Last week’s New Scientist has an interesting warning about the way that evangelical anti-smokers, including some scientists, are distorting figures and attacking scientists who want to stick to the facts. The article starts with the case of Michael Siegel who has been attacked and removed one key online group, despite of regularly publish articles about the harmful effects of passive smoking and has testified in more than 50 US cities in favour of indoor bans on smoking.
The article by David Robson highlights a wide range of cases where claims made by some anti-smoking groups go beyond the data and the science. The article highlights a claim from the US branch of ASH “Breathing drifting tobacco smoke for as little as 30 minutes (less than the time one might be exposed sitting on a park bench) can raise a non-smoker's risk of a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker.”. There is evidence that passive smoking for 30 minutes increases the stickiness of blood, which could be damaging for somebody already on the cusp of an attack, but would be harmless to most people. Regular passive smoking is bad for you, but for most people one 30 rest on a park bench next to smoker is going to have (according to the report) no impact for most of us.
The danger to science, not just to the anti-smoking bit of it, is that if scientists get in the habit of lying for what they perceive to be the public good they forfeit the right to be believed on any topic, ever. In the UK we are already a long way towards that position, the number of people who disbelieve the science of climate change may well be in a majority.
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