WELCOME

Hi,
The aim of this blog is to accrue information that may be of help to you & links to other sites I have found of help, including sites run or managed by friends and associates.
Do send me a message of anything you feel would help.
Regards, Greg L-W.
Greg_L-W@BTconnect.com

Saturday 31 December 2011

#G0635* - A Sad Reflection on Snivil Cervants - BUT Will 2012 Improve It?

#G0635* - A Sad Reflection on Snivil Cervants - BUT Will 2012 Improve It?

Hi,

my thanks to a friend of many years standing who I am pleased to see has overcome a challenging medical year and is still bringing his excellent research to our service into 2012 and for many years to come we must all hope.

Well done, thanks & stay healthy Richard - just don't let the heart rule the head, well at least not the valves!


The assistant chief executive at Luton Borough Council, we are told, will receive a bumper pay rise in his Christmas stocking after cuts to the authority's corporate directors saw him promoted. Robin Porter's role has been merged with that of the director of customer and corporate services, Steve Heappey, after the council agreed more cuts to senior management.

Securing the new "director of commercial and transformation services" post will see 38-year-old Porter's salary rise from the current £65,000 to £72,000 range to the £111,000 to £122,000 range commanded by the council's existing corporate directors.

He is currently in charge of the council’s cost-cutting "Luton Excellence" strategy, a role he took on after heading up the authority's £200 million Building Schools for the Future project, which was scrapped by the government last summer.



Then there is this little madam - done alright for herself in a job that was so important that the post is not to be replaced. Another one of the parasite class – basically useless and grossly overpaid.

Before joining Hertfordshire, she worked for five years with Kent County Council, leading on the implementation of new community care legislation. She worked for the NHS for 18 months, managing mental health services, and started her career in Dorset where she trained as a social worker. In her last full year, she took £203,427 salary, £5,857 benefits in kind and £41,906 in pension contributions.



Another madam sitting on her own private pot of gold is Joanna Killian who, for her money tells us "I didn’t have the greatest education, or the sort of background many would expect of a chief executive. There is that dimension which has helped me to want to be in public service and stay in the job I am doing".

She has the nerve to call her pot of gold a "calling", despite being the best paid female chief executive in the country. God knows how much she would want if she was in it for the money, although she is an expert at taking the piss, having taken a highly publicised pay cut of £4,000 in the summer, only then to collect a £6,900 bonus and an extra £1,100 towards her pension.



The looting is not confined to local government, of course, with the parasites just as evident in the NHS. Prof Stephen Smith, who was chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare trust until September, has a pot of £3.3 million - which will pay him between £135,000 and £140,000 a year when he retires, after a lump sum of at least £405,000.

The chief executive, who earned £247,000 a year, announced plans to resign earlier this year, as the London trust admitted it was facing a £40 million black hole in its finances.

Jan Filochowski, chief executive of West Hertfordshire Hospitals trust, paid £280,000 last year, will get an annual payment of between £135,000 and £140,000, on retirement, plus a lump sum of £415,000, thanks to a pot valued at more than £3 million, after 36 years in the public sector. Sir Ron Kerr, chief executive of Guys and St Thomas' Foundation Trust, in London, will swap a salary of £254,000 a year for a pension pot of £3.06 million when he retires.



There is no end to this sort of looting and one wonders how they live with themselves, this one in particular taking home an annual salary equivalent of £300,000. How many hip operations do you get for that sort of loot?



Meanwhile, in order to keep the parasite class in the luxury they most definitely do not deserve, staff – many of whom earn under £20,000 a year - are being charged to go to work. As the song once went, "It's the rich wot gets the pleasure, it's the poor wot gets the blame".



But hey, never mind … I am sure all these gifted public servants look at their payslips and repeat the words of that nauseating television advertisement: "because I'm worth it". Never mind that people are actually starving in this country, while food banks are doing record business. Their needs come first.

And these people are so shocked when they learn what we really think of them? Scum does not even begin to describe it.
For the Richard's original CLICK HERE

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap." 
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

 Regards,
Greg L-W.
for all my contact details & Blogs: CLICK HERE  

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit of their own agenda and greed, have done more damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain more than the armies of Hitler and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

Make your vote count vote:
INDEPENDENT Leave-the-EU Alliance
or Write on YOUR ballot Paper 
LEAVE-THE-EU

Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 01594 - 528 337
of: Greg_L-W@BTconnect.com
DO MAKE USE of LINKS & >Right Side Bar<  
Also:
Details & Links: http://GregLanceWatkins.Blogspot.com
General Stuff: http://gl-w.blogspot.com  
Health Blog.: http://GregLW.blogspot.com  
TWITTER: Greg_LW  

 Please Be Sure To .Follow Greg_LW on Twitter. Re-TWEET my Twitterings
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Thursday 29 December 2011

Massacre at Wounded Knee & The EU Betrayal!

Massacre at Wounded Knee & The EU Betrayal!

29-Dec-2008 marks the 119th. anniversary of the massacre of The Lakota Sioux under Chief Big Foot of The Miniconjou Sioux at Wounded Knee, less than 2 weeks after the murder of Sitting Bull by US Cavalry at Standing Rock Reservation.

Similarly 29-Nov was the 145th. anniversary of the massacre, by the Militia of Colnel John Chivington, of a defenceless Cheyenne and an Arapaho villages at Sand Creek (Soldier Blue portrays this most aptly and the song by the native American Indian Buffy Saint Marie says it all! CLICK HERE her rendering of 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' is spectacular!).

CLICK HERE was this a rehearsal for Mai Lai or just an indication of the value Politicians and the military place upon Treaties? Consider the corrupt basis of The EU and the clear lack of meaningful democracy - A massacre by stealth!

The Irish may care to learn from the wisdom of the Indiginous peoples of America - Never trust a treaty signed against one's better instincts, against one's will and sold to such an extent that they were prepared to lie.

Sadly this so very much applies to virtually ALL aspects of the relationship these United Kingdoms has with The EU - wherein our own politicians and Snivil Cervants are OUR ENEMY within as they have duped and betrayed us with monotonous regularity regarding The EU and have stolen our money to fund their own personal ambitions; Currently OUR politicians are stealing £50 Million a day to fund the failed, corrupt, depraved and undemocraticv EU.

The Cheyenne, The Arapaho, Sitting Bull, The Miniconjou, The Lakota and Big Foot had binding Treaty Agreements with a nascent super State seeking to increase its control.

Some amongst The Irish will recal that John Major signed an agreement with The EU termed by The Sun newspaper on its banner front page as Game, Set & Match to Major yet it seems it was not valid since The EU have just arbitrarily overturned the Treaty - as did The Colorado Militia and the US 7th. Cavalry before them in creating their supra national state.

As does the EU, by deceit, stealth and betrayal salami slicing away our liberty and freedoms without any meaningful democracy!.

It would seem that The EU is no respecter of agreements either and Ireland is to vote again to make it possible to claim they voted for their own demise as a Nation State! No massacre here just the death of democracy and self determination granted at great cost in 1922.

& to think that Declan Ganley AND the British Tory Party, The Farage Party and his odious allies in The EU The Pan EU Political Party Group in The EFD with their racism, anti Judaism, anti homosexuality, sham so called christianity and violent xenophobic hatreds based on country, class and creed - they are so stupid as to believe that The EU can be changed from within!

Sand Creek Colorado and Wounded Knee will hold no torch to the massacres that will result from the enforcement of The EU on a largely resistant peoples! As famine stalks the plains of EUrope due to the greed and stupidity of Politicians and as 'The Wars of Disassociation' become more determined!

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap." 
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs: CLICK HERE  

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit of their own agenda and greed, have done more damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain more than the armies of Hitler and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

Make your vote count vote:
INDEPENDENT Leave-the-EU Alliance
or Write on YOUR ballot Paper 
LEAVE-THE-EU
Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 01594 - 528 337
of: Greg_L-W@BTconnect.com  
DO MAKE USE of LINKS & >Right Side Bar< Also:
Details & Links: http://GregLanceWatkins.Blogspot.com  
General Stuff: http://gl-w.blogspot.com  
Health Blog.: http://GregLW.blogspot.com  
TWITTER: Greg_LW  

 Please Be Sure To .Follow Greg_LW on Twitter. Re-TWEET my Twitterings
& Publicise My Blogs 

To Spread The Facts World Wide of OUR-ENEMY-WITHIN & To Leave-The-EU 
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Tuesday 27 December 2011

#G0633* - Secret Service views of Presidents and First Ladies

#G0633* -  Secret Service views of Presidents and First Ladies

Secret Service views of Presidents and First Ladies
 
*Here are snippets from a book of "Impressions & Observations" of Secret Service personnel assigned to guard U.S. Presidents/First Ladies, and Vice Presidents.*
 
JOHN & JACQUELINE KENNEDY :
*A philanderer of the highest order. *
*She ordered the kitchen help to save all the left-over wine during State dinner, which mixed with fresh wine and served again during the next White Houseoccasion.*
 
 
*LYNDON & LADYBIRD JOHNSON 
 
*Another philanderer of the highest order. In addition, LBJ was as crude as the day is long.*
*Both JFK and LBJ kept a lot of women in the White House for extramarital affairs, and both had set up "early warning systems" to alert them if/when their wives were nearby. Both Kennedy & Johnson were promiscuous and oversexed men. *
*She was either naive or just pretended to "not know" about her husband's many liaisons. *
 
 
*A "moral" man but very odd and weird, paranoid, etc. He had horrible relationship with his family, and in a way, was almost a recluse.*
*She was quiet most of the time.*
 
 
Nice, decent man, everyone in the Secret Service was surprised about his downfall. *
 
*GERALD & BETTY FORD: ** *
 
*A true gentlemen who treated the Secret Service with respect and dignity. He had a great sense of humor.. *
*She drank a lot!*
 
*JIMMY & ROSALYN CARTER: ** *
 
*A complete phony who would portray one picture of himself to public and very different in private, e..g., would be shown carrying his own luggage, but the suit cases were always empty; he kept empty ones just for photo op's. Wanted the people to see him as pious and a non-drinker, but he and his family drank alcohol a lot. He had disdain for the Secret Service, and was very irresponsible with the "football" nuclear codes. He didn't think it was a big deal and would keep military aides at a great distance. Often does not acknowledge the presence of Secret Service personnel assigned to serve him.*
*She mostly did her own thing.*
 
*RONALD & NANCY REAGAN: ** *
 
*The real deal --- moral, honest, respectful, and dignified. They treated Secret Service and everyone else with respect and honor. Thanked everyone all the time. He took the time to know everyone on a personal level. *
*One "favorite" story which has circulated among the Secret Service personnel was an incident early in his Presidency, when he came out of his room with a pistol tucked on his hip. The agent in charge asked: "Why the pistol, Mr. President?" He replied, "In case you boys can't get the job done, I can help." It was common for him to carry a pistol. When he met with Gorbachev, he had a pistol in his briefcase. Upon learning that Gary Hart was caught with Donna Rice, Reagan said, "Boys will be boys, but boys will not be Presidents." [He obviously either did not know or forgot JFK's and LBJ's sexcapades!]*
*She was very nice but very protective of the President; and the Secret Service was often caught in the middle. She tried hard to control what the President ate, and he would say to the agent "Come on, you gotta help me out."
The Reagans drank wine during State dinners and special occasions only; otherwise, they shunned alcohol; the Secret Service could count on one hand the times they were served wine during their "family dinner". For all the fake bluster of the Carters, the Reagans were the ones who lived life as genuinely moral people.*
 
*GEORGE H. & BARBARA BUSH:
 
*Extremely kind and considerate Always respectful. Took great care in making sure the agents' comforts were taken care of. They even brought them meals, etc.
*One time Barbara Bush brought warm clothes to agents standing outside at Kennebunkport; one agent who was given a warm hat, and when he tried to nicely say "no thanks" even though he was obviously freezing, President Bush said "Son, don't argue with the First Lady, put the hat on.." He was the most prompt of the Presidents. He ran the White House like a well-oiled machine.*
She ruled the house and spoke her mind.*
 
BILL & HILLARY CLINTON: 
 
**Presidency was one giant party. Not trustworthy --- he was nice because he wanted everyone to like him, but to him life is just one big game and party. Everyone knows of his sexuality.*
She is another phony. Her personality would change the instant cameras were near. She hated with open disdain the military and Secret Service. She was another one who felt people are there to serve her. She was always trying to keep tabs on Bill Clinton.*
 
 
ALBERT (AL) GORE:
 
An egotistical ass, who was once overheard by his Secret Service detail lecturing his only son that he needed to do better in school or he "would end up like these guys" --- pointing to the agents.*
 
GEORGE W. & LAURA BUSH:
 
The Secret Service loved him and Laura Bush.
He was also the most physically "in shape" who had a very strict workout regimen. The Bushes made sure their entire administrative and household staff understood to respect and be considerate of the Secret Service. KARL ROVE was the one who was the most caring of the Secret Service in the administration.*
*She was one of the nicest First Ladies, if not the nicest; she never had any harsh word to say about anyone.*
 
BARACK & MICHELLE OBAMA:
 
" Clinton all over again" - hates the military and looks down on the Secret Service. He is egotistical and cunning; looks you in the eye and appears to agree with you, but turns around and does the opposite---untrustworthy. He has temper tantrums.*
*She is a complete bitch, who hates anybody who is not black; hates the military; and looks at the Secret Service as servants.*

.

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap." 
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

 Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs: CLICK HERE  

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit of their own agenda and greed, have done more damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain more than the armies of Hitler and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

Make your vote count vote:
INDEPENDENT Leave-the-EU Alliance
or Write on YOUR ballot Paper 
LEAVE-THE-EU
Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 01594 - 528 337
DO MAKE USE of LINKS & >Right Side Bar< Also:
General Stuff: http://gl-w.blogspot.com  
TWITTER: Greg_LW

 Please Be Sure To .Follow Greg_LW on Twitter. Re-TWEET my Twitterings
& Publicise My Blogs 

To Spread The Facts World Wide of OUR-ENEMY-WITHIN & To Leave-The-EU 
Enhanced by Zemanta

#G0622* - A Move Towards Understanding Banking

#G0622* - A Move Towards Understanding Banking

A Move Towards Understanding Banking -

Once you have got your head around the economic illiteracy of Gordon Brown and his catastrophic and ignorant meddling and the corruption of those like Fred Goodwin (Fred the Shred Goodwin), the antics of members of The Speculative Society of Edinburgh CLICK HERE, the involvement of Angus Grossart in The Royal Bank of Scotland and The Skye Bridge with the vested interests of owning his own bank 'Noble Grossart' & the bizarre balance sheet of Murray International which seems to have absolutely no assets or prospects to cover the preferential interest rates nor the capital sum of the 1 BILLION Pound loan!

But it seems this is how it works:

The current banking crisis explained
Young Paddy bought a donkey from a farmer for €100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day, when he had finished filling in his forms for subsidies from The EU for not farming!

The next day he drove up and said, 'Sorry son, but I have some bad news. The donkey's died.'

Paddy replied, 'Well then just give me my money back.'

The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I've already done the transfer papers and received €500 subsidy from The EU.'

Paddy said, 'OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey 'cos the subsidy money from The EU was stolen from the British tax payers I'm happy for you to keep it.'

The farmer asked, 'What are you going to do with him?'

Paddy said, 'I'm going to get an EU grant as a failed layabout to advertise and raffle him off.'

The farmer said, 'You can't raffle a dead donkey!'

Paddy said, 'Sure I can, the EU is always launching dead loss ideas. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead, just like The EU who never admit their scams all cost the tax payers a fortune - Britain pays £50 Million a day 'cos they are suckers and their politicians and civil servants are just as useless and corrupt as ours.'

A month later, the farmer met up with Paddy and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'

Paddy said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at €5 each and made a profit of E2,495'

The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'

Paddy said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his €5 back.'

Paddy now works for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap." 
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Regards,
Greg L-W.

for all my contact details & Blogs: CLICK HERE  

British Politicians with pens and treachery, in pursuit of their own agenda and greed, have done more damage to the liberty, freedoms, rights and democracy of the British peoples than any army in over 1,000 years.

The disastrous effects of British politicians selling Britain into the thrall of foreign rule by the EU for their own personal rewards has damaged the well-being of Britain more than the armies of Hitler and the Franco - German - Italian axis of 1939 - 1945.

Make your vote count vote:
INDEPENDENT Leave-the-EU Alliance
or Write on YOUR ballot Paper 
Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday 17 November 2011

#G0621* - Second-hand smoke in cars: Is it myth or fact?

#G0621* - Second-hand smoke in cars: Is it myth or fact?

CMAJ Analysis

CMAJ
© 2010 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors


Second-hand smoke in cars: How did the “23 times more
toxic” myth turn into fact?

Ross MacKenzie MA, Becky Freeman MSc

1

Changes to public health policy do not usually occur
simply as a result of epidemiologic research detailing
the health hazards facing a population. Policy change
requires both strategic and opportunistic advocacy to transform
research findings into health reforms.1 Successful advocacy
campaigns often require the translation of complex
research findings into short and memorable media quotes.
Managing the risks involved in either oversimplifying
research results or misreporting findings is essential to maintaining
the credibility of public health professionals. Unfortunately,
inaccurate reporting of health information is not an
uncommon phenomenon.2
While conducting research for a study on the Australian
advocacy campaign to ban smoking in cars,3 one of us (BF)
encountered many media reports that stated that second-hand
smoke was “23 times more toxic in a vehicle than in a home.”
In a subsequent exhaustive search of the relevant literature, we
failed to locate any scientific source for this comparison.
Given that the issue of banning smoking in cars is gaining
traction internationally, use of this media-friendly tobacco
control “fact” presents potential problems of credibility. In this
paper, we describe how a local media report of an unsourced
statistic led to the same statistic being widely reported in the
international media and peer review literature (Figure 1).4–27
Methods
Our search of MEDLINE with combinations of keywords
(i.e., smoking, cars, second-hand smoke, children) to identify
the scientific source of the “23 times” claim yielded 19 articles.
Google and Factiva searches using the MEDLINE
search terms showed that the 23 times figure has been widely
cited by international media, nongovernment organizations
and politicians (Appendix 1, available at www.cmaj.ca/cgi
/content/full/cmaj.090993/DC1).
We believe we have located all the peer-reviewed articles;
however, a comprehensive search of media reports and other
grey material is beyond the scope of this paper. Those examples
of media reports and the inclusion of the 23 times claim
in reports from nongovernment organizations illustrate the
broad dissemination of the claim.
Historical timeline
In January 1998, the Rocky Mountain News, a newspaper in
Denver, Colorado, reported on proposed legislation to ban
smoking in cars carrying children. The bill was introduced by
state Senator Dorothy Rupert, who reportedly took action
quickly when “she learned that smoking was 23 times more
toxic in a vehicle than in a house and 8½ times more toxic
than in an aircraft because of the smaller enclosed space.”4
The source of this figure is a November 1997 press release —
by local advocates of tobacco control in support of the draft
bill — that cited a 1992 study of tobacco-specific Nnitrosamines
in indoor air as the reference for the 23 times
figure.28 However, that study did not make the 23 times claim
as quoted in the Denver newspaper.
The 23 times estimate has evolved from its modest origins as
a brief quotation in a US newspaper to its current status as evidence
of the dangers of exposure to second-hand smoke in cars.
The concept shifted into the academic mainstream when a 1998
Tobacco Control editorial on protecting children from secondhand
smoke6 included a passage that closely replicated the Rocky
Mountain News quotation. Both the newspaper report and the
Tobacco Control editorial were subsequently cited in a 2003
issue of Nicotine and Tobacco Research,7 which further
entrenched it in the peer-reviewed literature.
Second-hand smoke in cars: How did the “23 times more
toxic” myth turn into fact?
Ross MacKenzie MA, Becky Freeman MSc
From the School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
CMAJ 2010. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.090993
Key points
• The suggestion that second-hand smoke is 23 times more
toxic in a vehicle than in the home is widely accepted in
the media and academic literature.
• Despite its media currency, the “23 times” claim is
unsubstantiated.
• This nonvalidated figure came to be widely reported in the
popular media and scientific publications.
• Authors and organizations publishing or otherwise
disseminating research findings should adopt a strict policy
of citing only original sources.
DOI:10.1503/cmaj.090993
Early release, published at www.cmaj.ca on April 12, 2010. Subject to revision.
The real fillip for the comparison, however, was the
release of the Ontario Medical Association’s 2004 position
paper on children’s exposure to second-hand smoke,5 which
noted that:
[B]ased on the evidence that exposure to second hand smoke in a
vehicle is 23-times more toxic than in a house due to the smaller
enclosed space, the state of Colorado drafted a bill that would impose
fines on adults caught smoking in cars when a child is present.
The resource cited for this information was the 1998 Rocky
Mountain News report.4
Credibility conferred by the Ontario Medical Association’s
use of the statistic resulted in broad dissemination throughout
Canada. It was cited in a fact sheet from the British Columbia
Ministry of Health in 20058 and in 17 news reports, including
the national newspaper The Globe & Mail.29 The Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, in a January 2008 report, referred to
the Ontario Medical Association’s reliance on “a Colorado
study that suggested tobacco smoke in cars is 23 times more
toxic than smoke in houses, because cars have a much smaller
volume.”30 Referral to the Ontario Medical Association’s report
was not restricted to Canada; use of the figure by international
media and health agencies — the US-based Action on Smoking
and Health,21 GASP (Global Advisors on Smokefree Policy)
New Jersey20 and Action on Smoking and Health Scotland31 and
in recent peer-reviewed articles on exposure to second-hand
smoke9–11 — has further added to its credibility.
Perhaps the most explicit indication of the statistic’s broad
acceptance as fact is its frequent use without reference to its
derivation; for example, the claim was uncited in an Australian
media report,32 a peer-reviewed journal article23 and a
press release issued by the Australian Medical Association24
and on the website of Action on Smoking and Health Ireland.
22 Less precise and similarly unreferenced notations that
describe second-hand smoke in cars as “20 times” or “more
than 20 times more toxic” than in the home are also common,
particularly in Australia, where the National Heart Foundation27
and state25 and federal politicians26 have made such
claims to support legislation restricting smoking in cars carrying
children.
The continuing appeal of the figure was underlined in
early 2009, when news of “irrefutable evidence to show that a
car can be 23 times more toxic than a home environment in
the context of passive smoke” in a press release from Action
on Smoking and Health Ireland (that cited unspecified Colorado
research),13 was subsequently repeated in the Irish Medical
Times16 and the Irish Times.17
These reports preceded the April 2009 publication of a
paper in the European Respiratory Journal (which cited the
2004 report from the Ontario Medical Association5) on possible
links between breathing difficulties and exposure to second-
hand smoke in cars among Irish schoolchildren.10 On
Apr. 19, the UK Sunday Times reported on the 23 times
claim,12 citing the European Respiratory Journal article, and
2 CMAJ
Analysis
Action on
Smoking and
Health UK
Apr. 20, 200914
Oxford Health
Alliance
Apr. 23, 200915
European Lung
Foundation
Apr. 22, 200918
Rocky Mountain News
Jan. 10, 19984
Ontario Medical Association report
20045
British Columbia Ministry
of Health fact sheet 20058
Nicotine &
Tobacco Research
20037
Tobacco
Control 19986
Irish Medical Times
Feb 25, 200916
Tobacco
Control 200811
Cancer Causes
& Control 20099
European Respiratory Journal 200910
Sunday Times (UK)
Apr. 19, 200912
Action on Smoking and Health
Ireland
Feb. 24, 200913
Irish Times
Feb. 24, 200917
Media in Canada, Australia and Ireland19
and websites of GASP (Global Advisors of
Smokefree Policy) New Jersey,20 Action on
Smoking and Health US21 and Action on
Smoking and Health Ireland22
Figure 1: Dissemination of the claim that second-hand smoke is 23 times more toxic in cars than in homes.
Analysis
the Times article was in turn referenced in a daily news
release from Action on Smoking and Health UK14 and on the
websites of the European Lung Foundation18 and the Oxford
Health Alliance.15
Implications
We traced the evolution of this “myth turned fact” to emphasize
that only credible evidence should be presented to
advance policy. Solid evidence has been the foundation of the
progress made in tobacco control in recent decades. The
biggest danger of inaccurately interpreting research on smoking
in cars for the sake of a snappy media sound bite is to lose
favour with an overwhelmingly supportive public and to provide
ammunition for opponents of tobacco control.33
Despite the inaccuracy in reporting the level of magnitude
of exposure to second-hand smoke in cars, policy-makers
should not be deterred from enacting legislation to ban smoking
in cars. Several studies on exposure to second-hand
smoke have demonstrated that smoking in cars produces high
and unsafe concentrations of second-hand smoke particulate34,35
that are comparable to or higher than the levels measured
in hospitality venues that allow smoking.36 The best
available scientific evidence suggests that smoking in a car
for even a short time produces levels of respirable particles
that are potentially harmful to children.34
A 2006 study on second-hand smoke in cars reported a
mean concentration of respirable suspended particles measuring
less than 2.5 microns in diameter at 272 μg/m3 in cars
when the windows were closed and 51 μg/m3 when they were
open, allowing for maximum possible ventilation.34 Guidelines
from the US Environmental Protection Agency describe
concentrations of 40 μg/m3 as unhealthy for children and
other sensitive groups and 250 μg/m3 as hazardous for any
person.37 These documents provide accurate measurements of
the air quality in cars when someone is smoking and should
replace the 23 times figure favoured by some tobacco control
organizations.
A ban on smoking in cars is an extremely important public
health policy that has the potential to dramatically reduce the
amount of exposure to second-hand smoke experienced by
children.38 Legislation banning smoking in cars carrying children
has been enacted in several states or provinces in Australia,
the US and Canada.
Recommendations
We recommend that researchers and organizations stop using
the 23 times more toxic factoid because there appears to be
no evidence for it in the scientific literature. Instead, advocates
of smoking bans in cars should simply state that exposure
to second-hand smoke in cars poses a significant health
risk and that vulnerable children who cannot remove themselves
from this smoky environment must be protected. Further,
we recommend citing the 2006 study by Rees and Connelly34
as reliable evidence that the level of particulate matter
found in cars where smoking is allowed exceeds that in the
safety guidelines of the US Environmental Protection
Agency, particularly for children.
Basic steps can be taken to avoid dissemination of inaccurate
information. First, organizations publishing or communicating
research findings should adopt a strict policy of only citing original
sources for research findings; they should never rely on
secondary citing of reports or media articles. Second, peer
review processes should emphasize not only a critique of the
original content of papers and reports, but also the importance of
assessing accurate referencing of previously published research.
Finally, the broader lesson of our study is that researchers and
advocates can be highly effective partners in bringing about
change in public policy, but such partnerships can be jeopardized
by incomplete knowledge transfer. Researchers and advocates
should not be fearful of working closely together —
indeed, greater collaboration may help to ensure greater accuracy
in reporting research findings. This is a shared responsibility
and, as our paper demonstrates, advocates and journalists are
not the only ones who can misreport research findings.
This article has been peer reviewed.
Competing interests: None declared.
Contributors: Both Ross MacKenzie and Becky Freeman conceived of the
paper, conducted data collection and prepared the manuscript. Ross MacKenzie
prepared the figure, the appendix and the first draft of the manuscript.
Funding: Ross MacKenzie is funded by a 2006 research grant from the Cancer
Council New South Wales; Becky Freeman is funded by National Health
and Medical Research Council grant 396402, Future of Tobacco Control.
 
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CMAJ 3
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Correspondence to: Dr. Ross MacKenzie, School of Public Health,
Edward Ford Building (A27), University of Sydney NSW 2006,
Australia; rmackenzie@health.usyd.edu.au
4 CMAJ
Analysis


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