Sorry to hear you got bamboozled by the antismoking con artists. They
duped you into believing that thoroughly disrupting your biochemistry is
is healthy thing to do, that it will make you live longer and reduce
chances of the so-called "smoking related" diseases, lung cancers, heart
attacks, emphysema,... Well, the reality turns out much stubborn to
bamboozle.

Had you checked some of the references provided earlier, you would have
discovered that the facts found in randomized intervention trials, which
is the scientific way to uncover the causal relations (as opposed to
finding mere associations), where exactly the opposite -- those randomly
picked into the intervention group, most of whom dutifully quit as
advised (they were also helped with pharmaceutical cessation therapies),
when followed over years and decades, ended up with _worse health_
(including getting more lung cancers & heart attacks, gained weight) and
_lived shorter_ than the control group (those who were left alone, to
smoke as they wished).

Only a handful of such causality probing studies were done and they all
went the "wrong" way, showing that quitting at best has no beneficial
effect at all, and quite often that it harms the health of those who
were convinced to quit. So to solve the unpleasant "anomaly", the
antsmoking con artists just stopped doing these kinds of 'hard science'
studies and focused instead on paying off the FDA, EPA, CDC, ACS,
NCI,... bureaucrats to do the infamous meta-studies, where they cherry
pick the data to fit the desired conclusions and then make sweeping
pronouncements ('debate is over' and such) without ever examining a
single patient, or a single smoker or a nonsmoker, or doing any science
at all.

Here are some quotes about these studies on quitting from the Whitby's
book I mentioned earlier:

* Dr. W. T. Whitby "Smoking is good for you"
   http://groups.google.com/group/alt.smokers/msg/162b8db5dafd1451

PDF:
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=isf14d00&fmt=pdf&ref=re...
Text: http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/507927406-7466.txt

-- page 30 (OCR of scanned book)

The campaigners must have been bitterly disappointed by the results of
the very extensive "Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial" or
"M.R.F.I.T." This was conducted by the American National Heart, Lung and
Blood Institute over the past seven years at a cost of 113 million
dollars in an attempt to show that smoking is harmful. Twelve thousand
men were divided into two groups. The "intervention" group had 22 per
cent more lung cancer and a total overall mortality of 2.1 per cent
worse than the group that was left alone. (Journal of the American
Medical Association September 24th 1982).

With gnashing of teeth lame excuses were made and the few favourable
findings were made much of in an effort to salvage something from the
wreckage. Although these striking figures for lung cancer were given in
the article, page 1470 under neoplasia (cancer), strangely (or is it
strange?) they were not referred to nor discussed.

Of course, the report does not label the groups as smokers and non-
smokers, but the foremost requirement was that the intervention group
stop smoking. About half of them stopped. Even if some of the other
group stopped smoking, the results were devastating for the anti-smoking
campaigners.

And it is generally accepted that the groups were "smokers and
non-smokers". If the results had not been so disappointing we could be
sure they would have been officially so classed.

In the American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 123, No 2, Professor Burch
points out that the recent major trials showed that smokers got very
much less cancer than non-smokers, and asks, "Is smoking prophylactic?"
No wonder the campaigners so shamelessly try to keep these findings from
the public.

The London Daily Telegraph recently ran a headline, "Workers ad- vised
by their doctors how to prevent heart disease died in greater numbers
than those who stuck to their old ways," commenting on the great UNITED
KINGDOM HEART PREVENTION PROJECT (reported in the Lancet, May 14th
1983). This was a scientific study of 18,000 men who were divided into
two groups. One group was persuaded to quit smoking, to diet and have
various checks. The other group was left alone. After 6 years there were
402 deaths in the first group but only 282 in the group that was left
alone. There were 193 heart deaths in the first group and 129 in the
group that was left alone.

In both these studies smokers did so much better that the antis really
cannot deny that smoking is beneficial. Isn't it ridiculous for
insurance companies to give discounts to non-smokers. It should be the
other way round.

Something that was kept very quiet in the famous Framingham study was
the finding that smoking appears to give considerable im- munity to
cancer of the lower bowel. It was not until 1981 that some doctors,
writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, pointed out
that the study showed that non-smokers got four times as much of this
type of cancer as did smokers. (January 16th 1981.)

-------

Here is Johnstone on similar Finnish study:
"Two Consequences of Quitting"
http://members.iinet.com.au/~ray/2consequences.html

---------------
Quitting seems to have little effect on life-expectancy, as is
shown in six of the seven controlled trials which have been
conducted to determine any such effect. The results of the
seventh are more complex.

This was a randomised five-year multifactorial prevention trial
of vascular disease (Miettinen, Huttunen, Naukkarinen et al.,
1985). An intervention group of 612 forty-eight year old
businessmen, considered to be at high risk of cardiovascular
disease, were encouraged to change their diet (particularly with
regard to fat intake) to reduce smoking and to take more
exercise. Where blood pressure and serum lipid levels did not
fall sufficiently, the subjects were treated with a variety of
drugs, mainly diuretics and beta-blockers and probucol and
clofibrate. A similar group of 610 men was uncounselled and
untreated except that 15% of them received anti-hypertensive
drugs.

After 5 years, most risk factors, including weight, blood
pressure, serum cholesterol and triglycerides and tobacco
consumption had improved significantly in the intervention group
compared with the control group.

At the end of 5 years, total mortality in the intervention group
was 10/612 and in the control group 5/610, a non-significant
difference. There were no significant differences in mortality
from specific causes nor in morbidity except for non-fatal
stroke which was more common in the control group (8 versus 0).
In brief, improvement in lifestyle did not reduce CHD deaths or
total deaths.

15 years later the story was very different.There were 45% more
deaths in the intervention group than in the control group
(67v46). This was largely due to more than twice as many cardiac
deaths but there were also 13 "violent" deaths compared to 1 in
the control group.Quitting may not have caused this disastrous
result but it doesnt appear to have helped.

There have been just 6 other similar trials, with happier
results: no change in total death rates, deaths due to cancer or
deaths due to cardiovascular disease. Quitting is probably less
dangerous than this Finnish study suggests

But one consequence of quitting, though rare, is well-known and
dangerous, ulcerative colitis. I give the example of a woman who
found that smoking eliminated all sign of the disease. When she
tried quitting the disease recurred.

This case is a clear reminder that people are all different.
Quitting is not good for eveyone and may be seriously harmful.
---------------