When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#141

Post by watwut » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:27 AM UTC

ratsmack wrote: post #105

standeven wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fine to question magazine articles that contain lines like “4 out of 5 doctors recommend…”. It’s fine to question individual doctors. It’s fine to question corporate-sponsored think tanks. Is it fine to question a scientific consensus on effective ways to fight a global pandemic?

>Is it fine to question a scientific consensus on effective ways to fight a global pandemic? Yes, it is always fine to question scientific conclusions with legitimate concerns. Or we could always revert to letting the church decide what valid science is, I guess.

Yeah, except majority of those were nit legitimate questions. They were partisanship or other immediate political goal motivated bullshit.

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#142

Post by inter_netuser » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:30 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #34

Nihilartikel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are better means to that end.. such as immuno-modulating parasites. The good old hookworm is a fine example. (Not actually kidding)

That trial failed

do you have a link? i thought failed studies aren't usually published?

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#143

Post by enriquto » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:31 AM UTC

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #25

daenz wrote: post #22

Look at the timeline: 1930 - first cigarette company uses physicians in their ads 1950s - evidence starts mounting that smoking causes lung cancer 1964 - US Surgeon General report on the link between smoking and cancer 1998 - cigarette companies still maintained that the link is controversial So it takes 70 years, or nearly an entire generation, before all of the machinery at play (businesses, government, healthcare,…

Labomotomies won the Nobel prize. They were supported by the mainstream medical and science establishments. Rosemary Kennedy, JFKs relative got one. People were giving labotomies to their kids to calm them down, advised by their doctor. Great article on Howard Dulley one of the kids whose parents gave him a lobotomy advised by a doctor. https://www.npr.org/2005/11/16/5014080/my-lobotomy-howard-du...

What a disturbingly scary article!

> He objects to going to bed but then sleeps well. He does a good deal of daydreaming and when asked about it he says 'I don't know.'

Doesn't this description fit most kids in the world? It was used to justify the lobotomy of a poor boy.

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#144

Post by fomine3 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:37 AM UTC

sooheon wrote: post #135

champagnois wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asian cultures are aware. In China for example, tofu is one of the cheapest possible protein sources (think in terms of a massive pallet of it sold for five dollars) but people are generally aware that it is poisonous in some weird ways that won't kill you. Males are generally urged not to consume it. This could be a knowledge of just the upper class, though. An unspoken suggestion to leave the tofu and soy for the p…

According to this ( https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en/nutraceutical/about/soylution/en... ) Japan consumes 8.19 kg/year/person of soy, while the US consumes 0.04 kg/year/person. That's 200x difference. Japanese life expectancy is half a decade longer than the US, not to mention 1/10 the obesity.

I'm surprised how big the difference. 40g/y seems to just eat soy once per year, despite soy are farmed in the US.

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#145

Post by lonecom » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:37 AM UTC

daenz wrote: post #22

Look at the timeline: 1930 - first cigarette company uses physicians in their ads 1950s - evidence starts mounting that smoking causes lung cancer 1964 - US Surgeon General report on the link between smoking and cancer 1998 - cigarette companies still maintained that the link is controversial So it takes 70 years, or nearly an entire generation, before all of the machinery at play (businesses, government, healthcare,…

And this is for something that the scientific community did not have vested interest in protecting. That is, the scientific community did not come up with smoking as some boon to humanity.

Now imagine if that was the case here; That the big business and the scientific community had a natural alignment in promoting and protecting a practice with huge commercial interests...

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#146

Post by inter_netuser » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:39 AM UTC

fsociety999 wrote: post #117

solarkraft wrote: post #36

It's a bit funny that some commenters relate this to vaccines. I also see a similarity, but maybe in a slightly different way. The tobacco industry paid doctors to become outliers and promoted them to imply expert consensus and push their product. People not very fond of vaccines also promote outliers attempting to imply some form of consensus or at least scientific validity. Quite a few of them also have products or…

Do you really believe the financial and other incentives are greater for the people pushing _against_ vaccines and Big Pharma as opposed to the politicians, “experts“, and doctors who are pushing the vaccines so aggressively to the point where they are okay if you lose your job if you don’t take them? That is a bit of an upside down view of the power structure in society. Pharmaceutical companies are literally making…

I would never agree with this comment above, but today we see nurses fired over this whole vaccine issue. Nurses, who worked frontlines during the first wave when vaccines weren't available, contracted and recovered from covid, and have antibodies to prove it.

They were called heroes.

Today, none of that apparently matters, valuable medical staff were fired anyway, in a middle of pandemic. Why???

Only to turn around, and demand that the vaccinated, but COVID-positive workers (who'd normally have to isolate) work the COVID wards instead?

Couldn't they just ask those that declined vaccination, but previously infected with COVID, work in those wards?

They've done that in 2020, and if they are willing to do that again, are they not heroes, risking their own lives to save others? Well, suddenly they are now pariahs instead of heroes, and must be fired and ridiclued.

How does any of this make sense???

I'm lost at this point.

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#147

Post by oofabz » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:53 AM UTC

My grandmother was prescribed cigarettes for anxiety in the 1950s. She quit in the '80s after developing emphysema, but it was too late. After years on oxygen her lungs were unable to sustain her and she suffocated.

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#148

Post by exodust » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:54 AM UTC

xelfer wrote: post #118

> This content is not available in your area. Really making good use of that global network we got goin' here, history.com. https://i.imgur.com/3bPAFQA.png

Where should I book a plane ticket to, so I can view this article?

edit: https://archive.is/aAf3K

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#149

Post by f6v » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:18 AM UTC

ratsmack wrote: post #105

standeven wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fine to question magazine articles that contain lines like “4 out of 5 doctors recommend…”. It’s fine to question individual doctors. It’s fine to question corporate-sponsored think tanks. Is it fine to question a scientific consensus on effective ways to fight a global pandemic?

>Is it fine to question a scientific consensus on effective ways to fight a global pandemic? Yes, it is always fine to question scientific conclusions with legitimate concerns. Or we could always revert to letting the church decide what valid science is, I guess.

> Yes, it is always fine to question scientific conclusions with legitimate concerns.

See, scientific consensus is usually based on data and certain statistics. Those who question it usually express opinions without addressing the data and methodology. An opinion is not enough, you need to be very specific.

Re: When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

#150

Post by mngnt » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:37 AM UTC

xmprt wrote: post #109

daenz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>After the Second World War, the German research was effectively silenced due to perceived associations with Nazism That's really interesting. I dug a little more into it[0]. Apparently the underlying reasoning was that the Nazis associated smoking with "degenerates" and damage to "bodily purity." So when the research hit the US, people must have associated anti-smoking with those Nazi ideas. I wonder if tobacco comp…

That tradition hasn't died out yet. There are a ton of common sense things done in many European countries that aren't implemented in the US because of apparent links to "communism."

Could you give some examples? I am from a post communist country and am interested in what could be percieved as communist in the US. My guesses are publi transport and universal health care on the top 2 spots.