Critical Scientists

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Scientists sceptical of Tobacco Control methods and practice

Although there are many more scientists beyond those listed here who disagree with current Tobacco Control methods, practice or science, few dare expose their dissent. The following quotes are very revealing of the reasons dissenting scientists do not speak up:

- Political correctness and fear of retribution silenced doctors and scientists who knew better. Every lung specialist and cardiologist I questioned across the years scoffed at the story that secondhand smoke caused death. But don't quote me, or I'll be dead. Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
- 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
- As a civil servant and 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. Dr. Philippe Even
- 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
- I am now retired, I feel free to say what I think.(...) I no longer have to worry about my reputation. But I would have probably not written this book if I had continued to practice. Dr. Jean Jacques Bourque
- It would be very inconvenient for the WHO, should it turn out that their warnings about the health risks of secondhand smoke were based on gross exaggerations. And so one may guess the means and resources they use to fight dissident opinion and critical inquiry. I got to know them all: Deception, concealment, falsification, control of the professional media (and thus of professional interactions), as well as intimidation which goes so far that I’ve ceased to wonder why in the professional world hardly anyone dares to object when it comes to the subject of passive smoke. Prof. Romano Grieshaber
- Anyone who takes the (passive smoking) science seriously and wants to assess its strengths and weaknesses is viewed as a threat to be neutralized. This situation has given rise to extraordinary attacks on the integrity of established scientists whose only documentable fault is to report findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Dr. Geoffrey Kabat


The latest documented incident of a doctor being punished for daring to dissent from the groupthink mentality is in July 2012 when Dr. Brendan O'Reilly, a retired GP, was suspended from the BMA (British Medical Association) Welsh Council until 2014 because he publicly questioned the evidence behind the BMA's campaign to ban smoking in vehicles.

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.

THE TRUTH ABOUT SECONDHAND SMOKE ]

Bourque, Jean-Jacques

Retired psychiatrist, Montreal, Canada.

- 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.

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".

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[al] 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.

Crichton, Michael

Although he obtained an M.D. from Harvard, he never practiced medicine because he was disenchanted by the culture he witnessed during his clinical rotation which appeared to emphasize the interests and reputations of doctors over the interests of patients. He reoriented his career as an author, producer, director, and screenwriter. (Deceased).

- I am opposed on passing laws based on phony science. I think it sets a bad precedent.

Davies, John B.

Semi-retired Professor of Psychology at the University of Strathclyde and Director of the Centre for Applied Social Psychology. Member of Health Scotland's Qualitative Bar Study on Smokefree Legislation

- In my opinion the current social marketing campaigns [about the risk of passive smoking] are deliberately designed to deceive people to make them change behaviour.

How far do we take this? At what point does it become unacceptable to deliberately present information in a deceptive way to make people change their behaviour? You have to make a decision, and I have made mine:

Bad science in a good cause is bad science.

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.

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.

Dunbar, Ian

Retired physician with Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree, fourth generation of a medical family. Practiced in various countries but mainly in the UK. Author of the book Puff Of Smoke. (Deceased)

- Researchers still do not know precisely how, or indeed whether, smoking causes cancer or any of the other diseases attributed to it; they have struggled with weird and wonderful experiments to try and produce tumours in laboratory animals and failed dismally. The chemicals in tobacco smoke are similar to those in traffic fumes, except that in traffic fumes the concentration is much higher; cigarette smoke is therefore less toxic than the air we ordinarily breathe.

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.

Enstrom, James E.

PhD Epidemiology, Master of Public Health, as of 2012 in ideological battle with medical school administration to keep his position at David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles. Founder and president of the Scientific Integrity Institute.

- My research suggests, contrary to popular claims, that there is not a causal relationship between ETS and mortality in the U.S. responsible for 50,000 excess annual deaths, but rather there is a weak and inconsistent relationship. The popular claims tend to damage the credibility of epidemiology.

Even, Philippe

Pulmonologist, president of the Necker Research Institute in Paris, France. Professor Even appeared in what the French newspaper Le Parisien called "a shocking interview" on the day of his retirement, May 31. 2010. He said the French smoking ban was built on a lie about the risk of passive smoking:

- Clearly, the harm (of passive smoking) is either nonexistent, or it is extremely low. The psychosis began with the publication of a report by IARC of the World Health Organization. The report released in 2002 says it is now proven that passive smoking carries serious health risks, but without showing the evidence. Where are the data? What was the methodology? It's everything but a scientific approach. They have created a fear based on nothing.

- Why did you not speak up earlier?

- As a civil servant and 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.

Feinstein, Alvan

(1925–2001). Clinician, researcher and epidemiologist who made significant impact on clinical investigation, especially in the field of clinical epidemiology that he helped define. Since 1991 he was the Sterling Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, the highest academic distinction at Yale University. He published more than 400 scientific papers and wrote six major textbooks, some of which are among the most widely referenced books in clinical epidemiology.
Alvan Feinstein was a harsh critic of the passive smoking studies, which he referred to as "anti-smoking evangelism". In an article he cited a leader of the public health community for privately admitting this to him:
"Yes, it's rotten science, but it's in a worthy cause. It will help us get rid of cigarettes and become a smoke-free society."

- In meta-analyses of passive smoking studies, the investigators have complied with almost none of the scientific guidelines established for this type of research: A fundamental rule in criteria for causality is that the evidence from different studies consistently goes in the same direction. In the investigations of passive smoking, however, the various studies are contradictory, some going in positive directions and others not.

The inconvenient failure of the evidence to comply with a prime requisite of scientific reasoning for causality, however, has not inhibited the causal accusations. The "prosecution" has simply ignored the inconvenient results and emphasized those that are ... "helpful".

First, Melvin W.

(1914–2011) Sc.D. Professor Emeritus of Environmental Health and Engineering at Harvard School of Public Health. Melvin First was chairman of the Department of Energy Regulatory Commission Air Cleaning Conferences for three decades. He is recognized internationally for his research and field applications of filter theory, operation and maintenance, and of nuclear air cleaning systems.
In 2003, when the tobacco control industry attacked the Enstrom & Kabat study in the media, Melvin First wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal:

- James Enstrom's finding that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke cannot be associated with increased risk of cancer and heart disease comes as no surprise to me, as I authored with a colleague a study published in 1975 detailing the results of inconspicuous air samplings at restaurants, cocktail lounges, transportations terminals etc. to "evaluate the health implications for nonsmokers" and found that the concentrations of tobacco smoke were equivalent to smoking about 0,004 cigarettes an hour while in these facilities.

- Publication resulted in many angry voices on the phone wanting to learn the funding source, although it was noted that it had been funded by "the Massachusetts Lung Association and its local affiliates". That is another interesting tale - the Lung Association put our report in a drawer and never released it. It is also curiuos that none of the surgeon general's reports ever mentioned this study.

Fox, R. Michael

Nuclear scientist and university chemistry professor, USA (Deceased)

- Of those chemicals present in ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) only a very few can be classified as toxins or carcinogens. Some basic physics, a bit of chemistry and a series of rather simple mathematical calculations reveal that exposure to ETS is hardly a dangerous event. Indeed, the cancer risk of ETS to a non-smoker appears to be roughly equal to the risk of becoming addicted to heroin from eating poppy seed bagels.

- As we prepared our comments earlier this year on the 9th RoC subcommittee’s decision regarding ETS, we dug into the original risk assessment proceedings of the EPA. It became absolutely clear that the so-called “independent scientific bodies” were not independent at all. Rather these groups – Scientific Advisory Boards – were pressurised by a wide variety of political and procedural forces to cast their weight (quite reluctantly in several cases) on the side of ETS as a carcinogen.

- How many hundreds of millions of dollars are being wasted on senseless, useless – and quite possibly harmful – “Blame ETS” research? How much more time and talent is being diverted from useful research into chronic infections from bacteria and viruses that are major causes of cancer worldwide? How many more absurd “risk alerts” will it take before the public laughs scientists out of a position of trust altogether?

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.

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.

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 disputes 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.)

Jenkins, Roger A.

Analytical chemist, Ph.D., Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL), specializing in air quality measurement and analysis. Author of the Black Dog study, the 16 Cities study, and a study on Restaurant and Tavern Workers. Jenkins has been criticized by the Tobacco Control Industry for serving as an expert witness against them in legal hearings, and because ORNL has received Tobacco Industry funding of his research. His work however has never been successfully criticized for its content.
According to Jenkins' studies, nonsmokers in homes and workplaces where smoking is unrestricted inhales the equivalent of 8 to 10 cigarettes per year at most. The typical smoker inhales 480 milligrams of smoke per day and 32 milligrams of nicotine per day, while the typical nonsmoker will inhale the equivalent of 0.45 milligrams of smoke particles and 0.028 milligrams of nicotine.

- A well-known toxicological principle is that the poison is in the dose. It's pretty clear that the environmental tobacco smoke dose is pretty low for most people.

- Policies barring smokers from workplaces have been based on “scientific findings” that don’t hold up under scrutiny. If you plug in the Lab’s 16-cities data into the risk assessment, you cannot come to the same conclusions that the regulatory bodies have come to.

- Scientists must never tinker with their science just because they don’t like the outcome of their data. Just because you find cigarette smoking annoying doesn’t mean you should cherry-pick your data so that you can prove a health risk.

Johnstone, Jeffrey Raymond

PHD in physiology. In the later part of his scientific career, he developed a keen interest in public health issues and became notorious for his fearless public attacks on what he saw as loose science in the area of the epidemiology of smoking, diet, exercise and health. Australia (deceased)

- It may now be apparent why there is such a general belief that smoking is dangerously harmful. There are 3 reasons. First, studies which in any other area of science would be rejected as second-rate and inferior but which support antismoking are accepted as first-rate. Second, studies which are conducted according to orthodox and rigorous design but which do not support the idea that smoking is harmful are not merely ignored but suppressed. Third, authorities who are duty-bound to represent the truth have failed to do so and have presented not just untruths but the reverse of the truth.

Kabat, Geoffrey C.

Senior epidemiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City. Author of Hyping Health Risks, Columbia University Press, 2008. Investigator of several studies of passive smoking and disease, among them two key studies with James E. Enstrom in 2003 and 2006, where no association between passive smoking and fatal disease was found. After the first study Enstrom and Kabat were viciously attacked by the Tobacco Control Industry.

- Anyone who takes the (passive smoking) science seriously and wants to assess its strengths and weaknesses is wieved as a threat to be neutralized. This situation has given rise to extraordinary attacks on the integrity of established scientists whose only documentable fault is to report findings in a peer-reviewed journal.

- Because of the highly polarized climate and self-proclaimed righteousness of the Tobacco Control position, those who engage in such attacks are not required to provide any evidence of wrongdoing or fraud. The fact that a researcher conducted research at a prominent university, and that the research was partially funded by tobacco industry funding ... is viewed by the activists as sufficient to discredit the targets of these attacks.

- Having neutralized the offending research, the guardians of the consensus are then free to ignore it and pretend that it does not exist.

- A doctrine is built up that is antithethical to the openness that is a precondition for scientific discourse. What is objectionable is that voluminous and authoritative-appearing reports convey the message that passive smoking is a major cause of fatal disease, which few scientists believe to be the case.

Geoffrey Kabat is also featured on the anti-tobacco Advocates page.

Lee, Julian

Thoracic Surgeon, researcher, taught at public hospitals, was elected as NSW President of the AMA and had acted in various professional roles both nationally and internationally. Australia (deceased)

- There is very little data to support the view that environmental tobacco smoke has long-term harmful effects in adults either in the workplace or in the home.

- It is difficult to separate any effects passive smoking might have on the health of infants and young children from other factors such as family history of illness, genetic pre-disposition, socio-economic status breast feeding and maternal smoking during pregnancy.

Levy, Robert A

Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies, The Cato Institute; Adjunct Professor of Statistics for Law, Georgetown University Law Center and Rosalind B. Marimont, former mathematician and scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the Bureau of Standards) and the National Institute of Health.

- Junk science has replaced honest science and propaganda parades as fact. Our legislators and judges, in need of dispassionate analysis, are instead smothered by an avalanche of statistics - tendentious, inadequately documented, and unchecked by even rudimentary notions of objectivity.

Little, Kitty

Oxford Research Scientist (deceased). Her theory that diesel fuel is the leading cause of cancer is now officially echoed by the W.H.O

- According to advertisements produced by the anti-smoking lobby there are over 30,000 deaths from lung cancer a year. Yet there has been evidence for over 40 years that those deaths were not due to cigarette or tobacco smoke. Since the effect of the anti-smoking campaign has been to prevent the genuine cause from being publicly acknowledged, there is a very real sense in which we could say that the main reason for those 30,000 deaths a year from lung cancer is the anti-smoking campaign itself.

Madden, Robert E

Practicing chest surgeon, teacher and a former cancer researcher. Past president of the NY Cancer Society. USA

- To me the most offensive element of the smoking bans is the resort to science as “proving that environmental smoke, second hand smoke, causes lung cancer”. Not only is this unproven but there is abundant and substantial evidence to the contrary. It is frustrating, even insulting, for a scientist like myself to hear the bloated statistics put out by the American Cancer Society (of which I am a member) and the American Lung Association used to justify what is best described as a political agenda.

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!

The following explanation from Professor Molimard (translated freely from its original French version) describes how the modern day Tobacco Control movement is actually hurting smokers:

- And they lay it on thick, accusing them – through passive smoking – to be the murderers of their neighbours or their children: this is a contemptible manipulation devised by the pharmaceutical companies at the same time as the launch of Champix©. I analyzed the machination behind it in an article published in a prominent and daring scientific journal [2], that obviously no media picked up.

- The omnipresence of the cigarette in a smoker's life results in making smoking part of the smoker's personal identity. Attacking this identity triggers the smoker's defensive mechanism and causes smokers to resort to an entrenched type of smoking. Is it then surprising that ever since prohibition has spread in Europe,

  • smoking prevalence has increased from 27 to 29% in Ireland,
  • Italy now has 2 million more smokers,
  • the youth rediscovers tobacco (and marijuana),
  • The number of students for the Diplôme de Tabacologie that I was organizing again this year in Paris decreased by two thirds,
  • The tabacologie consultations are emptying out,
  • The sales of so-called cessation medications are sharply declining

Nilsson, Robert

Professor of Molecular Toxicology, Stockholm University, Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Toxicology. Senior Toxicologist, Swedish National Chemicals Inspectorate.
Professor Robert Nilsson has written several highly critical articles about the anti-smoking industry claims that passive smoking (ETS) causes heart disease and lung cancer. He calls the risk of heart disease unsupported and highly hypothetical - and the risk of lung cancer negligible.

- The one-sided preoccupation with ETS as a causative factor of lung cancer in nonsmokers may seriously hinder the elucidation of the multifactorial etiology of these tumors.

In the book What Risk? Professor Nilsson puts children's risk of passive smoking in this perspective:

- Looked at another way, a child’s intake of benzo[a]pyrene during 10 hours from ETS is estimated to be about 250 times less than the amount ingested from eating one grilled sausage.

Professor Nilsson also refers to the smoking bans as "extremist legislation."

Onat, Altan

Emeritus Professor Istanbul University · Department of Family Medicine

- High exposure to SHS confers no excess cardiovascular or all-cause mortality compared with unexposed individuals, whereas moderate SHS exposure (representing the majority of passive smokers) tends to reduce the risk of death, by approximately 15%. This inference is not surprising in view of the fact that even active smoking has been reported to have beneficial effects on the risk of type 2 diabetes and marginal effects on the risk of coronary heart disease in the general population; in addition, there have been reduced fasting glucose levels among smokers.

Phillips, Carl V.

PhD Public Policy, Master of Public Policy, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research. Has held teaching positions at Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Texas, and the University of Alberta. Professional consultant on health policies and economics.

- If research on smoking cessation was a science, rather than being a marketing and political activity, the overwhelming evidence that NRT [Nicotine Replacement Therapy] does not work would have led to the rejection of a hypothesis.

Ropohl, Günter

Prof. Günter Ropohl studied both mechanical engineering and 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 has published more than 210 articles and 30 books. (10 as author and 20 as editor or co-editor). Prof. Ropohl has also written 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.)

Schrauzer, N. Gerhard

Retired professor of Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego. Founder of the International Association of Bioinorganic Scientists. Member of several scientific societies, including the American Chemical Society, the Association of Clinical Scientists, and the American Public Health Association. Author of approximately 300 research publications. Main research interests include cancer-prevention, cancer epidemiology, trace minerals in human and animal nutrition, and various fields of experimental chemistry.

- While the role of active cigarette smoking in the etiology

of lung cancer is still controversial,it may be stated with confidence that the nonsmoker's exposure to tobacco smoke has no effect on the lung cancer risk. Even the Americen Cancer Society's Dr. E.C. Hammond has said that there was no shred of evidence that a nonsmoker can get cancer from "second hand" smoke and that there is a lot of evidence that he cannot. This view is consistent with

a recent study that reviewed findings from several other studies, including an American Cancer Society epidemiological study, and found no evidence that nonsmokers exposed to tobacco smoke have a higher incidence of bronchial cancer.

- In conclusion, there is no scientific proof for the claim that atmospheric tobacco smoke induces diseases in the nonsmoker. Thus, regulations formulated to protect the health of the nonsmoker would accomplish nothing but act as a limitation of personal freedom.

Segura, Gabriela

Heart surgeon with extensive experience and interest in alternative health, research, psychology and the human condition, France

- So much for the anti-smoking campaign where we have been led to believe that smoking is practically the sole cause of all humanity's health problems. Before the fascist anti-smoking legislation, people in Spain, Italy and France were happily puffing away, and as a result, were enjoying much longer life expectancy than the U.S. with its fewer smokers.

- Yes, you're reading this right; as a doctor, I don't discourage patients from smoking in this increasingly stressful world. I do encourage them to choose organic tobacco and papers, or to go back to the old traditional ways of smoking pipes or cigars. The smartest people on Earth smoke and it is a veritable sign of the times that smoking is so highly discouraged in this modern, zombie culture.

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.

Siegel, Michael

Dr. Michael Siegel of Boston University has a long and renowned history of promoting anti-tobacco and anti-smoking research and ideology in close conjunction with Stanton Glantz and Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. However, he is even more notable for his decision to split from the extremist mainstream of the Tobacco Control Industry in the early 2000s, and is now best known for his tobaccoanalysis blog where he regularly takes apart shoddy research presented in support of extremist antismoking positions. His scientific rigor has proved to be quite an embarrassment to his former colleagues and they have booted him off the GlobaLink listserv and out of their inner circle in recent years.

- Frankly, at this point, I am not so surprised that anti-tobacco advocates would have a pre-determined agenda that is devoid of an evidence base. The only surprise is that these advocates would readily admit that the purpose of research is to provide a rationale for this pre-determined agenda, rather than to figure out whether the policy works or not.

In light of his continued support of indoor workplace smoking bans, regardless of effective ventilation techniques and the voluntary exposure of workers, Siegel is also referenced on our anti-tobacco Advocates page.

Siepmann, James P.

Graduate of Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, practiced family medicine in Wisconsin, USA - (deceased)

- USWM smokers have a lifetime relative risk of dying from lung cancer of only 8 (not the 20 or more that is based on an annual death rate and therefore virtually useless)
- No study has ever shown that casual cigar smoker (<5 cigars/wk, not inhaled) has an increased incidence of lung cancer.
- Lung cancer is not in even in the top 5 causes of death, it is only #9.**
- All cancers combined account for only 13% of all annual deaths and lung cancer only 2%.**
- Occasional cigarette use (<1 pk/wk) has never been shown to be a risk factor in lung cancer.
- Certain types of pollution are more dangerous than second hand smoke.
- Second hand smoke has never been shown to be a causative factor in lung cancer.
- A WHO study did not show that passive (second hand) smoke statistically increased the risk of getting lung cancer.
- No study has shown that second hand smoke exposure during childhood increases their risk of getting lung cancer.
- In one study they couldn't even cause lung cancer in mice after exposing them to cigarette smoke for a long time.

- If everyone in the world stopped smoking 50 years ago, the premature death rate would still be well over 80% of what it is today. (But I thought that smoking was the major cause of preventable death...hmmm.)

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.

Snel, Jan

Psycho-physiologist. Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, NL.
  • 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 impairs mental health.
  • Enforced prohibition of smoking represents 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.

Stadler, Beda

Beda 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.)

Whelan, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Whelan had a Masters in Public Health from the Yale School of Medicine a Master of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health , and a Doctor of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health. She was President and founder of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) and a member of its Board of Trustees. She was an anti-tobacco advocate and spoke very strongly against the use of junk science. (deceased)

- There is no evidence that any New Yorker — patron or employee — has ever died as a result of exposure to smoke in a bar or restaurant.

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