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When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking (2018)

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

#191

Post by nzp7chfjks »

steelstraw wrote: post #104
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,…

That's a great reminder to not get too dogmatic about anything, even when business, government, healthcare and scientists are all aligned. I'm curious if there were doctors and scientists who dissented from the cigarette consensus prior to the 60s? And how were they treated in such an environment?

Those would be the "conspiracy theorists".

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

#193

Post by version_five »

inter_netuser wrote: post #140
version_five wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very suspicious of a claim that even if some compound(s) in tobacco smoke help with ulcerative colitis or any condition, that the clinical recommendation is to take up smoking cigarettes. But I'm open to being proven wrong

You'd probably change your mind as soon as you'd receive a devastating diagnosis, such as parkinson's. if you knew, that nicotine could at least potentially arrest the progression, how sick would you need to get before you would try nicotine patches? would you rather wait until you are unable to walk, talk, eat, wear adult diapers, but never ever attempt anything on your own? "clinical recommendation" is nothing more…

> Marijuana is being used medicinally en masse in many countries today

I suspect "medicinal" marijuana is just a ruse to get it legalized. Not to say there are not medicinally beneficial compounds. I also support legalization. But it's a pretty big coincidence that the only medicine with "roll it into a joint and smoke it" as the delivery mechanism happens to be used recreationally in exactly the same way. Just like alcohol was "medicinal" during prohibition.

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

#194

Post by mrguyorama »

mngnt wrote: post #150
xmprt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends how deep into the south you go. It fares from clear ones, like government run anything, to extremes like mixing races, homosexuality, and anything the CDC says right now.

Basically Fox news uses "Communism" as a synonym for "things I don't like"

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

#195

Post by tmule »

tmule wrote: post #54

The Sackler family pushed opioids onto middle America in a rather spectacular fashion. In any functioning society - including with a death penalty - they’d be contending with the harshest possible penalty. Just not in America.

There used to be an old fashioned concept called noblesse oblige. That’s no longer a thing in society, and the elites - barring performative actions and fashionable statements- are not invested in the well-being of average Americans.

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

#196

Post by dang »

readingnonsense wrote: post #40

Bringing these things up during the early days of the pandemic would have gotten you blacklisted/shadowbanned on sites such as this one, as "please don't spread unfounded rumors - dang"

That doesn't sound like something I'd post, and there's no occurrence of it in HN Search.

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

#197

Post by blindmute »

sockaddr wrote: post #113
champagnois wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Question: How do we reconcile "soy is poison" with the fact that some cultures include massive amounts of soy in their diet with little known detriment? For instance, the Japanese seem to eat tons of the stuff in various forms all the time but they seem to lead healthy lives. I don't have any skin in the game, just curious.

Asian cultures also have some of the shortest people, lowest testosterone men, and physically weakest men in the world. Whether this is worth a few more years of lifespan is up to the eater.

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

#198

Post by blindmute »

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…

> It's a bit funny that some commenters relate this to vaccines.

This is literally the only comment chain in the entire thread to reference vaccines

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

#199

Post by ceejayoz »

inter_netuser wrote: post #146
fsociety999 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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.

If you treat a gunshot victim with napkins from McDonalds because it's the only thing you have, that's great. If a year later you've got better options and you're still using the napkins, you're an asshole.

It was brave of folks to work in healthcare before we had the vaccine, knowing that there was a very good chance they'd get sick and that there wasn't much they could do to prevent it. It is stupid to take that risk now, when there is something they can do.

"I'm not taking the vaccine because there isn't one" and "I'm not taking the vaccine despite there being one" aren't comparable, and it's weird to pretend they are.

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

#200

Post by version_five »

nzp7chfjks wrote: post #190
ya_throw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the current zeitgeist is "Trust the experts, fool!" We never frikkin learn.

Using the word "science" to frame your argument automatically discredits any counterpoint.

This is why there is supposed to be separation of church and stage, but such rules didn't anticipate "science" becoming religion that is exempt from the criticism of religion. We need some updated principles that separate dogma and faith from legitimate motivations
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