Our Wankers this Week are certain medical research "experts" in Scotland. The first and most masturbatory is Professor Jill Pell of Glasgow University.
Addressing an international audience of health experts and policymakers at a conference in Edinburgh recently, she discussed the effects of the ban on smoking in public places which came into effect in Scotland in March 2006.
She said that the ban is already beginning to have an impact on the nation's health, as the number of non-smokers admitted to hospital after heart attacks fell by 20 per cent in the ten months after the ban came into force. Other studies showed that children's exposure to second-hand smoke has fallen (except among children whose mothers smoke, or those with two parents who smoke).
No, this isn't Jill Pell. Jill's much taller
Professor Pell's study covered nine hospitals, which between them account for two thirds of all hospital admissions for heart attacks in Scotland. In the ten months of the year leading up to the ban, there were 3,235 admissions, while in the matching period after the ban, the figure was 2,684. Patients were asked if they were smokers or non-smokers, and their answers double-checked through blood tests to detect levels of cotinine, the product into which nicotine is converted by the body. In non-smokers, the fall in heart attack admissions was higher, at 20 per cent.
Professor Pell said that the reduction among non-smokers was biologically plausible, because smoke contained a lot of toxins that could trigger heart attacks in people with coronary heart disease. "The difference between our study and earlier ones is that we have been able to show an effect in people who have never smoked. That can only be due to lower levels of passive smoke," she said.
That's a pretty bold statement - "can only be due to lower levels of passive smoke". How does she know that? Can she demonstrate it in the proper scientific way, with control groups and so on? No, of course she can't. She's just leaping to the conclusion she and her fellow "policymakers" (otherwise known as bullying little know-alls) would prefer. Personally The GOS thinks there's quite a different explanation - in the last year there has been a measurable increase in the amount of phlogiston in the atmosphere due to increased fairy activity in his back garden, and it's this that has reduced the number of heart-attack victims. Go on, Professor Pell, prove him wrong. You can't, can you?
A fairy
Just how stupid does Professor Pell think we are? Does she suppose for one moment that anyone with an ounce of common-sense is going to believe you can ban smoking in pubs one moment, and record a genuine and causally-proven improvement in public health the next? Frankly, if she does, she's a bloody fool.
Others are leaping on her band-wagon. Sally Haw, principal public health adviser to NHS Scotland, who collaborated in the study, said she was confident that the figures were reliable. "It's a large study, we have confirmed people's smoking status, and we have used a robust definition to count admissions," she said. Oh, that's all right then. You used a robust definition to distinguish between smokers and non-smokers, so that entitles you to leap to any grossly inflated and nonsensical conclusion that takes your fancy and suits your purpose?
No, this isn't Jill Pell. It's Sally Haw
And one Jon Ayres, head of the University of Aberdeen environmental and occupational medicine department, decided to get in on the act by telling us "It's very difficult to believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with the results. I think the 20 per cent figure is good. If you look at the figures month to month, the effect seems to creep up since last year. This also suggests that the important thing was the smoking ban."
No, this isn't Jill Pell either. It's Jon Ayres
In fact, rates of heart disease are falling everywhere, though obviously not as fast as 20% a year. Over the same period of ten months after the Scottish ban, admissions in England fell by 4%, and the reduction rate in Scotland even before the ban was 3%. Sir Richard Peto, of Oxford University, an expert in the epidemiology of smoking, sounded a bit more like a proper scientist when he said that many things could affect admissions for heart attacks, including the weather. Fewer people suffer heart attacks when the weather is mild. "I'd be surprised if this drop were due solely to the smoking ban," he said. "I would like to see cigarette sales figures, to see if there has been any fall."
At the same Edinburgh conference other studies were announced. One found a reduction of 39% in exposure to second-hand smoke in 11-year-olds. No doubt it won't be long before Jill Pell, Sally Hawes and Jon Ayres will hit the headlines by claiming this as a victory for smoking bans too. After all, pubs and clubs are absolutely crawling with 11-year-old children.
So, Jill, Sally and Jon, for being silly enough to think that you can spout any old rubbish and we'll all fall at your feet in abject surrender, for seriously believing that you can ban smoking in pubs and expect the effects of years and years of passive smoking to vanish in just ten months, for not knowing that when the weather is mild people have fewer heart attacks, and for forgetting that scientific method usually involves theories and demonstrable evidence rather than wishful thinking, you are our Wankers of the Week. Congratulations.
Oh, by the way, there still hasn't been a single properly authenticated and proven case of anyone dying from passive smoking. Jill, Sally and Jon, you'd do your case more good if you devoted your time to finding one or two instead of shooting your mouths off about something that probably has more to do with (the alleged) Global Warming than anything you've accomplished yourselves.
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