The Godber Blueprint: the anti-smoker manifesto

Back in 2008, I posted an entry on a comment made by Sir George Godber to a UN sponsored conference. I'd found the reference in a written copy of Godber's address on a tobacco documents web site. But, I neglected to follow up on the document.

The 3rd World Conference on Smoking and Health (“The Worldwide Campaign Against Smoking”) was held in New York from June 2 June 5, 1975.

Sir George noted that the means by which smokers could be encouraged to quit, was to : “foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily” to secondhand smoke.

In other words, the perception of harm to others would have a far greater impact on convincing smokers to give up the habit than merely harping on the long term health risks to smokers themselves. It would also make it easier to convince the public that discrimination against smokers was justified, not just for their own good, but to protect the health of those around them.

Among the recommendations coming out of the conference was: “That it be recognized that unrestricted tobacco smoking in closed areas create a health hazard for millions of persons with a wide variety of medical susceptibilities and conditions and causes physical irritation and discomfort to the majority of nonsmokers . . . “

But while Godber and associates were prepared to recognize secondhand smoke as a health hazard, there was no scientific evidence to support that contention. This was made clear by another of the recommendations suggesting that: “Research [be conducted] to find out if [secondhand] smoke harms nonsmokers.”

In fact, it would be years before Japanese epidemiologist Takeshi Hirayama released his first study in 1981 associating a higher risk of lung cancer among non-smoking women married to smoking men than non-smoking women married to non-smoking men. Hirayama is generally credited with publishing the first study linking SHS to lung cancer.

But, despite the lack of evidence, the anti-smoker zealots declared secondhand smoke a health hazard in 1975 . . . six years before the Hirayama study. And, Hirayama's study proved controversial, as do most studies on the subject.

The anti-smoker zealots were already laying the groundwork to create the perception that secondhand smoke was a health hazard. And, true to the prognostications of Sir George Godber, the perception has replaced the reality. The public, misled by the propaganda, now accept secondhand smoke as a deadly substance from which non-smokers need protection.

Author Chritopher Snowdon explored the epidemiological evidence in an appendix to his book, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist.. “Of the epidemiological papers that studied the effect of secondhand smoke on nonsmoking wives, 9 found a statistically significant positive association, 3 found a statistically significant negative association and the remaining 52 found no statistically significant association either way.”

If you truly want to understand the evidence, how these studies are conducted and what they really mean, you'll find Snowdon's paper an excellent tutorial. It's available from his website in PDF format.

One of the guiding principles of science is that an experiment or study must be reproducible. In simple terms, other scientists should be able to conduct the same experiment or study and obtain the same results. In the case of secondhand smoke, this is clearly not the case. Only 9 of the 64 studies (roughly 1 in 7) suggested a positive association between secondhand smoke and lung cancer or heart disease.

Yet, the general public remains pitifully unaware of this lack of consistency in the scientific evidence.

This is not really surprising, since the public relies primarily on the press for their information. And, the press has been grossly negligent in their duty to inform the public, merely regurgitating whatever propaganda they're fed by the anti-smoker zealots. The result is a badly misinformed populace easily misled by the bullshit and bafflegab of the anti-smoker cult.

From the 3rd World Conference on Smoking and Health (and subsequent conferences) came the public declaration of principles, policies, and plans of the anti-smoker brigade; their manifesto. It has been institurionalized in the WHO (World Health Organization) treaty called "The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control".

Vincent-Riccardo (Rick) Di Pierri, PhD, author of “Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger: Materialism Out of Control” has an excellent synopsis of what he calls “The Godber Blueprint” on his website. It contains excerpts from documents related to the conference and an excellent commentary on the subject.

Note: A PDF version of the Rampant Antismoking book is available free on Rick's site.