prohibits the use of tobacco. People breaking the law face the death penalty.
1620: Japan bans the use of tobacco
1632: America The first recorded smoking ban in America occurs when Massachusetts introduces a ban on smoking in public places
1633: Turkey: Sultan Murad IV bans smoking and as many as 18 people a day are executed for breaking his law.
1634: Russia Czar Alexis bans smoking. Those found guilty of a first offence risk whipping, a slit nose, and exile to Siberia. Those found guilty of a second offence face execution.
1634: Greece The Greek Church bans the use of tobacco claiming tobacco smoke was responsible for intoxicating Noah.
1638: China The use and supply of tobacco is made a crime punishable by decapitation for those convicted
1639: America Governor Kieft of New Amsterdam beats Bloomberg by hundreds of years and bans smoking in New Amsterdam later to become New York.
1640: Bhutan The founder of modern Bhutan, Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal introduces that countries first smoking ban outlawing the use of tobacco in government buildings.
1647: America People are only allowed to smoke once a day and public smoking is prohibited in Connecticut
1650: Italy Pope Innocent X’s issues a decree against smoking in St Peter’s, Rome
1657: Switzerland Smoking prohibition introduced throughout Switzerland
1674: Russia Death penalty introduced for the crime of smoking.
1683: America First laws in America passed prohibiting smoking outdoors in Massachusetts. Philadelphia follows suit introducing fines for offenders.
1693: England First recorded ban in England introduced prohibiting smoking in certain areas of the chambers of parliament
* Smoking bans and prohibitions became rare during the 18th and 19th century. Trade in tobacco became an important source of revenue for monarchs and leaders and tobacco bans were revoked. Even the Pope not to be left out opened a tobacco factory in 1779.
1719: France Smoking is banned with the exception of a number of provinces.
1818: USA Smoking is banned on the streets of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The mayor is fined when he becomes the first man to break the law.
1840: USA Smoking is banned in Boston
1893: USA Washington State introduces legislation banning the sale and consumption of cigarettes
1898: USA Total ban on cigarettes in the state of Tennessee
1900: USA The sale of cigarettes is now outlawed in the states of Washington, Iowa, Tennessee and North Dakota
1904: USA A women is sent to jail for 30 days by a New York judge for smoking in front of her children.
1905: USA Indiana introduces a total cigarette ban
1907: USA Washington passes legislation banning the manufacture, sale, exchange or giving away cigarettes, cigarette paper or wrappers
1914: USA Smoking banned in the US Senate
1922: USA 15 States now have laws banning the sale, manufacture, possession and use of cigarettes
Hitler was a fervent anti smoker and a crusader for the anti-smoking cause. He personally funded research into the dangers of smoking and little wonder those results given the nature of his regime tended to support his assertions that smoking was an evil the Aryan race must be rid of. Many of the studies carried out during the Third Reich are the basis for the arguments put forward today by those seeking the imposition of repressive smoking bans.
Hitler once stated that tobacco was “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man” Under the Nazi’s the Bureau Against the Dangers of Alcohol and Tobacco was established in 1939 followed in 1942 by the Institute for the Struggle against the dangers of Tobacco. Nazi’s were the first to coin the term “passive smoking”
Under the Nazi regime the German people had imposed on them the most comprehensive set of tobacco regulations and restrictions seen in any modern nation to that date. Hitler himself took particular interest in this area often personally overseeing the drafting and implementation of anti smoking policy.
Bans And Restrictions in Nazi Germany
* The Luftwaffe banned smoking in 1938.
* The German Post office introduced.it’s own ban
* Smoking was barred in many workplaces, government offices, hospitals,and rest homes.
* The NSDAP (National sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) announced a ban on smoking in its offices in 1939
* SS chief Heinrich Himmler announced a smoking ban for all uniformed police and SS officers while on duty in 1939
* Hermann Goering’s bans soldiers from smoking on the streets, on marches, and while taking rest periods.
* Sixty of Germany’s largest cities banned smoking on street cars in 1941.
* Smoking was banned in air raid shelters. Some provided separate rooms for smokers
* Tobacco coupons were denied to any woman who was pregnant
* Blanket smoking bans were introduced in many cafes, bars and restaurants
* Women below the age of 25 were banned from smoking
* Restaurants and cafes were barred from selling cigarettes to all female customers
* In July 1943 it became illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to smoke in public.
* Smoking was banned on all German city trains and buses in 1944. This initiative coming from Hitler himself,who was worried about exposure of young female conductors to tobacco smoke.
1973: America
Arizona becomes the first state in the current wave of smoking bans to pass a comprehensive law restricting smoking in public places.
And the march continues:
New York Council Seeks New Ban on Smoking by Parents in Cars
More control: L.A. City Council votes to outlaw smoking at municipal parks
Non-smoking candidates only for Malaysia’s Islamic party
N.H. prohibits smoking in bars and restaurants
Dutch smoking ban to cover coffee shops
WHO urges smoking ban in public places
Beverly Hills Considers Outdoor Smoking Ban
Beijing considers ban on smoking near Olympic venues
Now drivers face ban on smoking at the wheel
European Union mulls continentwide public smoking ban
Belmont to be first U.S. city to ban all smoking
UK Couple Face Smoking Probe In Their Own House
But, just because the march is on to ban smoking among the common people, don’t think that those imposing the laws on the rest of us really take this stuff seriously.
Smoking banned in DC, but not in Congress
WASHINGTON – WHEN the citywide smoking ban takes effect here next month, at least one workplace in town will be spared: Congress, the beneficiary of a kind of diplomatic immunity for federal lawmakers. … Because while the rest of the country has turned against smoking with great zeal, Congress has stubbornly — some would say proudly — refused to bend. … even in states that ban smoking altogether in public places, there have been tobacco tussles around statehouses, which are mostly subject to the lawmakers and not the laws. … A confluence of more potent cultural and demographic forces seems to be at play on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers indulging in a familiar hubris.
“Congress generally has rules for us and rules for them, and the rules for them are very often more pleasant than the rules for us,” Mr. Buckley said.
But not only the U.S. Congress!
European Parliament Abandons Smoking Ban
The European Parliament has abandoned it’s smoking ban after only 43 days. The ban was introduced last month at the parliament’s two buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg. However, MEP’s and staff infuriated by the removal of their ’smoking area’s began smoking everywhere in the buildings and forced the abandonment of the ban.
The reversal of the ban is a major blow to anti smoking fanatics who have been fiercely lobbying European parliamentarians to introduce an EU wide smoking ban. The collapse of the ban follows open revolt by legislators and workers in the European Parliament buildings. One English MEP said “I have been ignoring it since January 1 and I have smoked in more places than before. I don’t want to be told by the PC people what I can and cannot do,”
The parliament can hardly now expect EU citizens to obey silly smoking ban laws when they themselves, the legislators have utterly ignored, flouted and abandoned their own prohibition. The Anti smoking lobby admit this to be the case with a spokesperson Deborah Arnott of ASH describing the abandonment of the ban as “scandalous” and stating “it makes a mockery of the commissions proposals for an EU-wide smoking ban”
And then, there is this:
Do you suppose that our “Fearless Leaders” know something we don’t? Or at least, they hope we won’t pay attention to the research and ask any questions? Things like:
Study finds smoking wards off Parkinson’s disease
There is more evidence to back up a long-standing theory that smokers are less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than people who do not use tobacco products, researchers reported on Monday. … What would cause such a preventive effect is not well understood, said the report in the Archives of Neurology, but studies on test animals suggested two possibilities.
One is that carbon monoxide or other agents in tobacco smoke exert a protective effect and promote survival of brain neurons that produce dopamine, which allows muscles to move properly and is lacking in Parkinson’s cases.
Cigarettes may also somehow prevent the development of toxic substances that interfere with proper neurological functioning.
Gee, that reference to carbon monoxide reminds me of something mentioned by psychologist, Andrzej Lobaczewski:
Persons less distinctly inclined in the pathocratic direction include those affected by some states caused by the toxic activities of certain substances such as ether, carbon monoxide, and possibly some endotoxins, under the condition that this occurred in childhood. (Political Ponerology)
And more:
Smoking and Caffeine May Protect Against Parkinson’s Disease
Nicotine helps Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Patients
Nicotine Found To Protect Against Parkinson’s-like Brain Damage
Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers
Scientists Identify Brain Regions Where Nicotine Improves Attention, Other Cognitive Skills
Then, of course, there is this interesting material that I assembled some years ago:
Can Smoking be GOOD for SOME People?
Just in case you really think that the government is going after smoking for YOUR GOOD, think again. There are many studies that suggest that the problems that are being blamed on cigarettes may have entirely different causes that governments and big business are very interested in covering up. Just consider the following:
Doctor’s studies links dairy to cancer risk
Now, keep in mind that the government is fully behind the dairy industry and milk is freely advertised and drunk in public places!
Then there’s this: More Dangerous Than Smoking? Death by Soda
Drinking one soda a day could cause you to gain 15 pounds a year. Other related health risks include type 2 diabetes, heart disease, bowel cancer and nerve damage. …
The marketing firms that barrage consumers with ads for their mouth-watering soft drinks hope to encourage you to drink more of their harmful products, not less of them. Indeed they have a financial incentive to do so. Their annual revenues are billions of dollars. To protect their interests, as Prof. Marion Nestle of NYU notes, the soda industry shells out tons of money to convince people to consume their products in mass quantities. In the late 1990s, Coca-Cola spent about $1.6 billion dollars in global marketing, with over $850 million spent in the United States alone. With that kind of lavish spending, it is little wonder why Coca-Cola is such a household name. Clearly, those who advocate for cutting down on the consumption of SSBs because of their negative health impacts are up against a very well financed opposition — not unlike the anti-smoking activists who take on the shenanigans and deceit of Big Tobacco.
What the author of the above article doesn’t seem to know is that there are many health benefits of nicotine and smoking in general, as mentioned above. After all, you can’t get the carbon dioxide that wards off Parkinson’s from a nicotine patch.
There are other ignorant claims being made about smoking and periodontal disease: Smoking Nearly Doubles Root Canal Requirements.
What seems to be far more dangerously related to periodontal disease – a symptom of deeper systemic issues – is gluten.
Effect of gluten-dependent coeliac disease on the condition of oral cavity and teeth in children
Another thing to consider if you have dental problems: Stress may leave your mouth a mess
A literature review published in the August issue of the Journal of Periodontology (JOP) saw a strong relationship between stress and periodontal diseases; 57% of the studies included in the review showed a positive relationship between periodontal diseases and psychological factors such as stress, distress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness. …
Researchers speculate that the hormone cortisol may play a role in the possible connection between stress and periodontal diseases. A study in the July issue of the JOP found that increased levels of cortisol can lead to increased destruction of the gums and jaw bone due to periodontal diseases. It is well known that periodontal diseases, left untreated, can ultimately lead to bone loss or tooth loss.
Meanwhile, of course, the actions of the current administration seem to be designed to increase stress, what with all the “terror mongering” and the collapsing economy due to Bush’s lies about WMDs that led us into Iraq. I think Bush should be banned everywhere. He is way more toxic than smoking!
And by the way, since we have brought it up, you should know that Gluten is implicated in many more problems than smoking!
Sensitivity To Gluten May Result In Neurological Dysfunction; Independent Of Symptoms
Food Cravings, Obesity and Gluten Consumption
Grain-based foods simply do not offer the nutrients necessary to human health and they damage the human body. USDA and Canada Food Guides notwithstanding, if people eat grain-laden diets, they may develop symptoms of celiac disease (but in most cases, without the diagnostic intestinal lesion). …
I want to suggest a two faceted, alternative explanation which may extend to a large and growing segment of the overweight and obese among the general population. As mentioned earlier, anyone consuming enough gluten will demonstrate some symptoms of celiac disease. If large scale gluten consumption damages the intestinal villi – but to a lesser degree than is usually required to diagnose celiac disease – fat absorption will be compromised. Deficiencies in essential fatty acids are a likely consequence. …
Poor medical advice also contributes to the problem. The mantra of reduced fat continues to echo in the offices of health professionals despite a growing body of converse research findings. In February of this year, the results of a powerful, eight year study of almost 49,000 women showed little difference between the health of women consuming low fat diets when compared to those consuming normal diets8. Alarmingly, this low fat diet seems to have resulted in weight gain, a well recognized risk factor for a variety of diseases.
The Age of Autism: Gluten clue from Case 2
…parents have found that a so-called GF/CF diet — one free of gluten-containing grains and casein-containing dairy products — helps clear up both behavioral issues and physical maladies like disrupted intestinal tracks. The grains in question are cereals — gluten is a protein in wheat, rye, barley and most oats.
Considering the fact that obesity (and related problems) is now considered to be the number 1 health risk, take a look at another very serious poison in our food supply that is not being addressed by our oh, so protective Big Brother government that doesn’t want us to smoke: The link between monosodium glutamate (MSG) and obesity:
Like aspartame, MSG is an excitotoxin, a substance that overexcites neurons to the point of cell damage and, eventually, cell death. Humans lack a blood-brain barrier in the hypothalamus, which allows excitotoxins to enter the brain and cause damage, according to Dr. Russell L. Blaylock in his book Excitotoxins. According to animal studies, MSG creates a lesion in the hypothalamus that correlates with abnormal development, including obesity, short stature and sexual reproduction problems.
Based on this evidence, Dr. Blaylock makes an interesting point about the American obesity epidemic, especially among young people: “One can only wonder if the large number of people having difficulty with obesity in the United States is related to early exposure to food additive excitotoxins, since this obesity is one of the most consistent features of the syndrome. One characteristic of the obesity induced by excitotoxins is that it doesn’t appear to depend on food intake. This could explain why some people cannot diet away their obesity.” …
Olney, J.W. “Brain Lesions, Obesity, and Other Disturbances in Mice Treated with Monosodium glutamate.” Sci. 165(1969): 719-271. Humans also lack a blood-brain barrier in the hypothalamus, even as adults. It is for this reason that Dr. Olney and other neuroscientists are so concerned about the widespread and heavy use of excitotoxins, such as MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and cysteine, as food additives. In his experiments Dr. Olney found that high-dose exposure to MSG caused hypoplasia of the adenohypophysis of the pituitary and of the gonads, in conjunction with low hypothalamic, pituitary, and plasma levels of LH, growth hormone, and prolactin. When doses below toxic levels for hypothalamic cells were used, he found a rapid elevation of LH and a depression of the pulsatile output of growth hormone. In essence, these excitotoxins can cause severe pathophysiological changes in the central endocrine control system. Many of these dysfunctional changes can occur with subtoxic doses of MSG. One can speculate that chronic exposure to these neurotoxins could cause significant alterations in the function of the hypothalamus, including its non-endocrine portions. Excitotoxins by Russell L Blaylock MD, page 263
Speaking of aspartame, another substance a hundred times more evil than smoking: Peddling Poison – Bitter battle in sweeteners
Diet products “boost appetite”
“Aspartame, commonly known as the sweetener NutraSweet, is a neuro-stimulant linked with stimulating appetite, so it can make you hungry,” Prof Dingle, associate professor in health and the environment at Murdoch University, said.
Diet food ‘may fuel obesity risk’
Diet foods for children may inadvertently lead to overeating and obesity, say researchers.
In tests on young rats, animals given low-calorie versions of foods were induced to overeat, whether they were lean or obese.
The researchers believe low-calorie versions of usually high-calorie foods disrupt the body’s ability to use taste to regulate calorific intake. …
Obesity is a significant risk factor for both type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and soaring rates are posing an increasing public health problem.
Aspartame Causes Cancer in Rats at Levels Currently Approved for Humans
“Our study has shown that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic compound whose carcinogenic effects are also evident at a daily dose of 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg), notably less than the current acceptable daily intake for humans,” the authors write. Currently, the acceptable daily intake for humans is set at 50 mg/kg in the United States and 40 mg/kg in Europe.” …
Aspartame is the second most widely used artificial sweetener in the world. It is found in more than 6,000 products including carbonated and powdered soft drinks, hot chocolate, chewing gum, candy, desserts, yogurt, and tabletop sweeteners, as well as some pharmaceutical products like vitamins and sugar-free cough drops. More than 200 million people worldwide consume it. The sweetener has been used for more than 30 years, having first been approved by the FDA in 1974. Studies of the carcinogenicity of aspartame performed by its producers have been negative.
MP calls for ban on ‘unsafe’ sweetener
A member of the parliamentary select committee on food and the environment yesterday called for emergency action to ban the artificial sweetener aspartame, used in 6,000 food, drink and medicinal products.
The Liberal Democrat MP Roger Williams said in an adjournment debate in the Commons that there was “compelling and reliable evidence for this carcinogenic substance to be banned from the UK food and drinks market altogether”. In licensing aspartame for use, regulators around the world had failed in their main task of protecting the public, he told MPs. …
Aspartame is now consumed on average every day by one in 15 people worldwide, most of whom are children, according to the MP. It is used to sweeten no fewer than 6,000 products, from crisps, confectionery, chewing gums, diet and sports drinks to vitamin pills and medicines, including those for children. Yet the science that supported its approval was “biased, inconclusive and incompetent”.
Holland Sweetener Company to exit from aspartame business
Gee, you don’t suppose that all these excuses cover up the fact that these guys suddenly became aware of their potential liability after the Ramazzini Study in Italy showed aspartame to be a multipotential carcinogen, peer reviewed by 7 world experts; not to mention the studies by the original manufacturer, Searle, which also showed cancer?
Betty Martini, Founder Mission Possible International, (www.wnho.net) tells us:
For years FDA and the manufacturers have tried to prevent independent studies, and Gregory Gordon who did the original UPI Investigation once wrote an article on this. http://www.dorway.com/upipaper.txt and http://www.dorway.com/upipart2.html And the studies keep coming. One in Greece shows neurological problems and memory loss. Bottom line Alzheimers. http://www.wnho.net/new_greek_aspartame_studies.htm Another in Liverpool shows aspartame interaction: http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/msg010306.cfm Actually aspartame interacts with all drugs and vaccines: http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_interacts.htm Dr. Ralph Walton’s research showed 92% of all independent peer reviewed studies show the problems aspartame causes: http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.htmlNow the FDA is obligated to recall aspartame and invoke the Delaney Amendment which says if a product produces cancer in animals it cannot be put in food. Their own FDA toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross told Congress this should have been done in the beginning. http://www.wnho.net/cancer_study_obligates_recall.htmAspartame should never have been approved, and how Don Rumsfeld got it approved when the FDA said no is told by James Turner, Atty, in the aspartame documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, www.amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. Here is the clip: http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/Rumsfeld2.html
New Mexico Begins Legislative Process To Ban Aspartame
A senate bill to rid New Mexico of what has been called “Rumsfeld’s Disease” was introduced Thursday by Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, as 15 other senators from both sides of isle also signed on, supporting legislation to ban the deadly artificial sweetener, aspartame. …
New Mexico resident and Santa Fe art gallery owner Stephen Fox has been one of the main activists pushing to raise public awareness and outlaw the use of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved additive.
Fox and many others trying to ban aspartame have for years been trying to warn unsuspecting users of the dangers, saying aspartame contains “poisonous and deadly toxins.” …
Regarding the adverse health affects from aspartame, a recent report from a highly respected international medical team has now linked the toxins in aspartame to lymphomas and leukemias.
The report by Morando Soffritti “Aspartame induces lymphomas and leukemias in rats” is in the European Journal of Oncology for July, 2005. Dr. Sofritti is a member of the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences Cancer Research Centre in Bologna, Italy. …
Since aspartame can increase obesity and may even cause the metabolic syndrome that affects 48 million Americans, there is no reason to ever consume this product. At the least, it should be immediately banned from all schools.”
At the time of the introduction of aspartame, both Rumsfeld and doctors knew that it was poisonous, that it caused cancer and a host of other illnesses, that it damaged DNA. They decided to promote it anyway.
Only now, 30 years later, some are suggesting that this poisonous substance should not be used as a staple ingredient in many food products that humans consume, all of which makes one marvel at the ‘advanced state’ of human knowledge, does it not?
Nations starting to Ban Aspartame
Both Indonesia and South Africa are leading the world in firmly moving towards prohibiting this chemical for medical reasons: aspartame is an excitotoxin and causes brain damage. The sugar substitute breaks down in the body producing 3 toxic substances: methanol (wood alcohol which can cause blindness), formaldhehyde, and diketopiperazine, which causes brain tumors. Jakarta Indy repost.
‘New’, (meaning now being reporting in MSM), fears over Aspartame
Aspartame, familiar to consumers as brand names NutraSweet and Equal, is an artificial sweetener found globally in approximately 6,000 products.
It’s contained in candy, desserts and yogurts. It’s in diet sodas and hot chocolate and those sugar-free packets for coffee and tea in restaurants. It’s also in some pharmaceutical products, like cough lozenges and vitamins. Some chewing gum is aspartame-sweetened.
At this level of saturation, it represents 62 percent of the artificial sweetener market. …
Children are considerable consumers of aspartame through Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Kool-Aid, Jell-O gelatin dessert and pudding mixes and certain Popsicles.
According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the acceptable daily intake of aspartame is equivalent to a child weighing 50 pounds drinking two cans of diet soda daily, or a 150 pound adult drinking just over seven. … the Ramazzini Foundation researchers write in their study: “On the basis of the present findings, we believe that a review of the current regulations governing the use of aspartame cannot be delayed.
“This review is particularly urgent with regard to aspartame-containing beverages, heavily consumed by children.”
The FDA says it has not yet reviewed the report. But it appears it still finds no reason to revise its opinion or advice to consumers.
Since the study’s publication, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, on its Web site Chemical Cuisine directory, has now demoted aspartame from the “use caution” category to “everyone should avoid”. It also gives thumbs down to acesulfame.
Hmmm… the FDA hasn’t reviewed the research, but sees no reason to revise its opinion?! Say what?
Well, that’s actually understandable, considering who is behind this poison being foisted on the public:
From Aspartame to Political Ponerology
In 1985 Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame’s clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it “might induce brain tumors.”
The FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld vow to “call in his markers,” to get it approved.
To read the timeline go to this link.
When Pathocrats, such as Rumsfeld, come into positions of authority and power and people don’t have the psychological understanding of psychopaths, we all suffer.
The approval of the poison Aspartame and the involvement of Rumsfeld shows a clear cut example of how psychopaths are destroying humanity. Read Political Ponerology!
Now, if all that isn’t enough to turn your stomach, I’m sorry to say that the problem is really much worse.
Scientists warn of chemicals in plastic
BPA, an estrogen-like compound used to make hard plastic, is used in polycarbonate plastic baby bottles, large water cooler containers, sports bottles, microwave oven dishes, canned food liners and some dental sealants, the Los Angeles Times said Friday.
The scientists, who reviewed about 700 studies, said people are exposed to levels of the chemical exceeding those that harm lab animals.
The warning, published online by the journal Reproductive Toxicology, was accompanied by a study from the National Institutes of Health finding uterine damage in newborn animals exposed to BPA, the newspaper
Naturally, the plastics industry dismisses this research in typical psychopathic fashion the same way the FDA dismisses the research about aspartame.
Alarm Over Gender-Bender Chemical in Household Cleaning Products
Public health advocates, environmentalists and laundry workers have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban “gender-bender” chemical additives found in some household detergents and other cleaning agents.
They’re also calling for studies on the human risks related to nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), which are known to be potent endocrine disrupters. These chemicals are already thought to be the cause of male fish transforming into females in waterways around the world.
Some believe these transformed fish may be the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, pointing toward a much larger human problem. About 250,000 fewer boys have been born in the last 30 years in the United States and Japan, and scientists are linking the phenomenon to a body accumulation of these types of gender-bending toxins.
As endocrine disrupters, NPEs affect gene expression by turning on or off certain genes, and interfere with the way your glandular system works. They mimic the female hormone estrogen, which is the reason behind some marine species switching from male to female.
Approximately 400 million pounds of NPEs are manufactured in the United States each year.
Girls entering puberty by the age of six – but are drugs the answer?
Some girls now enter puberty as early as six – with toxic chemicals widely held to blame. But are new drugs to hold back the years really the right answer? …
Doctors are increasingly worried about the number of girls – and boys – being referred to specialists because of this phenomenon of ‘precocious’ puberty.
The normal age at which puberty starts in both boys and girls has dropped by about two years since the 19th century, to 14 for boys and 12 for girls. This is largely due to improved nutrition – onset of puberty is believed to be triggered by physical size. Another theory is that the epidemic of obesity is to blame. …
Whatever the cause, growing numbers of children are being deprived of childhood and are turning, physically, into mini-adults at an increasingly young age. But without the emotional maturity to deal with these changes, they are vulnerable to exploitation.
Then, of course, our wonderful Big Brother government that doesn’t want us to smoke cigarettes that have proven health benefits, including assisting in the thinking process, continues to irradiate all of us with bizarre EM waves of all kinds:
Mobile phone company to remove mobile mast where cancer rate has soared
A mobile phone company is to remove a mast from a block of flats after seven residents were struck down by cancer.
Three have died and another four have battled the disease since two masts were erected on the roof of the five-storey block which has become known locally as the Tower of Doom.
The Hidden Dangers of Cell Phone Radiation
Every day, we’re swimming in a sea of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) produced by electrical appliances, power lines, wiring in buildings, and a slew of other technologies that are part of modern life. From the dishwasher and microwave oven in the kitchen and the clock radio next to your bed, to the cellular phone you hold to your ear – sometimes for hours each day – exposure to EMR is growing and becoming a serious health threat. …
But there’s a huge public health crisis looming from one particular threat: EMR from cellular phones – both the radiation from the handsets and from the tower-based antennas carrying the signals – which studies have linked to development of brain tumors, genetic damage, and other exposure-related conditions.1-9 Yet the government and a well-funded cell phone industry media machine continue to mislead the unwary public about the dangers of a product used by billions of people. …
Today there are more than two billion cell phone users being exposed every day to the dangers of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) – dangers government regulators and the cell phone industry refuse to admit exist. Included are: genetic damage, brain dysfunction, brain tumors, and other conditions such as sleep disorders and headaches. …
The cell phone industry is fully aware of the dangers. In fact, enough scientific evidence exists that some companies’ service contracts prohibit suing the cell phone manufacturer or service provider, or joining a class action lawsuit. Still, the public is largely ignorant of the dangers, while the media regularly trumpets new studies showing cell phones are completely safe to use. …
Originally developed for the Department of Defense, cell phones devices were never tested for safety. They entered the marketplace due to a regulatory loophole.
Questions about cell phone safety arose in the early 1990s, when a businessman filed a lawsuit alleging that cell phones caused his wife’s death due to brain cancer.
To address the questions surrounding cell phone safety, the cell phone industry set up a non-profit organization, Wireless Technology Research (WTR). Dr. George Carlo was appointed to head WTR’s research efforts.
Under Dr. Carlo’s direction, scientists found that cell phone radiation caused DNA damage, impaired DNA repair, and interfered with cardiac pacemakers.
European research confirmed Dr. Carlo’s findings. Studies suggest that cell phone radiation contributes to brain dysfunction, tumors, and potentially to conditions such as autism, attention deficit disorder, neurodegenerative disease, and behavioral and psychological problems.
The entire article linked above is a MUST READ!
Here’s another item that shows us that what the government recommends for us may very well kill us:
Mammograms, X-rays may boost breast cancer risk by 250%
“It is important to remember that 90 percent of breast cancer cases are not hereditary and that most healthy women would not need to have frequent chest X-rays, especially if in their 20s,” Breast Cancer Care’s Dr. Erin Pennery said.
The fact is that the U.S., supposedly the “greatest nation on Earth,” is rapidly sliding into oblivion in more ways than one::
US tumbles down the world ratings list for life expectancy
Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, America has dropped from 11th to 42nd place in 20 years, according to official US figures.
Dr Christopher Murray, head of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said: “Something’s wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries.” …
Jim McDermott, a Democratic Congressman, said: “Health care coverage is the single biggest domestic crisis facing America. It threatens all but the wealthiest Americans. “If you aren’t part of the richest 1%, then you know you are living one phone call, accident or illness away from financial ruin because of a medical crisis.” …
The drop is also due to improved health care, nutrition and lifestyle elsewhere in the world. Countries with longer life expectancy include most of Europe, Japan, Singapore and Jordan.
The US also has a higher infant mortality rate than many other countries: 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The worst life expectancy figures are in Africa, with Swaziland at the bottom, at 34.1 years.
The problem in the U.S. seems to be political control over science. Politics and profit margins should NEVER influence science, but that’s just the way business is done in the U.S.:
Our Assumptions About What Causes Chronic Diseases Could Be Wrong
Martha Herbert, a pediatric neurologist at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, studies brain images of children with autism. She was seeing patients one day a few years ago when a 3-year-old girl walked in with more than the usual cognitive and behavioral problems.
She was lactose intolerant, and foods containing gluten always seemed to upset her stomach. Autistic children suffer profoundly, and not just in their difficulty forming emotional bonds with family members, making friends, or tolerating minor deviations from their daily routines.
Herbert has seen many young children who’ve had a dozen or more ear infections by the time they made their way through her door, and many others — “gut kids” — with chronic diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems, including severe food allergies. Such symptoms don’t fit with the traditional explanation of autism as a genetic disorder rooted in the brain, and that was precisely what was on Herbert’s mind that day. She’s seen too many kids whose entire systems have gone haywire.
During the course of the little girl’s appointment, Herbert learned that the child’s father was a computer scientist — a bioinformatist no less, someone trained to crunch biological data and pick out patterns of interest. She shared with him her belief that autism research was overly focused on examining genes that play a role in brain development and function, to the exclusion of other factors — namely, children’s susceptibility to environmental insults, such as exposure to chemicals and toxic substances. …
DNA microarrays open the door to an entirely new way of safety-testing synthetic chemicals: Each chemical alters the pattern of gene activity in specific ways, and thus possesses a unique genetic fingerprint. If a chemical’s genetic fingerprint closely matches that of another substance already known to be toxic, there is good reason to suspect that that chemical can also do us harm.
Ultimately, government agencies charged with regulating chemicals and protecting our health could use this method, one aspect of a field called toxicogenomics, to wade through the thousands of untested or inadequately studied chemicals that circulate in our environment.
In other words, these agencies could make our world safer by identifying — and, one hopes, banning — hazardous substances. …
In response to concern that environmental exposures were affecting children’s health, the Clinton administration in 2000 launched the National Children’s Study, the largest such undertaking in the United States, under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health.
The goal was to enroll 100,000 children; a genetic biobanking component has since been added. Investigators have not yet recruited participants, in part because of financial uncertainties. The Bush administration’s 2007 budget proposal completely eliminated money for the study, though Congress reinstated funding in February.
The irony is that cutting funding for such projects may be the most expensive option of all. Even if we successfully address campaign-dominating political issues like skyrocketing medical costs and the growing ranks of the uninsured, our failure to consider the fundamental mechanisms of disease — the interplay between our genes and the environment — could still bankrupt us, socially if not financially.
The truth is that many substances have been identified as far more hazardous to human health than smoking cigarettes (without the concomitant benefits!), but they have yet to be banned. One can’t but wonder whether this is by design, given how they can affect our DNA?
So, while we have problems getting funding for research that will help us, what DOES get funded??
The timebomb diseases that scientists are breeding in our labs
The fact that a biological research laboratory was probably the source of the foot and mouth outbreak is, paradoxically, both hugely reassuring and at first sight very worrying.
Reassuring???
Reassuring because if the multinational firm Merial Animal Health Labs was responsible for the outbreak, then scientists will know exactly which strain of the virus is responsible and will have a vaccine readily available – indeed, the cause of the outbreak would have been the very foot and mouth vaccines that the scientists are producing in huge quantities. …
But the news is also worrying because it highlights the fact that huge quantities of viruses and bacteria are held in laboratories all over Britain which we have been led to believe are safe. They include germs which have the potential to cause economic devastation and much worse. …
Back in 1952, in a British germ warfare test, a cloud of pneumonic and bubonic plague germs was deliberately released over a pontoon moored off the Outer Hebrides, on which there were cages of live monkeys and rabbits. Unfortunately, a fishing trawler sailed through the cloud and, quite incredibly, its crew were allowed to pilot the boat right back to the Lancashire coast without being stopped or warned, such was the culture of Cold War secrecy at the time. Fortunately, the trawlermen were not infected.
Numerous claims have been made over the years of “escapes” by various deadly pathogens from the Ministry of Defence’s germ warfare establishment at Porton Down, where experiments on some of the most deadly pathogens and chemical weapons known to science have taken place since World War I.
Over the decades, tens of thousands of animals, including primates, have been deliberately infected with a host of ghastly diseases and have, inevitably, come into contact with hundreds of researchers, lab assistants and technicians. …
In the early 1970s, a small outbreak of smallpox followed an accidental infection of a lab worker at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. And the last human case of this horrible disease occurred after a technician was infected at Birmingham University in 1978. Today, smallpox exists in only two places, at the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) labs in Atlanta, Georgia, and Novosibirsk, Russia.
Wow! I am just SO reassured that research is being done on ways to kill people, but almost nothing is being done to figure out how to keep people healthy! Everything gets blamed on cigarettes! The fact is that the most likely cause of the diseases attributed to smoking is simply this: pollution.
10 million people at risk from pollution
More than 10 million people are at risk for lung infection, cancer and shortened life expectancy because they live in the 10 worst-polluted cities in the world, according to a report issued Wednesday.
The report published by the Blacksmith Institute, an international environmental research group, lists 10 cities in eight countries where pollution poses health risks and fosters poverty.
I think it’s a lot more than 10 million… And it is allowed because that kind of pollution is caused by big companies making more money off of the things that kill us than the tobacco companies were making. Which brings us to the money issue again. Who is making money off all this sickness (besides the obvious Military-Industrial Complex)? Why, Big Pharma, that’s who!
The alternative reality of FDA and Big Pharma
As clear-thinking people, natural health consumers sometimes look at the actions of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and wonder what planet its decision makers seem to be from. It’s like the FDA is living in a completely different world than the rest of us — a world where nutrients are dangerous, but synthetic chemicals are perfectly safe for human consumption.
In fact, the idea that FDA bureaucrats and modern medicine promoters are living in a different reality is not far from the truth. I my view, FDA decision makers have no connection with reality. They’re simply operating on a system of false beliefs and circular reasoning that justifies their efforts to protect Big Pharma profits by exploiting, misleading and directly harming the public. …
The 26 beliefs that drive modern medicine and the FDA:
1. All herbs are dangerous and might kill you.
2. Vitamins and dietary supplements are not only useless; they’re so dangerous that they should be regulated or banned.
3. The only thing more dangerous than dietary supplements is allowing the public to have access to accurate information about dietary supplements. To maintain control, the public must be kept ignorant of the medicinal uses of all substances other than patented chemicals.
4. Most diseases are caused by pharmaceutical deficiencies and can only be treated with pharmaceutical supplementation.
5. Botanicals interfere with pharmaceuticals, not the other way around. There is no such thing as a pharmaceutical that interferes with an herb.
6. Scientific progress is measured by the degree to which man dominates nature.
7. Free speech should only be protected for drug companies, not nutritional supplement companies.
8. The 300+ synthetic chemicals now found in the blood of nearly everyone are completely harmless and have no negative health effects.
9. The FDA is incapable of making mistakes, and therefore, drug companies should be granted full immunity against consumer lawsuits surrounding the injuries and deaths caused by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. It is impossible for an FDA-approved drug to cause the death of anyone, because the FDA is infallible.
10. There is no need to safety test chemicals used in cosmetics and personal care products because the skin doesn’t absorb chemicals. Unless, of course, we’re talking about transdermal drug delivery products like the anti-smoking patch, in which case the skin readily absorbs chemicals.
11. Nature cannot be trusted. All herbs must be “standardized” to be safe. And even then, they’re still useless.
12. Phytochemicals only act in isolation. Scientists can understand the physiological action of plant chemicals by isolating them, synthesizing them, and testing them one by one. There is no such thing as “synergistic action” with phytochemicals.
13. The only use for plant chemicals is to serve as ideas from which drug companies can synthesize patented drugs. Phytochemicals (phytonutrients) have no inherent value and their use for preventing, treating or curing any disease should be outlawed and stripped from modern civilization’s knowledge base.
14. Shamans, medicine women, herbalists, midwives and healers are all engaged in quackery based on superstition or voodoo.
15. There is no such thing as bioenergy, intuition, mind-body medicine, quantum physics or therapeutic touch. The entire universe operates only on the physical and chemical levels. There is nothing beyond those two levels yet to be discovered or explored.
16. We already know everything there is to know. No new discoveries are necessary, nor are any paradigm shifts in scientific medicine. It is important that we all reject any new ideas or beliefs that threaten our existing ideas or beliefs.
17. Drug corporations should be protected because they have the best interests of the general public in mind. The future health of the entire world depends on the research being conducted right now by drug companies.
18. Americans are lucky to pay the highest prices in the world for medication. Everyone else has to settle for “bargain” pricing, but Americans get the honor of knowing their dollars help fund the shareholder profits of the world’s wealthiest corporations, all of which deserve unlimited financial riches because they are saving the world from disease.
19. Drugs from Canada are so dangerous that they cannot be allowed to be touched or swallowed by superior Americans. Canadian drugs might be suitable for exporting to third world nations, but not to America.
20. The best way to help consumers is to control them by limiting their options and minimizing their access to information that might confuse them.
21. Nutrition has no role in human health. Any talk about healing with nutrition is quackery.
22. The human body is incapable of healing itself. Health can only be enhanced through chemical or surgical intervention. Patients have no role in determine their own health outcome.
23. “Science” is whatever we say it is.
24. Anything that disagrees with our definition of science is “unscientific.”
25. The “Scientific Method” is the process by which we decide what is science.
26. Conflicts of interest don’t count if we all mean well.
What’s really interesting about these beliefs is that they stand in direct conflict to reality. In reality, for example:
– The human body is naturally biocompatible with foods and medicines from nature.
– Pharmaceuticals interfere with normal human physiology and inevitably cause harm.
– Medicinal plants operate through synergistic action that cannot be understood by isolating and studying their chemical constituents.
– Nature has infinite wisdom; man remains utterly ignorant of the wisdom available in the universe.
– The universe is energetic, not merely chemical or physical, and all things are energetically connected.
– The mind controls the body; beliefs become reality in the tissue.
… and so on. We could add substantially to this list, but you get the idea. Isn’t is fortunate that the universe doesn’t operate from the FDA’s distorted viewpoint?
Oh yeah, and Big Pharma tells us: No Smoking – Unless it is the DRUGS we sell you…
The Palo Alto, California-based company is developing drugs that can be “smoked,” and, like nicotine in cigarettes, pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream almost instantly.
Investors like the idea.
Alexza’s shares have risen nearly 60 percent over the past five months, dramatically outperforming the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index, which rose 15 percent over the same period.
You really gotta read the whole story to know how sick this idea is. Drugs to zone you out delivered instantly, while a substance that helps you think more efficiently and comprehensively, Nicotine, must be eliminated from the planet. Never mind that they are poisoning us with everything else. You aren’t supposed to be able to realize that, which you might, if you were smoking.
Which brings us back to the smoking issue. Geeze, with all the alleged terrorists out there, and the stress that terrorism can produce, you’d think they’d want people to smoke a little so they can stay calm; after all, that would be a great benefit to the masses. But, nope, not a bit of it! In fact, they want you to feel LIKE A TERRORIST IF YOU SMOKE!
Anti-puffing spies to police Quebec smoking ban
Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard has acknowledged there will be “undercover” inspectors in the province’s bars and restaurants to make sure a new anti-smoking law is enforced when it comes into effect May 31.
The new legislation will ban smoking in all public indoor places, including bars and restaurants.
Some critics say the province has not hired enough inspectors to ensure compliance with the new law, but Couillard says that’s not true.
“The municipal police can also be used if the municipalities give them the authority,” he said Wednesday. “They are under their jurisdiction. They can certainly work in collaboration with the inspectors.
200 officers on prowl to enforce Liverpool smoking ban
DOZENS of council officers will patrol bars, restaurants and shops to police the smoking ban when it comes into force in July, it was revealed last night.
In Liverpool, there will be a core team of 20 to 25 staff, although around 200 staff will patrol the city’s streets, bars and clubs in the first few days after the ban.
Councils have been granted £29.5m to pay for these staff, who will be able to issue on-the-spot £50 fines to people and take court action against premises if they flout the law.
But the action has been criticised by the region’s smokers as “heavy-handed” and councils were accused of entrapment after it emerged that officers will be able to sit among drinkers undercover and covertly photograph and film people.
If nothing else, this story reveals to us the truth about the “War on Terror” – there isn’t one. The war is really on the rights and freedoms of the ordinary citizens. If there were really terrorists as Bush and Blair and others claim, they would not be paying so much attention to innocent people smoking to reduce the stress of their fears of the alleged terrorists. So, not only are you supposed to be afraid, you are not allowed to have any relief other than Prozac and Xanax and other drugs shown to be related to increased rates of violence and suicide.
Which leads us to the final thing I want to bring to your attention today: Recognising Anti-Smoking Types
In a section of his book ‘Dissecting Antismoker Brains’ Michael J McFadden deals with the different type of antismokers’ and their various personality traits and behaviours. …
1) The Innocents This group, ordinarily life long non smokers, would in general normally accept smoking and smokers as part and parcel of the world around them. However because of media coverage and exposure to anti smoking propaganda they have come to believe a health risk is posed by those smoking around them. This may cause them to alter some behaviour, for instance a preference for non smoking restaurants, but it will usually not be an overriding factor in their decisions. The quality of the food will outweigh concerns as to whether smokers will be present. In love they would prefer a non smoking partner but will look beyond such matters taking account of the bigger picture. They are unlikely to preach to a partner who smokes preferring more reasoned persuasion to help them kick ‘the nasty habit’. The ranks of Innocents have grown enormously in the last decade due to media spending by antismoking groups.
2) The Neurotics Neurotics have significantly greater difficulty than average in dealing contentedly and productively with one or more commonly encountered aspects of life. This difficulty can develop into completely irrational fears, phobias and obsessive compulsive behaviour. This group of people are particularly suspect to the hysteric anti smoking crusade and associated over the top propaganda. Not too long ago a person who refused to enter a bar or restaurant for fear of breathing second hand smoke would probably have been considered a prime candidate for some counselling to alleviate their neurosis. However in today’s climate that same person, no matter how irrational or unfounded the fear, will find support and be commended for their action. This further fuels the fire inside the neurotic. People from this group of anti smokers are likely to be the ones who verbally abuse smokers who are total strangers to them for using ‘cancer sticks’
3) The Truly Affected Segments of the population can have allergic reactions to different stimuli such as dogs, pollen, nuts etc. Tobacco smoke can be a trigger for a small segment of the population. For some it is a genuine physical reaction while for others it largely or entirely stems from a psychosomatic foundation. It has to be remembered for people experiencing such reactions they have no way of knowing their true cause and the sensation is real and frightening even if completely psychosomatically based. Incidents of non smokers having a real adverse physical reaction to low levels of tobacco smoke are extremely rare. However as more smoking restrictions and bans are put in place anti-smoking lobbies are claiming more such incidences are occurring in their efforts to extend or implement bans. Those feeling “truly affected” by tobacco smoke were very rare 40 years ago, but have become much more common today
4) The Bereaved If we hear a person dies from lung cancer or heart disease the question on people’s minds is was he a smoker ? If so, ordinary non smokers are content they didn’t share this habit with the deceased and are reassured, mistakenly in some cases, that the the grim reaper is unlikely to have their name in the pending tray. For the family of the bereaved their anguish is deeper and the need to know why stronger. They are likely to see it in terms of their deceased having being ‘killed by smoking’ even if medically this is not really known! The understandable anger and emotion over the loss of a loved one may lead them to desire revenge against the tobacco industry. Unable to get at the tobacco companies the bereaved may move into the circles of the anti smokers, accepting their propaganda and advocating support for smoking bans and taxes as a means for them to get back at the faceless tobacco corporations.
5) Ex-Smokers and Victims It’s not unusual to hear it said that tobacco is “more addictive than heroin.” However millions world-wide every year manage to quit without going into convulsions, writhing in agony on the floor, hospitalisation, or forced incarceration. Millions of other smokers manage their habit, smoke very little or consciously choose light brands. Though the addictiveness of smoking is over exaggerated the fact remains many smokers have great difficulty in quitting the habit. For many smokers the process of quitting involves demonising tobacco and all experiences of it in their mind. This visualisation of tobacco as evil strengthens their effort to quit, but after they have done so the devil remains inside urging them back to tobacco. These ex smokers can then expend considerable energies on a mission to eliminate the sight and smell of smoke from the entire world around them and make life hell for smokers in their path. Another group of ex smokers quit as a result of adverse health which they attribute to smoking. Some are genuine in their motivation and desire to prevent others from a similar fate. Then there are those that simply resent that others continue to smoke with no adverse consequence and then become embittered and fully signed up members of the anti smoking brigade.
6) The Controllers Often due to background insecurities controlling personalities feel a need to exert an abnormal amount of control over the people and world around them. Controllers may be convinced from the media that passive smoking is a health threat or simply see it as a golden opportunity for extra control. In either case they can make life a misery for smokers around them. In relationships and marriages controllers will confiscate cigarettes, force smell inspections on partners, issue punishments for transgressions of both a psychological and physical nature. Their whole aim is control, domination and forcing their will on subjects. Their efforts will not be seen as a vice, but as virtue when they advance the cause of good health and clean air even though their real motivation is simply the satisfaction gained from seeing others comply to their will. The ultimate goal is the creation of laws and punishments embodying and supporting the controllers’ desires.
7) The Idealists A section of this group are sincere, believing smoking causes disease and suffering and making them feel a need to act.. These idealists usually seek constructive and helpful ways to aid those smokers wishing to quit and through education and information persuade people not to start. They do not engage as much in the vilification, demonisation and harassment other groups so readily adopt as tactics. But Idealists with strong feelings, even though they are aware the case against secondary smoke is far from compelling, will still use poorly based studies and surveys to further their cause. Idealists are usually people with professional backgrounds or medical doctors. Arrogant and confident their instincts on smoking are right and correct they feel empowered to twist research to suit their needs. Their real power lies in access to politicians and ability to pass spurious junk science as fact.
The Moralists Moralists have always played a role in antismoking crusades. They seek to portray smoking and smokers as a corruptive influence on society. They will claim smoking is a gateway drug and leads to crime. They also fret over the children of smokers and are exponents of making it a crime for pregnant women to smoke; they’ll even push for the removal of foster children from the homes of smokers. In the main moralists are puritanical, prissy and of an unhappy disposition. They see others enjoying themselves and desire to stop whatever they are engaged in as to them it has to be wrong if it involves merriment
9) The Greedy Anti-Smoking has become big business worth hundreds of millions a year spent on it in America alone. Many see it as a huge future growth area as “health fascism” goes on a world wide march.. This in turn has attracted the greedy from lawyers, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, advertisement agencies, newspapers, researchers etc all more than willing to jump on the antismoking bandwagon in an effort to get in on the action. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into anti smoking organisations providing them with the clout to make big business take notice. Money is not the only driving force though: the anti smoking lobby is now a great way to further careers and open doors both in academia and politics. The greedy care less about the smoking issue or health, and were it to look as if smoking would be banished completely in the morning they would in a flash be onto some other anti campaign whether it be fighting meat, cars, or alcohol.
Conclusion: the overall antismoking movement gains its energy from people in all these groups as they come together and work at different times and in different ways on different campaigns. The Antismoking Movement as such is not a single headed multi-national conspiracy… it is a hydra with many heads, motivations, and forces that has gotten fuelled to incredible growth by tax money over the last 15 or 20 years.
Mr. McFadden’s examination of these groups is but the initial segment of his book which goes into far more depth than I can do here.
‘Dissecting Antismoker Brains’ by Michael J McFadden
This acclaimed book book is available at $21.95 from : www.antibrains.com
Now, I think I’ll light up and take a break…
