The echo chamber becomes ever more enclosed
As the next Conference of the Parties meeting (COP11) approaches next week, planned activities arranged by the FCTC Secretariat are becoming increasingly unhinged.
Faced with overwhelming evidence that their anti-nicotine at all costs policy is failing badly, the goal, it seems, is to construct a wall of misinformation to hoodwink national delegations into promoting policies which would be detrimental to the health of their citizens, by way of using Brandolini’s Law to their advantage.
Those not familiar with this law may know it better as the “bullshit asymmetry principle”, described as “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.”
Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists have long benefitted from this method of so-called debate. Simply peddle falsehoods to a gullible audience and watch the truth struggle to attract similar levels of publicity. Actively following their lead is the only credible explanation for a ministerial roundtable event arranged by the FCTC Secretariat for lunchtime on the first day of the COP11 conference. And to amplify the bullshit to its maximum extent, the WHO has mobilized its big guns of global disinformation.
You may remember Emily Banks from such masterful pieces of misdirection as her “flawed and misleading” review of vaping which “omitted important information, made critical scientific flaws and did not achieve its objective of providing an accurate analysis of the available scientific information.” Perfect for presenting bullshit for the FCTC, then.
Mr Vandenbrouke is the Belgian who created an illicit market in his country by banning nicotine pouches, described by the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment as 99% less harmful than smoking cigarettes. His reason for doing so was because he claimed they were a “stepping stone” to smoking for which there is, naturally, no evidence whatsoever. He also wants vaping flavours banned, despite policy experts finding that they are “positively related to smokers’ transition away from cigarettes.”
With such heavyweights in the art of presenting evidence-free opinions duly assembled by the FCTC authorities, let’s look at the lowlights we can expect during the roundtable discussion.
The blurb, downloadable from the WHO event page, promises to discuss how “the evidence in respect of these products does not support the conclusion that they are effective for cessation at the population level.” How odd. Maybe we dreamed up the Cochrane living review finding “high certainty evidence that nicotine e-cigarettes are more effective than traditional nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT) in helping people quit smoking.”
Instead, claim the event organisers, “evidence is mounting regarding their harmful impact on public health.” An attempt to create the feeling of momentum when the only direction of travel is illustrating that alternative nicotine products don’t kill people and smoking reduces rapidly when they are made readily available.
Attendees will be regaled as to how “the World Health Organization has repeatedly underscored the urgency of comprehensive regulation of all nicotine products, not just traditional tobacco.” Not strictly true, is it? The FCTC was written in 2003 when non-tobacco nicotine products had barely been invented.
In fact, the WHO itself advised delegates at COP7 in India in 2016 that “If the great majority of tobacco smokers who are unable or unwilling to quit would switch without delay to using an alternative source of nicotine with lower health risks … this would represent a significant contemporary public health achievement.”
But that was before the WHO took huge amounts of funding from Michael Bloomberg to concentrate on banning nicotine products instead of focusing on public health. So, the new position is trying to pretend that this was their policy all along. Similar to “we have always been at war with Eastasia”, a statement used in the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, to illustrate the power of propaganda to manipulate history and public perception.
The meeting description culminates with a quote from Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, who says “without bold action, the global tobacco epidemic, already killing around 8 million people each year, will continue to be driven by addiction dressed up with appealing flavors.” Because banning nicotine products which are orders of magnitude less harmful, while leaving cigarettes legal and protected from competition by the WHO is a surefire way of stopping smokers dying, isn’t it?
The audience for this discussion will include the cherry picked NGOs, faithful cult followers of the echo chamber, who will lap up this woeful diatribe of fantasy ignorance like a 9/11 truther laps up theories about holograms hitting the twin towers in 2001 instead of Boeing 757s. Those who might refute the bullshit or offer a different interpretation are, as always, banned from the building.
On this evidence, maybe at COP12 they’ll just skip attempting to be evidence-led entirely and consult a horoscope instead.