Now I confess I am not a government paid researcher, mathematician,
or an expert on analysis of hospital admissions.
Frankly however you do not need to be to see the conclusions of this
report are not supported by the data, however you try to dress it up.
The simplest way of showing this is by the use of the actual data in
the study:
'As you can see, the decline in admissions in the year after the
smoking ban was larger than the year before but smaller than the year
before that. In fact, the average in the previous two years was 4.2%
almost exactly what it was in the year after the ban (4.26%).
Faced with this evidence, from a nation of 49 million people, what
else can you do but hold up your hands and admit that smoking bans have no
perceivable effect on a nation's heart attack rate?'
Professor Michael Siegel has also reviewed the data set used on http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/ . His conclusions are also very
damming and I am sure there will be further contributions on this study.
For my part as an ordinary member of the public, who is not a smoker
I find it astonishing that reputable scientists seem to bring out a string
of so called research that has no basis in fact with regard to smoking
bans, and world renowned publications such as the BMJ publish them.
What with climate change and other areas of scientific concern, is it
any wonder fewer and fewer graduates are going into scientific research.
Science use to be about truth, not about providing the result the
'paymaster' wants. Public health policy based on fallacious science
seriously undermines the potential for good, the public simply become
cynical and discard the advice, hence the levels of smoking actually on
the rise following years of steady decline.
Rapid Response:
Conclusion is Fallacy
Now I confess I am not a government paid researcher, mathematician,
or an expert on analysis of hospital admissions.
Frankly however you do not need to be to see the conclusions of this
report are not supported by the data, however you try to dress it up.
The simplest way of showing this is by the use of the actual data in
the study:
Emergency AMI admissions in English hospitals
2002/03: 61,498
2003/04: 60,680 (a fall of 1.33%)
2004/05: 58,803 (a fall of 3.1%)
2005/06: 55,752 (a fall of 5.19%)
2006/07: 53,964 (a fall of 3.21%)
2007/08: 51,664 (a fall of 4.26%)
As Christopher Snowden explains on his blog,
http://tinyurl.com/3757prq
'As you can see, the decline in admissions in the year after the
smoking ban was larger than the year before but smaller than the year
before that. In fact, the average in the previous two years was 4.2%
almost exactly what it was in the year after the ban (4.26%).
Faced with this evidence, from a nation of 49 million people, what
else can you do but hold up your hands and admit that smoking bans have no
perceivable effect on a nation's heart attack rate?'
Professor Michael Siegel has also reviewed the data set used on
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/ . His conclusions are also very
damming and I am sure there will be further contributions on this study.
For my part as an ordinary member of the public, who is not a smoker
I find it astonishing that reputable scientists seem to bring out a string
of so called research that has no basis in fact with regard to smoking
bans, and world renowned publications such as the BMJ publish them.
What with climate change and other areas of scientific concern, is it
any wonder fewer and fewer graduates are going into scientific research.
Science use to be about truth, not about providing the result the
'paymaster' wants. Public health policy based on fallacious science
seriously undermines the potential for good, the public simply become
cynical and discard the advice, hence the levels of smoking actually on
the rise following years of steady decline.
That will be the legacy of the smoking ban.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests