Critical Scientists

Scientists sceptical of Tobacco Control methods and practice

Although there are many more scientists, beyond those listed here, who disagree with current Tobacco Control policies, few dare expose their dissent.

There are no body bags filled with those who have developed tumors or heart disease as a result of second-hand smoke. The body bags are filled, however, with scientists and physicians who dare go against the anti-smoking lobby and state the obvious – the science isn’t there. Dr. Terry Simpson

I compare many aspects of ETS epidemiology in the U.S. with pseudoscience in the Soviet Union during the period of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. Overall, this paper is intended to defend legitimate research against illegitimate criticism by those who have attempted to suppress and discredit it because it does not support their ideological and political agendas. Hopefully, this defense will help other scientists defend their legitimate research and combat "Lysenko pseudoscience." Dr. James Enstrom

I was driven from my last academic position by a calculated concerted campaign of efforts to censor my THR research and make my life unpleasant – and that of my students (yes, they attacked my students) and supporters. Prof. Carl V. Phillips

This is McCarthyism in action. Quelling debate. Stifling opposition. Expelling and blacklisting anyone who dares express dissent. No wonder the tobacco control movement has gone off the deep end in its fanaticism. Anyone who tries to stop it knows that they will be censored or expelled. You have no choice but to go along with the groupthink. Dr. Michael Siegel

Below is a list of some scientists who dared make their disagreements public. Often these scientists are retired and dare to speak out only because they are no longer vulnerable to any consequences imposed by the dictatorial Tobacco Control community.

Arnett Jr., Jerome C.

Pulmonologist, Elkins, West Virginia. Policy advisor for The Heartland Institute, adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health.

The abuse of scientific integrity and the generation of faulty "scientific" outcomes (through the use of pseudoscience) have led to the deception of the American public on a grand scale and to draconian government overregulation and the squandering of public money.

• Source: Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger

Bourque, Jean-Jacques

Retired psychiatrist, Montreal, Canada.

• Author of Écrasons la cigarette pas le fumeur

The idea that is promoted by the Quebec government, that second-hand smoke is more dangerous than the smoke inhaled by someone who is smoking, is completely off the rails.

• Source: Smoking defended by Quebec doctor

Button, Phil

GP and anaesthetist, UK.

I have worked in the health service as a GP and an anaesthetist for 23 years. Bans have been supported by antismoking groups. These groups have driven their debate with the invention of "passive smoking". They have used this tool to convince many that smoking is harmful to non-smokers. This is pure fiction as all the available scientific evidence fails to demonstrate any such phenomenon as "passive smoking".

• Source: House of Commons Health Committee Smoking in Public Places

Chaouachi, Kamal

Tobacco researcher specializing in medical anthropology. Holder of a post-graduate diploma in Tobacco Science from the University of Paris (1998). Taught hookah science to French doctors (University of Paris XI–XII, 2006–2010). Scientific collaborator of various research centres in Asia, Africa and Europe. Paris, France

Since prohibitionists are not capable of producing quality evidence, they rely on quantity so that each new "study" can contain sentences like "There is an accumulation of evidence that…" environment tobacco smoke kills, etc.… and the not less classical ending call for funding: "More research is needed" … Besides, they have themselves set the criteria for considering acceptable “evidence”. For instance, who controls the so­ called evidence published in WHO reports? The WHO Tobacco Study Group (TobReg) experts of course. Who are those experts? The same who are to be found in the editorial boards and peer­ reviewers lists of numerous journals supposed to provide the evidence at the grass­root level. This is a vicious circle, a global trick, a global hold up of science.

• Source: Prohibition Through the Hookah Looking­-Glass

Denson, Ken

Medical researcher Thame Thrombosis and Haemostasis Research Foundation, UK (deceased).

The scientific evidence for any deleterious effect of ETS is wholly false. It is so tenuous and equivocal that similar evidence would not [be] seriously considered. The mean exposure alone of the passive smoker is only 1/500th of that of the active smoker. The decision as to whether ETS is harmful to others should be made in a Court of Law.

• Source: House of Commons Health Committee Smoking in Public Places

Di Pierri, Vincent Riccardo

Philosopher and PhD psychologist, author of Rampant Anti-smoking Signifies Grave Danger: Materialism Out of Control.

... In the hands of epidemiology, the term "cause," which is the strongest in scientific parlance, has been reduced to the fostering of superstitious belief (mental dysfunction) and is flung about the medical literature and the media with reckless abandon. The medico-materialist bias and the misguided attempt to coerce societal change on the basis of what is a “statistics madness” can well be characterized as a contemporary form of witchdoctoring. One needs to be reminded regularly that this conduct is being produced by a supposed scientific discipline and, even more absurdly, a supposed health authority. ...

There are many nonsmokers who will happily sit around an open indoor-fire, or in a restaurant that obviously has an operating kitchen (i.e., cooking-smoke). Although ambient smoke can be quite visible in such settings, it produces no troubling. Yet, let a lit cigarette appear and panic and an eradication procedure ensue, and protected by the superiority syndrome. This reflects the deluded, superstitious, belief that tobacco smoke is somehow very different from these other sources of smoke, magically endowed with all manner of dangerous propensities: In typical settings none of this smoke, from whatever source, poses a danger to a normative range of functioning. These deluded beliefs are the result of a relentless healthist propaganda, i.e., iatrogenic.

• Source: Rampant Anti-smoking Signifies Grave Danger: Materialism Out of Control

Dunn, John Dale

Physician, Attorney, and Policy Advisor to The Heartland Institute and the American Council on Science and Health. He has been a civilian emergency medicine faculty physician at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, Fort Hood, Texas, since 2003. Fort Hood is the largest United States Army base and the home of the 1st Cavalry and 4th Infantry Divisions. Since 2005, he has been Adjunct Instructor-Military/Emergency Medicine, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, in Bethesda, Maryland.

As an emergency physician, I am a toxicologist by training and necessity, I know that the anti smoking physicians are campaigning to eliminate cigarette smoking, and couldn’t be bothered by a lack of good science on second hand smoke.

• Source: On the passive smoke fraud

Even, Philippe

Pulmonologist, president of the Necker Research Institute, now retired, Paris France.

They have created a fear based on nothing.

As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held by my duty to confidentiality. If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man.

• Source:Le Parisien (Translated in English, Dutch)

Frenk, Hanan

Psychologist, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Whereas smoking is a persistent behavior that is often difficult to quit, the causal role of nicotine in this behavior is far from clear. In fact, the evidence for the contention that nicotine is instrumental in limiting smoking is at least as strong, if not stronger, than for the hypothesis that nicotine causes smoking.

• Co-author of A Critique of Nicotine Addiction
• Nicotine lectures

Gori, Gio Batta

Epidemiologist and toxicologist, fellow of the Health Policy Center in Bethesda, Md. He is a former deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention.

The abiding mystery is why so many have acquiesced for

so many years, when it must have been manifest that the story of ETS risks is without any testable support. The alleged justification is that all is for the higher goal of abolishing cigarettes and tobacco, even though bans have been only marginally effective in reducing the prevalence of smoking, while leading to most

odious and socially unfair prohibitions.

• Source: The Fraud of Environmental Tobacco Smoke Risks

Grieshaber, Romano

From the year 2000 until retirement in March 2011, Prof. Dr. med. Romano Grieshaber was executive director of prevention and research of the association for food and restaurants (BGN) and is an Honorary Professor of Applied Prevention and Health Promotion at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. He was a board member of the Research Society for Applied System Safety and Health (FSA), a member of the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and CEO of the Center for Interdisciplinary Prevention (KIP) of the University of Jena.

Prof. Dr. med. Romano Grieshaber is non-smoker and the Author of the book "Passivrauchen: Götterdämmerung der Wissenschaft" (published by PubliKom Z.) in which he openly objects the sacrosanct dogmas of the WHO and debunks Tobacco Control Science. In describing his book Grieshaber has said:

Die wissenschaftliche Diskussion über Passivrauch wurde zu Unrecht für abgeschlossen erklärt. Ich rufe die Fachwelt, aber auch die interessierte Öffentlichkeit dazu auf, sie auf Basis von Fakten noch einmal neu zu beginnen. Mit dem Buch will ich die Debatte anstoßen. (The scientific debate about secondhand smoke has wrongly been declared concluded. I call on the experts, but also the interested public, to revisit the question on the basis of facts. I hope my book will stimulate debate.)

• Source: Das Interview - Passivrauchen-Götterdämmerung der Wissenschaft

Molimard, Robert

Professor emeritus of physiology and coordinator of the DIU of Tabacologie to the Faculty of Medicine Paris-South.

Founder of the first French learned society on tobacco and nicotine dependence, inventor of the word tabacologie.

Author of “La Fume” and the “Small handbook of Défume”, Paris, France

Science can only progress if we learn from its mistakes. What is truly diabolical is keeping our eyes tightly shut and manufacturing the results to best serve our own interests and obsessions!

• Source: Beliefs, Manipulation and Lies in the Tobacco Issue

Ropohl, Günter

Prof.Günter Ropohl studied both, mechanical engineering as well as philosophy at Stuttgart Universität, obtaining his PhD (Dr -Ing) in 1970. In 1978 Prof. Ropohl wrote his Habilitation thesis in philosophy and sociology at Karlsruhe Universität where in 1979 he became Professor. In 1981 Prof. Ropohl became Professor for general technology and philosophy of technology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where he lectured until 2004.

Prof. Ropohl is is an honorary member of the German Engineering Association (VDI) and published more than 210 articles and 30 books. (10 as author and 20 as editor or co-editor). Prof. Ropohl also wrote a number of critical articles in NovoArgumente about passive smoking, smoking bans and the WHO. Professor Ropohl stresses that he has not worked for the tobacco industry, and describes modern restrictions on smoking and smokers as:

Angestachelt von pseudowissenschaftlichen Vorurteilen (Motivated by pseudo-scientific prejudices).

• Source: "Passivrauchen“ als statistisches Konstrukt

Shaw, Michael D.

Environmental scientist, California.

Science, at its best, should never have an agenda, and should aid the quest for truth. In the days before big media and big research grants, bizarre claims could be subjected to the harsh light of objective science. Nowadays, though, it is sometimes the alleged "science" that promotes the bizarre claims.

• Source: Second Hand Smoke: What Does Science Tell Us?

Simpson, Terry

Scientist, author, surgeon, Phoenix, Arizona.

The Surgeon General was incorrect. Second hand smoke may be an irritant and an annoyance, but it’s not a cause of death.

• Source: The Myth of Second Hand Smoke

Snel, Jan

Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, NL Psycho-physiologist.

• Smoking is a pleasure with beneficial effects on mood and cognition
• Bans on smoking, impose profound psychological and social burdens on

smokers who are labelled deviant, which impair mental health.

• Enforced prohibition of smoking represent an ineffective, counterproductive and

moralizing dead end.

• The concerns about the impact of smoking bans on mental health, well-being

and quality of life have been given hardly any consideration.

• To deprive people from pleasure and by that harm their mental health is

morally reprehensible.

• Source: Smoking bans and mental health

Stadler, Beda

Prof. Stadler is professor of immunology and Director of the Institute of Immunology at the University of Bern. Prof. Stadler obtained his Doctorate phil. nat. (PhD in molecular biology) in 1979 at the Natural Sciences Faculty, University of Bern, Switzerland, wrote his Habilitation thesis in 1986 at Medical Faculty, University of Bern, Switzerland, became Professor of immunology in 1991 and Ordinary Professor of immunology in 2001. Prof. Stadler's research in the field of allergology and auto-immunity resulted in numerous publications in renowned scientific journals, such as Nature. Prof. Stadler is also well known for voicing earthy common sense in newspapers and television, and has stated plainly:

Passivrauchen war nie tödlich. (Passive smoking has never been deadly.)

• Source: Beda Stadler: Passivrauchen war nie tödlich