This is the most important study in many years, and we can expect the public health establishment to ignore it. They get their paychecks for blaming smoking, so they’d rather do things wrong, not right!
Assortative mixing as a source of bias in epidemiological studies of sexually transmitted infections: the case of smoking and human papillomavirus. P Lemieux-Mellouki, M Drolet, J Brisson, EL Franco, MC Boily, I Baussano, M Brisson. Epidemiol Infect 2015 Nov 20:1-10 [Epub ahead of print].
Recurrent AAV2-related insertional mutagenesis in human hepatocellular carcinomas. JC Nault, S Datta, S Imbeaud, A Franconi, M Mallet, G Couchy, E Letouzé, C Pilati, B Verret, JF Blanc, C Balabaud, J Calderaro, A Laurent, M Letexier, P Bioulac-Sage, F Calvo, J Zucman-Rossi. Nat Genet 2015 Oct;47(10):1187-1193. “We found clonal integration of adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2) in 11 of 193 HCCs. These AAV2 integrations occurred in known cancer driver genes, namely CCNA2 (cyclin A2; four cases), TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase; one case), CCNE1 (cyclin E1; three cases), TNFSF10 (tumor necrosis factor superfamily member 10; two cases) and KMT2B (lysine-specific methyltransferase 2B; one case), leading to overexpression of the target genes. Tumors with viral integration mainly developed in non-cirrhotic liver (9 of 11 cases) and without known risk factors (6 of 11 cases), suggesting a pathogenic role for AAV2 in these patients. In conclusion, AAV2 is a DNA virus associated with oncogenic insertional mutagenesis in human HCC.” Of the 11 patients, one had HCV, one HBV plus alcohol, and three tumors were alcohol-related. Three patients were female (Supplementary Table 2).
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.3389.html
L Kananen, T Nevalainen, J Jylhävä, S Marttila, A Hervonen, M Jylhä, M Hurme. Exp Gerontol 2015 Oct 17 [Epub ahead of print].
Abstract
Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation (DNAm) have a central role in the regulation of gene expression and thereby in cellular differentiation and tissue homeostasis. It has recently been shown that aging is associated with profound changes in DNAm. Several of these methylation changes take place in a clock-like fashion, i.e. correlating with the calendar age of an individual. Thus, the epigenetic clock based on these kind of DNAm changes could provide a new biomarker for human aging process, i.e. being able to separate the calendar and biological age. Information about the correlation of the time indicated by this clock to the various aspects of immunosenescence is still missing. As chronic cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is probably one of the major driving forces of immunosenescence, we now have analyzed the correlation of CMV seropositivity with the epigenetic age in the Vitality 90 + cohort 1920 (122 nonagenarians and 21 young controls, CMV seropositivity rates 95% and 57%, respectively). The data showed that CMV seropositivity was associated with a higher epigenetic age in both of these age groups (median 26.5 vs. 24.0 (p < 0.02, Mann–Whitney U -test) in the young controls and 76.0 vs. 70.0 (p < 0.01) in the nonagenarians). Thus, these data provide a new aspect to the CMV associated pathological processes.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0531556515300711
More about CMV and Aging
Meanwhile, AS USUAL, the anti-smokers are committing scientific fraud by ignoring the role of CMV infection in order to exploit the circumstance that smokers are more likely to have been infected by it, beginning in childhood. Continue reading
The latest Gallup poll, from July 8-12, 2015: First, the good news – the amazing jump in the proportion of smokers who do NOT want to quit smoking. They asked:
“All things considered, would you like to give up smoking or not?”
58% yes, 42% no
The percentage of smokers who answer “no” has more than doubled since 2011, when only 20% said no! And that 42% is the highest since Gallup began asking that question in 1977!
And the so-so news: The proportion of smokers wavers between 19-21% between 2012 and 2015.
In most things, there has been no progress. The same proportion of people, 80%, believe that smoking is “very harmful” in 2015 as in 2002. It would be nice to know how many still agreed if they knew how the anti-smokers falsely blame smoking for heart disease that’s really caused by cytomegalovirus. And furthermore, that they systematically commit the same fraud with every disease they blame on smoking. And furthermore again, they use the same fraud to falsely blame other aspects of peoples’ lifestyles for diseases caused by infection. And this fraud extends throughout the government’s evaluation of chemicals, the better thereby to create phony health scares and impose unnecessary regulations. (And industry never attacks the fraud because they use toxicologists who are cut from the same cloth as the fraudsters.) And they get away with it because nobody has ever uttered a peep of criticism about it. The only way to make change happen is by speaking out about THIS!
The bad news is that a higher percentage, 24% versus 14%, want to make smoking “totally illegal” than in 1990. But regardless of what the public wants, the FDA committee on tobacco (which is for all practical purposes nothing but another tentacle of the arch-criminals in the Office on Smoking and Health in the CDC) is making contingency plans to do so.
(Washington, DC) – Today, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) led a letter with their colleagues Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jack Reed (D-R.I), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) to reconsider and refocus its efforts away from undermining global anti-smoking measures. Following reports of the Chamber’s lobbying to defeat anti-smoking regulations across the globe, the Senators wrote to Chamber President Tom Donahue citing the severe risk their efforts pose to worldwide public health and condemned the Chamber for using its name and power to stymie countries’ efforts to enforce life-saving tobacco restrictions. (Blumenthal, Durbin, Senate Colleagues, Urge US Chamber to Cease Efforts to Undermine Anti-Smoking Public-Health Measures. Wednesday, July 8, 2015.)
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which was created under Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (added by section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act), has commenced the initial stages of tyrannizing the details of older peoples’ lives in the name of supposedly reducing heart disease risks. Its “Million Hearts®: CVD Model” will be recruiting 360 control and 360 intervention practices, with about 150,000 Medicare fee-for-service patients in each group. Needless to say, the American Heart Association is the primary instigator. And it’s coming under cover of the US Secretary of Health and Human Services announcement of their intention to shift 85% of all traditional (fee for service) Medicare payments to “quality and value” [sic] by 2016. Continue reading
Remember the truth about how they got their beloved “EPA” report on secondhand smoke. It wasn’t even written by real EPA scientists, because they were against calling secondhand smoke a human carcinogen, and said so in their reviews. Instead, it was written by handpicked anti-smokers of the most militant ilk, who used illegal pass-through contracts to conceal their role. And on the board of directors of the crooked company that handled the pass-throughs sat Fred Malek, who was both a director of anti-smoker Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s company, ADP, and the campaign manager for President George Herbert Walker Bush, by whose administration the fraudulent report was released. And the mass media have deliberately concealed the truth all these years so they can FORCE their political agenda on the American people. And THAT is how their fraudulent so-called science and equally fraudulent so-called democracy really operate! Continue reading
On April 16, 2015, several federal agencies released a barrage of regulatory issuances and guidances that further clarify their position on wellness programs. First, the EEOC released a proposed rule on the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act to Wellness programs. With the proposed rule, the EEOC released a fact sheet for small businesses and a question and answer set for the general public.
Second, the HHS Office of Civil Rights, which enforces the HIPAA privacy rules, released FAQs on the wellness programs and HIPAA privacy and security. Third, HHS and the Departments of Labor and Treasury released a set of frequently asked questions on wellness programs. Fourth, HHS released a separate set of FAQs regarding the relationship between the ACA insurance reforms and wellness programs.
Finally, the Department of Labor released a research report on workplace wellness programs. (Workplace Wellness Programs: Federal Agencies Weigh In. By Timothy Jost. Health Affairs, Apr. 17, 2015.)
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/04/17/workplace-wellness-programs-federal-agencies-weigh-in/
As usual, smokers’ rights concerns are poorly addressed, if not completely trampled, by all. An example is what the departments of HHS, Labor and the Treasury consider to be a “reasonably designed” wellness program. “A program that collects a substantial level of sensitive personal health information without assisting individuals to make behavioral changes such as stopping smoking, managing diabetes, or losing weight, may fail to meet the requirement that the wellness program must have a reasonable chance of improving the health of, or preventing disease in, participating individuals.” But what about the rights of people who don’t want to quit smoking? What about the inherent coercion of so-called “incentives?”
And what about the fact that Workplace Wellness is founded on scientific and economic fraud in the first place? At least the economic nonsense is addressed in the last two paragraphs, summarizing the Department of Labor research report:
The study found that lifestyle management programs did not result in reduced utilization of health care services or reduced cost. No evidence was found of reduced costs from smoking cessation or pre-disease management programs. Greater exposure to interventions through telephonic counseling programs increased rather than reduced costs. Lower cardiovascular events attributable to wellness programs reduced costs, but did not come close to offsetting increased costs of participation.
Wellness programs, in sum, do not reduce health program cost, contrary to the assertions of program vendors and the beliefs of employers.
Relationship between Tobacco, cagA and vacA i1 Virulence Factors and Bacterial Load in Patients Infected by Helicobacter pylori.
Santibáñez M, Aguirre E, Belda S, Aragones N, Saez J, Rodríguez JC, Galiana A, Sola-Vera J, Ruiz-García M, Paz-Zulueta M, Sarabia-Lavín R, Brotons A, López-Girona E, Pérez E, Sillero C, Royo G.
PLoS One 2015 Mar 20;10(3):e0120444.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0120444
The academic editor of this paper evidently lacked expertise on the socioeconomics of H. pylori infection, because this group put one over on her. Continue reading
Neurology. 2015 Mar 4. pii: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000001420. [Epub ahead of print]
Mechelli R, Manzari C, Policano C, Annese A, Picardi E, Umeton R, Fornasiero A, D’Erchia AM, Buscarinu MC, Agliardi C, Annibali V, Serafini B, Rosicarelli B, Romano S, Angelini DF, Ricigliano VA, Buttari F, Battistini L, Centonze D, Guerini FR, D’Alfonso S, Pesole G, Salvetti M, Ristori G.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
We analyzed the Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA2) gene, which contains the most variable region of the viral genome, in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) and control subjects to verify whether virus genetic variants are involved in disease development.
METHODS:
A seminested PCR approach and Sanger sequencing were used to analyze EBNA2 in 53 patients and 38 matched healthy donors (HDs). High-throughput sequencing by Illumina MiSeq was also applied in a subgroup of donors (17 patients and 17 HDs). Patients underwent gadolinium-enhanced MRI and human leucocyte antigen typing.
RESULTS:
MS risk significantly correlated with an excess of 1.2 allele (odds ratio [OR] = 5.13; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.84-14.32; p = 0.016) and underrepresentation of 1.3B allele (OR = 0.23; 95% CI 0.08-0.51; p = 0.0006). We identified new genetic variants, mostly 1.2 allele- and MS-associated (especially amino acid variation at position 245; OR = 9.4; 95% CI 1.19-78.72; p = 0.0123). In all cases, the consensus sequence from deep sequencing confirmed Sanger sequencing (including the cosegregation of newly identified variants with known EBNA2 alleles) and showed that the extent of genotype intraindividual variability was higher than expected: rare EBNA2 variants were detected in all HDs and patients with MS (range 1-17 and 3-19, respectively). EBNA2 variants did not seem to correlate with human leucocyte antigen typing or clinical/MRI features.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our study unveils a strong association between Epstein-Barr virus genomic variants and MS, reinforcing the idea that Epstein-Barr virus contributes to disease development.
Mechelli – Neurology 2015 abstract / PubMed
Smokers are more likely to have been infected by EBV, for socioeconomic reasons. But the latest Surgeon General report (2014, Ch. 10, p. 569), which blames smoking for multiple sclerosis, doesn’t even mention EBV! And this reveals how the anti-smokers commit scientific fraud, by cynically exploiting infection to lay false blame on smoking.
The FDA finally obeyed the District Court ruling of July 21, 2014, to reconstitute the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC), due to conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies. Its chairman, the infamous Jonathan Samet, is gone, along with three others – Claudia Barone, Joanna Cohen, and Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, all militant anti-smokers, needless to say. Samet is truly the rottenest of the rotten, but my joy at seeing him gone is tempered with regret that it was for the wrong reason. It should have been because his flagrant scientific fraud in the Surgeon General reports, etc., made him unsuitable to occupy any federal position other than a cell in a penitentiary. Continue reading
From “Competition For Wealthy Elites Drives Up Antibiotic Prescription Rates,” by News Staff, Science 2.0, Feb. 25, 2015.
Competition between doctors’ offices, urgent care centers and retail medical clinics that cater to wealthy elites often leads to an increase in the number of antibiotic prescriptions written per person, finds a new analysis.
The number of physicians per capita and the number of clinics are significant drivers of antibiotic prescription rate, they found, with the highest per capita rates of antibiotic prescriptions found in the southeastern U.S. and along the West and East coasts. The team’s comparative analysis of data for the years 2000 and 2010 were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau and the IMS Health Xponent database, which tracks prescriptions dispensed at the ZIP code level. Notably high rates were found in Manhattan, southern Miami and Encino.
The data showed that the presence of retail medical clinics, like those found in chain drug and “super” stores, and of urgent care centers increases the prescribing rate, but the effect was different in wealthy versus poor areas.
In wealthy areas, the presence of clinics correlated to an increase in the prescribing rate of physicians. However, while the presence of retail or urgent care clinics in poorer areas increased access to health care, it did not generate competition among providers that resulted in higher prescribing behavior by physicians’ offices.
The study: Influence of provider and urgent care density across different socioeconomic strata on outpatient antibiotic prescribing in the USA. Klein EY, Makowsky M, Orlando M, Hatna E, Braykov NP, Laxminarayan R. J Antimicrob Chemother 2015 Jan 20 [Epub ahead of print]
We found large geographical variation in prescribing, driven in part by the number of physician offices per capita. For an increase of one standard deviation in the number of physician offices per capita there was a 25.9% increase in prescriptions per capita. However, the determinants of the prescription rate were dependent on socioeconomic conditions. In poorer areas, clinics substitute for traditional physician offices, reducing the impact of physician density. In wealthier areas, clinics increase the effect of physician density on the prescribing rate.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25604743
It also means that the people who are the most likely to benefit from antibiotics, due to higher rates of exposure to pathogens, are also the least likely to receive them.
Int J Cancer 2015 Jan 15;136(2):487-490.
Plummer M1, Franceschi S, Vignat J, Forman D, de Martel C.
Author information
1International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
Abstract
We previously estimated that 660,000 cases of cancer in the year 2008 were attributable to the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), corresponding to 5.2% of the 12.7 million total cancer cases that occurred worldwide. In recent years, evidence has accumulated that immunoblot (western blot) is more sensitive for detection of anti-H. pylori antibodies than ELISA, the detection method used in our previous analysis. The purpose of this short report is to update the attributable fraction (AF) estimate for H. pylori after briefly reviewing new evidence, and to reassess the global burden of cancer attributable to H. pylori. We therefore reviewed the literature for studies comparing the risk of developing non-cardia gastric cancer (NCGC) in cases and controls, using both ELISA and multiple antigen immunoblot for detection of H. pylori. The results from prospective studies were combined, and the new pooled estimates were applied to the calculation of the AF for H. pylori in NCGC, then to the burden of infection-related cancers worldwide. Using the immunoblot-based data, the worldwide AF for H. pylori in NCGC increased from 74.7% to 89.0%. This implies approximately 120,000 additional cases of NCGC attributable to H. pylori infection for a total of around 780,000 cases (6.2% instead of 5.2% of all cancers). These updated estimates reinforce the role of H. pylori as a major cause of cancer.
KEYWORDS:
Helicobacter pylori; attributable fraction; gastric cancer; immunoblot
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24889903
Helicobacter. 2015 Feb 17. doi: 10.1111/hel.12199. [Epub ahead of print]
Nguyen T1, Ramsey D, Graham D, Shaib Y, Shiota S, Velez M, Cole R, Anand B, Vela M, El-Serag HB.
Author information
1Houston VA HSR&D Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston, Texas, USA; Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Helicobacter pylori in the United States has been declining in the 1990s albeit less so among blacks and Hispanics. As the socioeconomic status of racial groups has evolved, it remains unclear whether the prevalence or the racial and ethnic disparities in the prevalence of H. pylori have changed.
METHODS:
This is a cross-sectional study from a Veteran Affairs center among patients aged 40-80 years old who underwent a study esophagogastroduodenoscopy with gastric biopsies, which were cultured for H. pylori irrespective of findings on histopathology. Positive H. pylori was defined as positive culture or histopathology (stained organism combined with active gastritis). We calculated age-, race-, and birth cohort-specific H. pylori prevalence rates and examined predictors of H. pylori infection in logistic regression models.
RESULTS:
We analyzed data on 1200 patients; most (92.8%) were men and non-Hispanic white (59.9%) or black (28.9%). H. pylori was positive in 347 (28.9%) and was highest among black males aged 50-59 (53.3%; 44.0-62.4%), followed by Hispanic males aged 60-69 (48.1%; 34.2-62.2%), and lowest in non-Hispanic white males aged 40-49 (8.2%; 2.7-20.5%). In multivariate analysis, age group 50-59 was significantly associated with H. pylori (adjusted odds ratio (OR), 2.32; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.21-4.45) compared with those aged 40-49, and with black race (adjusted OR, 2.57; 95% CI, 1.83-3.60) and Hispanic ethnicity (adjusted OR, 3.01; 95% CI, 1.70-5.34) compared with non-Hispanic white. Irrespective of age group, patients born during 1960-1969 had a lower risk of H. pylori (adjusted OR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.22-0.96) compared to those born in 1930-1939. Those with some college education were less likely to have H. pylori compared to those with no college education (adjusted OR 0.51; 95% CI, 0.37-0.69).
CONCLUSION:
Among veterans, the prevalence of active H. pylori remains high (28.9%) with even higher rates in blacks and Hispanics with lower education levels.
KEYWORDS:
Helicobacter pylori ; age group; birth cohort; race; socioeconomic status
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25689684
Anti-smokers exploit the fact that smokers are more likely, for socioeconomic reasons, to have been infected by H. pylori to falsely blame smoking for stomach cancer.
Helicobacter pylori causes ulcers and stomach cancer
Other gastric carcinomas are caused by Epstein-Barr virus, which comprises the largest number of EBV-related cancers. Like H. pylori, EBV infection is more common among less-wealthy people.
Vaccine. 2015 Feb 7. pii: S0264-410X(15)00128-0. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.01.071. [Epub ahead of print]
Frasca D1, Diaz A2, Romero M2, Landin AM2, Blomberg BB2
Author information
1Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33101, USA. Electronic address: dfrasca@med.miami.edu.
2Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33101, USA.
Abstract
Cytomegalovirus (CMV)-seropositivity has been shown to have a negative effect on influenza vaccine-specific antibody responses. In this paper, we confirm and extend these results showing for the first time, a negative association between CMV-seropositivity and B cell predictive biomarkers of optimal vaccine responses. These biomarkers are switched memory B cells and AID in CpG-stimulated B cell cultures measured before vaccination which positively correlate with the serum response to the influenza vaccine. We also found that CMV-seropositivity is associated with increased levels of B cell-intrinsic inflammation and these both correlate with lower B cell function. Finally, CMV-seropositivity is associated with decreased percentages of individuals responding to the vaccine in both young and elderly individuals.
KEYWORDS:
Aging; B cell biomarkers; CMV; Influenza vaccine
PMID: 25659271 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25659271
Highlights
• Influenza vaccination is less effective in CMV-seropositive individuals.
• B cell biomarkers of optimal vaccine responses are reduced by CMV-seropositivity.
• CMV-seropositivity is associated with increased intrinsic inflammation in B cells.
This study is important because anti-smokers claim that smokers are more likely to get flu. But their studies always ignore the role of infection, so they’re exploiting the circumstance that smokers are more likely to have been exposed to CMV, for socioeconomic reasons. In studies that don’t find a difference between smokers and non-smokers, this is presumably because smokers and non-smokers had similar rates of CMV infection. Many studies have shown that cytomegalovirus impairs immunity to influenza.
http://www.smokershistory.com/influenza.html#CMV
Those who are committed to non-violent resistance might wish to read this:
“The teachers [of a weeklong class in revolution] were Srdja Popovic and Slobodan Djinovic — leaders of Otpor, a student movement in Serbia that had been instrumental in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. After then helping the successful democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, the two founded the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (Canvas), and have traveled the world, training democracy activists from 46 countries in Otpor’s methods… In a new book, ‘Blueprint for Revolution,’ Popovic recounts Canvas’s strategies and how people use them… Popovic cheerfully blows up just about every idea most people hold about nonviolent struggle. Here are some:
Myth: Nonviolence is synonymous with passivity.
..Just the opposite, said Djinovic: “We’re here to plan a war.” Nonviolent struggle, Djinovic explained, is a war — just one fought with means other than weapons. It must be as carefully planned as a military campaign.
Myth: The most successful nonviolent movements arise and progress spontaneously.
No general would leave a military campaign to chance. A nonviolent war is no different.
Myth: Nonviolent struggle’s major tactic is amassing large concentrations of people.
This idea is widespread because the big protests are like the tip of an iceberg: the only thing visible from a distance. Did it look like the ousting of Mubarak started with a spontaneous mass gathering in Tahrir Square? Actually, the occupation of Tahrir Square was carefully planned, and followed two years of work. The Egyptian opposition waited until it knew it had the numbers. Mass concentrations of people aren’t the beginning of a movement, Popovic writes. They’re a victory lap.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/a-military-manual-for-nonviolent-war/
.@Dick_Puddlecote The public are encouraged to face punch #smokers if they dare light up in #Bristol. @soozaphone http://t.co/1sju1s8unb—
TobaccoTactics UK (@TobaccoTacticss) February 10, 2015
The UK’s National Health Service has resorted to the Nazi tactic of the pogrom to intimidate smokers! And the US government is sure to copy them if they get away with it!
Update: TobaccoTactics is run by the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group in its School of Public Health, among whom is Anna B. Gilmore, MBBS MSc PhD FFPH. Gilmore et al. have published a raft of tobacco control studies, including, “Support for a tobacco endgame strategy in 18 European countries.” It hardly needs to be said that “endgame” is the code word for outlawing tobacco.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25117519
Anna B. Gilmore at the University of Bath has received $1,290,944 from the US National Cancer Institute between 2011 and 2013, for the project “Tobacco Companies, Global Governance and Public Health.”
http://projectreporter.nih.gov/Reporter_Viewsh.cfm?sl=13EACD0C4784C1DE7598B8961CAA4A01A2FFCEB861BF
In 2014, she received a grant of £354,246 for “Understanding the impact of tobacco tax increases and tobacco industry pricing on smoking behaviours and inequalities,” from the UK National Institute for Health Research.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/grant-winners-27-november-2014/2017151.article
“WOONSOCKET, R.I., Feb. 05 /CSRwire/ – The CVS Health Foundation today announced a $5 million five-year commitment to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids to launch its new “Making the Next Generation Tobacco-Free” grant program. Through the program, the CVS Health Foundation will partner with Tobacco-Free Kids to provide grants to organizations committed to implementing public health strategies to reduce youth tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke.” Continue reading
The vapers got their undies in a bunch because the health fascists pulled the same kind of scam on them that they pull against smokers all the time. They overheated an e-cig, and then pretended that vapers were being subjected to 5 to 15 times higher levels of formaldehyde as regular smokers get. “But detractors — and there are a number — are calling the study ‘irresponsible’ because the conditions under which these researchers analyzed e-cigarette aerosol in no way resemble the way the so-called ‘vapers’ actually use e-cigarettes… ‘What this study demonstrates is that if you overheat a vaping system, it will produce high levels of formaldehyde,’ Dr Siegel explains. ‘But extrapolating from this study to a lifetime of vaping is meaningless.'” (Cancer Risk Greater From e-Cigs Than Regular Cigarettes? By Pam Harrison. Medscape Jan. 15, 2013.) Continue reading
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. blathers, “John Stossel said on Fox that there is ‘no good data’ proving secondhand cigarette smoke kills nonsmokers. There is. So maybe you can see why serious people — a category excluding those who rely upon it for news and information — do not take Fox, well … seriously, why they dub it Pox News and Fakes News, to name two of the printable variations.” (Why serious people discount what Fox News says. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 26, 2015.) Continue reading
Cell. 2015 Jan 15;160(1-2):37-47.
Variation in the human immune system is largely driven by non-heritable influences.
Brodin P, Jojic V, Gao T, Bhattacharya S, Angel CJ, Furman D, Shen-Orr S, Dekker CL, Swan GE, Butte AJ, Maecker HT, Davis MM.
Abstract
There is considerable heterogeneity in immunological parameters between individuals, but its sources are largely unknown. To assess the relative contribution of heritable versus non-heritable factors, we have performed a systems-level analysis of 210 healthy twins between 8 and 82 years of age. We measured 204 different parameters, including cell population frequencies, cytokine responses, and serum proteins, and found that 77% of these are dominated (>50% of variance) and 58% almost completely determined (>80% of variance) by non-heritable influences. In addition, some of these parameters become more variable with age, suggesting the cumulative influence of environmental exposure. Similarly, the serological responses to seasonal influenza vaccination are also determined largely by non-heritable factors, likely due to repeated exposure to different strains. Lastly, in MZ twins discordant for cytomegalovirus infection, more than half of all parameters are affected. These results highlight the largely reactive and adaptive nature of the immune system in healthy individuals.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25594173
And, from the press release: “In a striking example of the immune system’s plasticity, the Stanford scientists found that the presence or absence of a single chronic, viral infection could have a massive effect on the system’s composition and responsiveness. Three out of five Americans and as many as nine out of 10 people in the developing world are chronic carriers of cytomegalovirus, which is dangerous in immune-compromised people but otherwise generally benign. In 16 of the 27 monozygotic twin pairs participating in the study, one member of the pair had been exposed to cytomegalovirus but the other had not. For nearly 60 percent of all the features Davis’ group measured, cytomegalovirus’ presence in one twin and absence in another made a big difference.” (Environment, not genes, plays starring role in human immune variation, study finds. By Bruce Goldman. Stanford School of Medicine News Center, Jan 15, 2015.)
Unfortunately, the full text won’t be available until 2016. This is important because anti-smokers, especially the Surgeon General, claim that smoking impairs smokers’ immune systems – while ignoring the fact that smokers are more likely to have been infected by CMV, for socioeconomic reasons. This is how they falsely blame smoking for diseases that are really caused by infection.
The REAL Smokers' Rights Blog 