TheNewsMonkey
Postman
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2013
- Messages
- 158
For many years now I have been advising the electronic cigarette community that the only way to survive is to fully engage with the political process. I have received a fair volume of criticism for this, mainly centered around the argument that such issues are irrelevant to us and that there is no immediate problem. Naturally, people wish to avoid politics as it is perceived as a 'dirty' area that all right-thinking people avoid. This may be true, but unfortunately it dictates every aspect of your life.
However, it seems that people are finally getting the message at last - now that an outright ban on vaping is on the horizon from two separate quarters: the EU and the UK's Department of Health.
If the EU succeeds in its ban on vaping, it will cause massive problems for us in the UK, for several reasons:
1. The UK implements EU law more strictly than any other country in Europe. I have travelled widely through Europe and I have never seen such a slavish determination to follow EU regulations to the letter as exists in the UK. Reports from Germany also indicate that, even there, they do not take the attention to detail that we do with regard to implementation and enforcement of EU regulations, which are in effect the superior law of Europe and override UK law. As you may know, the further south you travel in Europe, the less relevant EU law becomes. In southern Europe they regard our devotion to EU law as madness; even in France they are selective about which aspects to implement.
2. The UK's Department of Health has the authority for enforcement of EU law relating to health and consumer products related to health in any way. They will absolutely enforce EU law here to the maximum level possible.
One of its departments, the MHRA, is regarded as the UK's best example of a 'regulatory captured' government agency: one that has eventually been turned into a legal arm of the industry it is supposed to control, and works for that industry as opposed to for the benefit of public health, which in theory is its statutory task. The MHRA has immense power in this area, but works for pharma not the public (otherwise they would not be attempting to block the single largest benefit to public health since the invention of antibiotics). The DoH itself follows the pharmaceutical industry's lead in all areas related to its operations.
Together, the MHRA and the DoH are working to the pharmaceutical industry agenda, which is (as per usual) to remove commercial competitors. Unfortunately in this case their competitor is the e-cigarette trade, which intrinsically by its very existence will save orders of magnitude more lives in the smoking-related area than pharma ever has or ever will.
3. As a concrete example: the NHS reduces smoking prevalence in the UK by an estimated 0.001% per annum. In effect the reduction in smoking has plateaued and cannot be reduced further by NHS/DoH initiatives. Reducing smoking prevalence to much below one-fifth of the population, within any realistic or useful timeframe, is generally recognised as either difficult or impossible. In contrast e-cigarettes have already captured 6% of smokers and will therefore achieve a parallel reduction in smoking prevalence: a 1% per annum reduction as ecigs have only been available for six years. This is 1,000 times more effective than the government-sponsored methods.
4. The pharmaceutical industry's main aim is to preserve the status quo, in order to protect its vast income from the drug trade for treating sick smokers. This is between £1.5bn and £2bn annually in the UK. Since Snus reduced smoking in Sweden by 45%, with a concomitant fall in the smoking-related disease and death rate, we can expect an even larger fall in smoking in the UK as a result of ecig use (since ecigs are much more popular with smokers than the Snus oral pouched tobacco where both are sold together such as in some areas of the USA). It is not unreasonable to estimate that, in the long term, 60% of smokers may switch to ecigs - leading to a 59% to 60% fall in pharma's income from their drug trade, as there is zero evidence that ecig use has any significant implications for health.
The NRT market is tiny by comparison and of far less importance (a few hundred million pounds per year): but it is imperative for pharma to protect their income from the treatment of sick smokers. Virtually all resistance to ecigs can be traced back to a pharma funding source in one way or another.
The murderous corruption within government agencies
The EU Health Commission ultimately determines what you can or cannot buy in the area of health-related consumer products in Europe. This committee is famously corrupt, having had members exposed for soliciting bribes from the tobacco industry, and its members' secret offshore bank accounts exposed by whistleblowers. The bribes demanded were for millions of Euros; the bank accounts hold huge sums paid in bribes.
It is no misnomer to describe the EU Health Commission as murderously corrupt, in these circumstances - they work for their own benefit and where this is directly against the interests of public health then they decide in favour of the highest payer; as is clear from the Snus ban, which benefits the pharmaceutical and cigarette industries at huge cost to public health.
According to their own statistics, 700,000 die in the EU each year from smoking; but Sweden reduced smoking by 45% as they are exempt from the Health Commission's Snus ban. Since Snus is proven by 30 years of data to have no statistically-visible negative effect on health at population level, this means that up to 45% of EU smoking deaths might theoretically be laid at the feet of Health Commission members. At the very least, you could not fail to support a figure of 10% of these deaths: 70,000 a year. The EU Health Commission kills 70,000 EU citizens a year by preventing access to Snus Europe-wide. Don't forget that about 10,000 of these deaths are in the UK where about 100,000 die from smoking every year (80,000 in England).
The EU Health Commission kills thousands of UK citizens every year.
Now, looking at the UK Dept of Health, they broadly support the EU in this effort. The MHRA in particular have tried their best to ban e-cigarettes but were blocked by a higher government agency, the RPC, when they tried this in 2010. Because their paymasters, the pharmaceutical industry, demand action, they have to try again (keep in mind they work for pharma, not the government and certainly not for public health, in this area). This means they must explore other options to outmanoeuver higher government, of which two are apparent: either go to law and get a legal ruling that e-cigarettes are a medical device that delivers a drug that must be classified as a pharmaceutical; or cleverly persuade anyone who will listen that they should be in charge of 'light-touch' regulations to 'ensure safety'.
a. They are unlikely to succeed in a legal ruling because in every country where such a ban has been challenged, it has been overturned (the USA, Holland, two German States). The legal arguments for such a classification are non-existant and in any case farcical (since it would also mean that coffee percolators, teapots, tobacco pipes, and cocktail shakers would need to be classified as drug delivery devices). Nevertheless they may indeed try this route, as it is a zero-cost option for them (the taxpayer will foot the bill for the legal work and the pharmaceutical industry will pay for the background documentation); it also has the added benefit of costing the UK ecig industry a lot of money and trouble, for the legal costs to overturn the ban. This is a win for the MHRA and may be attempted just for the aggravation factor, since only the taxpayer loses, and the MHRA have clearly demonstrated no interest in the public's opinion or the cost to the public.
b. A far more likely approach is that the MHRA will attempt to gain ownership of this consumer product by trying to show there is some sort of danger to the consumer, therefore they should have the right to regulate the products, as the products are within the health area. They would attempt to persuade government that light-touch regulations are sufficient and in the best interests of the consumer. This is problematic in two ways:
i. The MHRA have no interest in 'protecting the consumer' - their task is to protect the income of the pharmaceutical industry. There is only one way to do that: either remove ecigs from the market, or hamstring them so they are useless. Any 'light-touch' regulations would become stiffer and stiffer year on year, leading to a ban by way of stealth regulations - the classic 'backdoor approach'. This would be extremely difficult to counter once the MHRA has the legal framework in place to regulate ecigs, meaning that such a framework must be resisted with maximum force, otherwise ecigs will be banned in the Uk within a short space of time.
ii. The MHRA have the power to stop inward posted packets of supplies to the consumer. The vital vaping supplies needed if banned in the UK would be classed as 'unlicensed drugs', which they already have the power to block should they choose to do so. There are costs involved, and inter-departmental issues to resolve (such as the cost to Border Control and the Post Office); but pharma funds would be diverted to resolving these issues. Pharma has an inexhaustible supply of funds for these purposes. The MHRA have already carried out a pilot project to show they can block inbound post, and this system would certainly be implemented in the event of a successful backdoor ban of ecig products. Packets from China, for example, would be at the top of the list for examination by the MHRA's partners.
iii. There is absolutely no evidence of any harm or even potential for harm from e-cigarettes. Some sort of demonstrable reason should be needed to change the current highly-effective regulatory system, whereby the UK is the only country in the world where electronic cigarettes are comprehensively and effectively regulated.
The huge drug trade that must be protected at all costs
All these instances of current and future restriction of e-cigarettes can be traced back to pharma's need to protect the drug trade in treatments for sick smokers - a vastly profitable market that is one of the jewels in their crown. It is also worth keeping in mind that the pharmaceutical industry are officially and legally the world's largest criminal corruptors and criminal fraudsters, regularly paying record-breaking fines for these activities. Indeed, they were the world's largest criminal grouping until recently when the oil industry took over that title due to the level of fines paid. That title is only being temporarily leant to the oil industry, though - oil can learn from their mistakes and probably won't want to repeat them. Pharma's normal mode of business is fraud and corruption so they are quite likely to regain the title of overall world's biggest criminals fairly soon.
There is no functional difference between a drug cartel headquartered in Medellin, Colombia and one headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Their job is to move product, and they will do that at any cost. They buy government staff as a matter of course.
Can we legitimately refer to the MHRA as murderously corrupt? You will have to make up your own mind on this issue. Whereas the simple facts are unavoidable in the case of the EU Health Commission, the situation is less clear with regard to the MHRA. Judge for yourself, based on the evidence:
1. Pharmaceutical interventions have a less than 1 in 10 success rate for smoking cessation. Nine out of ten patients will return to smoking. Any suggestion of evidence to the contrary can easily be refuted by the facts. No independent research (i.e. not paid for by pharma) says different. The MHRA enthusiastically supports the pharmaceutical interventions and attempts to remove more effective competitors. Ecigs can be shown to have a minimum efficacy of 31%, under the worst possible conditions, which is at least three times the best that pharmacotherapies can achieve under the best conditions. By its actions here, the MHRA acts directly against the best interests of public health.
2. In every survey of ex-smokers ever carried out by anyone, about 75% of ex-smokers reported thay had quit without assistance. The other 25% reported various methods as successful, including the Allen Carr method, hypnosis, and so on. The percentage of successful quitters reporting pharmaceutical interventions as being sucessful, however, is always very small. There is no evidence in the real world that pharmaceutical interventions are anything other than ineffective, with a 9 out of 10 failure rate or worse.
If, in the real world, pharmacotherapies are proven to be ineffective, why base so much effort and spend so much money on them? A very good question, since public health certainly does not benefit. Someone benefits, for sure - but not smokers who wish to quit. The MHRA assists with promotion of pharmaceutical interventions and against rival approaches proven more successful, thus demonstrating a willingness to work against public health where the only people to profit are the pharmaceutical industry. It would be rather naive to think that there are no personal benefits for MHRA staff, given that their actions are likely to kill people.
3. Sweden reduced their smoking by 45%, by free and unhindered access to Snus (only about 11% of Swedes now smoke), and the number of smokers falls every year. The reduction in smoking among men is even more dramatic, at around 55%, as only around 8% of Swedish men now smoke.
As a result the Swedish national health statistics are incredible: the lowest smoking related-death rate of any developed country by a wide margin; a smoking death rate about half the EU average; and the lowest rate of male lung cancer and oral cancer in the EU. Sweden is the only developed country in the world that has any realistic prospect of reducing smoking disease and death to very low proportions, a goal absolutely impossible for any other country. This is why it is called the Swedish Miracle. This has been a disaster for pharma, who are desperate to stop the Sweden scenario spreading.
The EU Health Commission has banned Snus in other countries in order to protect pharma. The UK Dept of Health enthusiastically support the Snus ban as it protects their good friends in pharma. The DoH always backs the Snus ban, showing they are willing to sacrifice thousands of smokers' lives in order to protect pharma. We can assume that a good deal of this support originates from within the MHRA, who are pharma's principal channel into the DoH.
4. The most common form of corruption of government staff is now the revolving door staff corruption method. It has taken over from payments to offshore bank accounts, which leave an embarrassing paper trail and are also vulnerable to exposure by whistleblowers. The way this works is as follows:
a. Staff move freely between the industry and the regulator. At any given time, ex-industry staff will be working within the government agency, and government staff move to the industry.
b. Instead of paying off government officials at the time, the industry rewards them later for their corrupt work while in government. A highly-paid position is made available either within the industry or by using a 'cut-out' - a staff position at a foundation or third-party organisation that can be argued as unrelated to the corporation who benefitted from the corrupt practices.
c. Another method is to use a well-paid non-executive board position as bait: no work is even needed.
d. There are people of the opinion that government staff such as Jeremy Mean at the MHRA will be found working for pharma or one of its client foundations or cut-outs at a later date, as a reward for services rendered. Of course, we at ECCA could not possibly condone such unfounded accusations, and vicious rumours of this type have no foundation in fact whatsoever.
e. Pharma pimps within government are relatively easy to identify since their work to protect pharma income and against public health is so obvious. Until forensic accountancy examinations of such persons' financial affairs are conducted; and until really committed fraud investigations are made; it will be rather difficult to say that agencies such as the MHRA are corrupt as there is no legal basis for doing so. There might be a great deal of circumstantial evidence that appears to point to widespread corruption within the MHRA but that is a different matter. After all, it is fairly obvious to most people that they don't work for the public good in the smoking-related area, and that their actions either now or in the future will lead directly to thousands of deaths.
Until the revolving door staff corruption ploy is made illegal (as in some government's arms procurement departments for example), it is likely this situation will continue. This government apparently has no stomach for eliminating corruption, which extends to the highest offices in the land, as demonstrated by recent events involving the Prime Minister's office, Metropolitan Police management, and criminal organisations within the press.
f. If you are now of the opinion that the MHRA is murderously corrupt, then you are welcome to it. Do keep in mind that they are very well-protected by pharma, if you wanted to make such accusations public. At ECCA we couldn't possibly support such statements because there is no legally-admissible evidence for it, at this time.
Politics or no politics?
Politicians and government staff decide how you live or die. They decide what you can buy and what you can't buy. They decide how long you will live and by how much your life will be shortened or extended. They decide who you pay and how much. They decide where your money goes. They decide what you do, and even influence what you think.
You ignore them at your peril because they control your life. You can't change anything from the outside, especially by complaining, or by signing petitions which end up on the desk of someone bribed to ignore you.
You have to get involved and get your hands dirty. Or just go away and die - after paying them and their friends for the privilege.
Your choice.
Politics and E-Cigarettes
For many years now I have been advising the electronic cigarette community
that the only way to survive is to fully engage with the political process. I have
received a fair volume of criticism for this, mainly centered around the
argument that such issues are irrelevant to us and that there is no immediate
problem. Naturally, people wish to avoid politics as it is perceived as a 'dirty'
area that all right-thinking people avoid. This may be true, but unfortunately it
dictates every aspect of your life.
However, it seems that people are finally getting the message at last - now that
an outright ban on vaping is on the horizon from two separate quarters: the EU
and the UK's Department of Health.
If the EU succeeds in its ban on vaping, it will cause massive problems for us
in the UK, for several reasons:
1. The UK implements EU law more strictly than any other country in Europe. I
have travelled widely through Europe and I have never seen such a slavish
determination to follow EU regulations to the letter as exists in the UK. Reports
from Germany also indicate that, even there, they do not take the attention to
detail that we do with regard to implementation and enforcement of EU
regulations, which are in effect the superior law of Europe and override UK
law. As you may know, the further south you travel in Europe, the less relevant
EU law becomes. In southern Europe they regard our devotion to EU law as
madness; even in France they are selective about which aspects to
implement.
2. The UK's Department of Health has the authority for enforcement of EU law
relating to health and consumer products related to health in any way. They will
absolutely enforce EU law here to the maximum level possible.
One of its departments, the MHRA, is regarded as the UK's best example of a
'regulatory captured' government agency: one that has eventually been turned
into a legal arm of the industry it is supposed to control, and works for that
industry as opposed to for the benefit of public health, which in theory is its
statutory task. The MHRA has immense power in this area, but works for
pharma not the public (otherwise they would not be attempting to block the
single largest benefit to public health since the invention of antibiotics). The
DoH itself follows the pharmaceutical industry's lead in all areas related to its
operations.
Together, the MHRA and the DoH are working to the pharmaceutical industry
agenda, which is (as per usual) to remove commercial competitors.
Unfortunately in this case their competitor is the e-cigarette trade, which
intrinsically by its very existence will save orders of magnitude more lives in
the smoking-related area than pharma ever has or ever will.
3. As a concrete example: the NHS reduces smoking prevalence in the UK by
an estimated 0.001% per annum. In effect the reduction in smoking has
plateaued and cannot be reduced further by NHS/DoH initiatives. Reducing
smoking prevalence to much below one-fifth of the population, within any
realistic or useful timeframe, is generally recognised as either difficult or
impossible. In contrast e-cigarettes have already captured 6% of smokers and
will therefore achieve a parallel reduction in smoking prevalence: a 1% per
annum reduction as ecigs have only been available for six years. This is 1,000
times more effective than the government-sponsored methods.
4. The pharmaceutical industry's main aim is to preserve the status quo, in
order to protect its vast income from the drug trade for treating sick smokers.
This is between £1.5bn and £2bn annually in the UK. Since Snus reduced
smoking in Sweden by 45%, with a concomitant fall in the smoking-related
disease and death rate, we can expect an even larger fall in smoking in the UK
as a result of ecig use (since ecigs are much more popular with smokers than
the Snus oral pouched tobacco where both are sold together such as in some
areas of the USA). It is not unreasonable to estimate that, in the long term,
60% of smokers may switch to ecigs - leading to a 59% to 60% fall in
pharma's income from their drug trade, as there is zero evidence that ecig use
has any significant implications for health.
The NRT market is tiny by comparison and of far less importance (a few
hundred million pounds per year): but it is imperative for pharma to protect
their income from the treatment of sick smokers. Virtually all resistance to
ecigs can be traced back to a pharma funding source in one way or another.
The murderous corruption within government agencies
The EU Health Commission ultimately determines what you can or cannot buy
in the area of health-related consumer products in Europe. This committee is
famously corrupt, having had members exposed for soliciting bribes from the
tobacco industry, and its members' secret offshore bank accounts exposed
by whistleblowers. The bribes demanded were for millions of Euros; the bank
accounts hold huge sums paid in bribes.
It is no misnomer to describe the EU Health Commission as murderously
corrupt, in these circumstances - they work for their own benefit and where this
is directly against the interests of public health then they decide in favour of
the highest payer; as is clear from the Snus ban, which benefits the
pharmaceutical and cigarette industries at huge cost to public health.
According to their own statistics, 700,000 die in the EU each year from
smoking; but Sweden reduced smoking by 45% as they are exempt from the
Health Commission's Snus ban. Since Snus is proven by 30 years of data to
have no statistically-visible negative effect on health at population level, this
means that up to 45% of EU smoking deaths might theoretically be laid at the
feet of Health Commission members. At the very least, you could not fail to
support a figure of 10% of these deaths: 70,000 a year. The EU Health
Commission kills 70,000 EU citizens a year by preventing access to Snus
Europe-wide. Don't forget that about 10,000 of these deaths are in the UK
where about 100,000 die from smoking every year (80,000 in England).
The EU Health Commission kills thousands of UK citizens every year.
Now, looking at the UK Dept of Health, they broadly support the EU in this
effort. The MHRA in particular have tried their best to ban e-cigarettes but
were blocked by a higher government agency, the RPC, when they tried this in
2010. Because their paymasters, the pharmaceutical industry, demand action,
they have to try again (keep in mind they work for pharma, not the government
and certainly not for public health, in this area). This means they must explore
other options to outmanoeuver higher government, of which two are apparent:
either go to law and get a legal ruling that e-cigarettes are a medical device
that delivers a drug that must be classified as a pharmaceutical; or cleverly
persuade anyone who will listen that they should be in charge of 'light-touch'
regulations to 'ensure safety'.
a. They are unlikely to succeed in a legal ruling because in every country
where such a ban has been challenged, it has been overturned (the USA,
Holland, two German States). The legal arguments for such a classification are
non-existant and in any case farcical (since it would also mean that coffee
percolators, teapots, tobacco pipes, and cocktail shakers would need to be
classified as drug delivery devices). Nevertheless they may indeed try this
route, as it is a zero-cost option for them (the taxpayer will foot the bill for the
legal work and the pharmaceutical industry will pay for the background
documentation); it also has the added benefit of costing the UK ecig industry a
lot of money and trouble, for the legal costs to overturn the ban. This is a win
for the MHRA and may be attempted just for the aggravation factor, since only
the taxpayer loses, and the MHRA have clearly demonstrated no interest in the
public's opinion or the cost to the public.
b. A far more likely approach is that the MHRA will attempt to gain ownership of
this consumer product by trying to show there is some sort of danger to the
consumer, therefore they should have the right to regulate the products, as the
products are within the health area. They would attempt to persuade
government that light-touch regulations are sufficient and in the best interests
of the consumer. This is problematic in two ways:
i. The MHRA have no interest in 'protecting the consumer' - their task is to
protect the income of the pharmaceutical industry. There is only one way to do
that: either remove ecigs from the market, or hamstring them so they are
useless. Any 'light-touch' regulations would become stiffer and stiffer year on
year, leading to a ban by way of stealth regulations - the classic 'backdoor
approach'. This would be extremely difficult to counter once the MHRA has the
legal framework in place to regulate ecigs, meaning that such a framework
must be resisted with maximum force, otherwise ecigs will be banned in the
Uk within a short space of time.
ii. The MHRA have the power to stop inward posted packets of supplies to the
consumer. The vital vaping supplies needed if banned in the UK would be
classed as 'unlicensed drugs', which they already have the power to block
should they choose to do so. There are costs involved, and inter-departmental
issues to resolve (such as the cost to Border Control and the Post Office); but
pharma funds would be diverted to resolving these issues. Pharma has an
inexhaustible supply of funds for these purposes. The MHRA have already
carried out a pilot project to show they can block inbound post, and this
system would certainly be implemented in the event of a successful backdoor
ban of ecig products. Packets from China, for example, would be at the top of
the list for examination by the MHRA's partners.
iii. There is absolutely no evidence of any harm or even potential for harm from
e-cigarettes. Some sort of demonstrable reason should be needed to change
the current highly-effective regulatory system, whereby the UK is the only
country in the world where electronic cigarettes are comprehensively and
effectively regulated.
The huge drug trade that must be protected at all costs
All these instances of current and future restriction of e-cigarettes can be
traced back to pharma's need to protect the drug trade in treatments for sick
smokers - a vastly profitable market that is one of the jewels in their crown. It is
also worth keeping in mind that the pharmaceutical industry are officially and
legally the world's largest criminal corruptors and criminal fraudsters, regularly
paying record-breaking fines for these activities. Indeed, they were the world's
largest criminal grouping until recently when the oil industry took over that title
due to the level of fines paid. That title is only being temporarily leant to the oil
industry, though - oil can learn from their mistakes and probably won't want to
repeat them. Pharma's normal mode of business is fraud and corruption so
they are quite likely to regain the title of overall world's biggest criminals fairly
soon.
There is no functional difference between a drug cartel headquartered in
Medellin, Colombia and one headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Their job
is to move product, and they will do that at any cost. They buy government
staff as a matter of course.
Can we legitimately refer to the MHRA as murderously corrupt?
You will have to make up your own mind on this issue. Whereas the simple
facts are unavoidable in the case of the EU Health Commission, the situation
is less clear with regard to the MHRA. Judge for yourself, based on the
evidence:
1. Pharmaceutical interventions have a less than 1 in 10 success rate for
smoking cessation. Nine out of ten patients will return to smoking. Any
suggestion of evidence to the contrary can easily be refuted by the facts. No
independent research (i.e. not paid for by pharma) says different. The MHRA
enthusiastically supports the pharmaceutical interventions and attempts to
remove more effective competitors. Ecigs can be shown to have a minimum
efficacy of 31%, under the worst possible conditions, which is at least three
times the best that pharmacotherapies can achieve under the best conditions.
By its actions here, the MHRA acts directly against the best interests of public
health.
2. In every survey of ex-smokers ever carried out by anyone, about 75% of
ex-smokers reported thay had quit without assistance. The other 25%
reported various methods as successful, including the Allen Carr method,
hypnosis, and so on. The percentage of successful quitters reporting
pharmaceutical interventions as being sucessful, however, is always very
small. There is no evidence in the real world that pharmaceutical interventions
are anything other than ineffective, with a 9 out of 10 failure rate or worse.
If, in the real world, pharmacotherapies are proven to be ineffective, why base
so much effort and spend so much money on them? A very good question,
since public health certainly does not benefit. Someone benefits, for sure - but
not smokers who wish to quit. The MHRA assists with promotion of
pharmaceutical interventions and against rival approaches proven more
successful, thus demonstrating a willingness to work against public health
where the only people to profit are the pharmaceutical industry. It would be
rather naive to think that there are no personal benefits for MHRA staff, given
that their actions are likely to kill people.
3. Sweden reduced their smoking by 45%, by free and unhindered access to
Snus (only about 11% of Swedes now smoke), and the number of smokers
falls every year. The reduction in smoking among men is even more dramatic,
at around 55%, as only around 8% of Swedish men now smoke.
As a result the Swedish national health statistics are incredible: the lowest
smoking related-death rate of any developed country by a wide margin; a
smoking death rate about half the EU average; and the lowest rate of male
lung cancer and oral cancer in the EU. Sweden is the only developed country
in the world that has any realistic prospect of reducing smoking disease and
death to very low proportions, a goal absolutely impossible for any other
country. This is why it is called the Swedish Miracle. This has been a disaster
for pharma, who are desperate to stop the Sweden scenario spreading.
The EU Health Commission has banned Snus in other countries in order to
protect pharma. The UK Dept of Health enthusiastically support the Snus ban
as it protects their good friends in pharma. The DoH always backs the Snus
ban, showing they are willing to sacrifice thousands of smokers' lives in order
to protect pharma. We can assume that a good deal of this support originates
from within the MHRA, who are pharma's principal channel into the DoH.
4. The most common form of corruption of government staff is now the
revolving door staff corruption method. It has taken over from payments to
offshore bank accounts, which leave an embarrassing paper trail and are also
vulnerable to exposure by whistleblowers. The way this works is as follows:
a. Staff move freely between the industry and the regulator. At any given time,
ex-industry staff will be working within the government agency, and
government staff move to the industry.
b. Instead of paying off government officials at the time, the industry rewards
them later for their corrupt work while in government. A highly-paid position is
made available either within the industry or by using a 'cut-out' - a staff position
at a foundation or third-party organisation that can be argued as unrelated to
the corporation who benefitted from the corrupt practices.
c. Another method is to use a well-paid non-executive board position as bait:
no work is even needed.
d. There are people of the opinion that government staff such as Jeremy
Mean at the MHRA will be found working for pharma or one of its client
foundations or cut-outs at a later date, as a reward for services rendered. Of
course, we at ECCA could not possibly condone such unfounded
accusations, and vicious rumours of this type have no foundation in fact
whatsoever.
e. Pharma pimps within government are relatively easy to identify since their
work to protect pharma income and against public health is so obvious. Until
forensic accountancy examinations of such persons' financial affairs are
conducted; and until really committed fraud investigations are made; it will be
rather difficult to say that agencies such as the MHRA are corrupt as there is
no legal basis for doing so. There might be a great deal of circumstantial
evidence that appears to point to widespread corruption within the MHRA but
that is a different matter. After all, it is fairly obvious to most people that they
don't work for the public good in the smoking-related area, and that their
actions either now or in the future will lead directly to thousands of deaths.
Until the revolving door staff corruption ploy is made illegal (as in some
government's arms procurement departments for example), it is likely this
situation will continue. This government apparently has no stomach for
eliminating corruption, which extends to the highest offices in the land, as
demonstrated by recent events involving the Prime Minister's office,
Metropolitan Police management, and criminal organisations within the press.
f. If you are now of the opinion that the MHRA is murderously corrupt, then you
are welcome to it. Do keep in mind that they are very well-protected by
pharma, if you wanted to make such accusations public. At ECCA we couldn't
possibly support such statements because there is no legally-admissible
evidence for it, at this time.
Politics or no politics?
Politicians and government staff decide how you live or die. They decide what
you can buy and what you can't buy. They decide how long you will live and by
how much your life will be shortened or extended. They decide who you pay
and how much. They decide where your money goes. They decide what you
do, and even influence what you think.
You ignore them at your peril because they control your life. You can't change
anything from the outside, especially by complaining, or by signing petitions
which end up on the desk of someone bribed to ignore you.
You have to get involved and get your hands dirty. Or just go away and die -
after paying them and their friends for the privilege.
Your choice.
Update From ECCA UK
However, it seems that people are finally getting the message at last - now that an outright ban on vaping is on the horizon from two separate quarters: the EU and the UK's Department of Health.
If the EU succeeds in its ban on vaping, it will cause massive problems for us in the UK, for several reasons:
1. The UK implements EU law more strictly than any other country in Europe. I have travelled widely through Europe and I have never seen such a slavish determination to follow EU regulations to the letter as exists in the UK. Reports from Germany also indicate that, even there, they do not take the attention to detail that we do with regard to implementation and enforcement of EU regulations, which are in effect the superior law of Europe and override UK law. As you may know, the further south you travel in Europe, the less relevant EU law becomes. In southern Europe they regard our devotion to EU law as madness; even in France they are selective about which aspects to implement.
2. The UK's Department of Health has the authority for enforcement of EU law relating to health and consumer products related to health in any way. They will absolutely enforce EU law here to the maximum level possible.
One of its departments, the MHRA, is regarded as the UK's best example of a 'regulatory captured' government agency: one that has eventually been turned into a legal arm of the industry it is supposed to control, and works for that industry as opposed to for the benefit of public health, which in theory is its statutory task. The MHRA has immense power in this area, but works for pharma not the public (otherwise they would not be attempting to block the single largest benefit to public health since the invention of antibiotics). The DoH itself follows the pharmaceutical industry's lead in all areas related to its operations.
Together, the MHRA and the DoH are working to the pharmaceutical industry agenda, which is (as per usual) to remove commercial competitors. Unfortunately in this case their competitor is the e-cigarette trade, which intrinsically by its very existence will save orders of magnitude more lives in the smoking-related area than pharma ever has or ever will.
3. As a concrete example: the NHS reduces smoking prevalence in the UK by an estimated 0.001% per annum. In effect the reduction in smoking has plateaued and cannot be reduced further by NHS/DoH initiatives. Reducing smoking prevalence to much below one-fifth of the population, within any realistic or useful timeframe, is generally recognised as either difficult or impossible. In contrast e-cigarettes have already captured 6% of smokers and will therefore achieve a parallel reduction in smoking prevalence: a 1% per annum reduction as ecigs have only been available for six years. This is 1,000 times more effective than the government-sponsored methods.
4. The pharmaceutical industry's main aim is to preserve the status quo, in order to protect its vast income from the drug trade for treating sick smokers. This is between £1.5bn and £2bn annually in the UK. Since Snus reduced smoking in Sweden by 45%, with a concomitant fall in the smoking-related disease and death rate, we can expect an even larger fall in smoking in the UK as a result of ecig use (since ecigs are much more popular with smokers than the Snus oral pouched tobacco where both are sold together such as in some areas of the USA). It is not unreasonable to estimate that, in the long term, 60% of smokers may switch to ecigs - leading to a 59% to 60% fall in pharma's income from their drug trade, as there is zero evidence that ecig use has any significant implications for health.
The NRT market is tiny by comparison and of far less importance (a few hundred million pounds per year): but it is imperative for pharma to protect their income from the treatment of sick smokers. Virtually all resistance to ecigs can be traced back to a pharma funding source in one way or another.
The murderous corruption within government agencies
The EU Health Commission ultimately determines what you can or cannot buy in the area of health-related consumer products in Europe. This committee is famously corrupt, having had members exposed for soliciting bribes from the tobacco industry, and its members' secret offshore bank accounts exposed by whistleblowers. The bribes demanded were for millions of Euros; the bank accounts hold huge sums paid in bribes.
It is no misnomer to describe the EU Health Commission as murderously corrupt, in these circumstances - they work for their own benefit and where this is directly against the interests of public health then they decide in favour of the highest payer; as is clear from the Snus ban, which benefits the pharmaceutical and cigarette industries at huge cost to public health.
According to their own statistics, 700,000 die in the EU each year from smoking; but Sweden reduced smoking by 45% as they are exempt from the Health Commission's Snus ban. Since Snus is proven by 30 years of data to have no statistically-visible negative effect on health at population level, this means that up to 45% of EU smoking deaths might theoretically be laid at the feet of Health Commission members. At the very least, you could not fail to support a figure of 10% of these deaths: 70,000 a year. The EU Health Commission kills 70,000 EU citizens a year by preventing access to Snus Europe-wide. Don't forget that about 10,000 of these deaths are in the UK where about 100,000 die from smoking every year (80,000 in England).
The EU Health Commission kills thousands of UK citizens every year.
Now, looking at the UK Dept of Health, they broadly support the EU in this effort. The MHRA in particular have tried their best to ban e-cigarettes but were blocked by a higher government agency, the RPC, when they tried this in 2010. Because their paymasters, the pharmaceutical industry, demand action, they have to try again (keep in mind they work for pharma, not the government and certainly not for public health, in this area). This means they must explore other options to outmanoeuver higher government, of which two are apparent: either go to law and get a legal ruling that e-cigarettes are a medical device that delivers a drug that must be classified as a pharmaceutical; or cleverly persuade anyone who will listen that they should be in charge of 'light-touch' regulations to 'ensure safety'.
a. They are unlikely to succeed in a legal ruling because in every country where such a ban has been challenged, it has been overturned (the USA, Holland, two German States). The legal arguments for such a classification are non-existant and in any case farcical (since it would also mean that coffee percolators, teapots, tobacco pipes, and cocktail shakers would need to be classified as drug delivery devices). Nevertheless they may indeed try this route, as it is a zero-cost option for them (the taxpayer will foot the bill for the legal work and the pharmaceutical industry will pay for the background documentation); it also has the added benefit of costing the UK ecig industry a lot of money and trouble, for the legal costs to overturn the ban. This is a win for the MHRA and may be attempted just for the aggravation factor, since only the taxpayer loses, and the MHRA have clearly demonstrated no interest in the public's opinion or the cost to the public.
b. A far more likely approach is that the MHRA will attempt to gain ownership of this consumer product by trying to show there is some sort of danger to the consumer, therefore they should have the right to regulate the products, as the products are within the health area. They would attempt to persuade government that light-touch regulations are sufficient and in the best interests of the consumer. This is problematic in two ways:
i. The MHRA have no interest in 'protecting the consumer' - their task is to protect the income of the pharmaceutical industry. There is only one way to do that: either remove ecigs from the market, or hamstring them so they are useless. Any 'light-touch' regulations would become stiffer and stiffer year on year, leading to a ban by way of stealth regulations - the classic 'backdoor approach'. This would be extremely difficult to counter once the MHRA has the legal framework in place to regulate ecigs, meaning that such a framework must be resisted with maximum force, otherwise ecigs will be banned in the Uk within a short space of time.
ii. The MHRA have the power to stop inward posted packets of supplies to the consumer. The vital vaping supplies needed if banned in the UK would be classed as 'unlicensed drugs', which they already have the power to block should they choose to do so. There are costs involved, and inter-departmental issues to resolve (such as the cost to Border Control and the Post Office); but pharma funds would be diverted to resolving these issues. Pharma has an inexhaustible supply of funds for these purposes. The MHRA have already carried out a pilot project to show they can block inbound post, and this system would certainly be implemented in the event of a successful backdoor ban of ecig products. Packets from China, for example, would be at the top of the list for examination by the MHRA's partners.
iii. There is absolutely no evidence of any harm or even potential for harm from e-cigarettes. Some sort of demonstrable reason should be needed to change the current highly-effective regulatory system, whereby the UK is the only country in the world where electronic cigarettes are comprehensively and effectively regulated.
The huge drug trade that must be protected at all costs
All these instances of current and future restriction of e-cigarettes can be traced back to pharma's need to protect the drug trade in treatments for sick smokers - a vastly profitable market that is one of the jewels in their crown. It is also worth keeping in mind that the pharmaceutical industry are officially and legally the world's largest criminal corruptors and criminal fraudsters, regularly paying record-breaking fines for these activities. Indeed, they were the world's largest criminal grouping until recently when the oil industry took over that title due to the level of fines paid. That title is only being temporarily leant to the oil industry, though - oil can learn from their mistakes and probably won't want to repeat them. Pharma's normal mode of business is fraud and corruption so they are quite likely to regain the title of overall world's biggest criminals fairly soon.
There is no functional difference between a drug cartel headquartered in Medellin, Colombia and one headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Their job is to move product, and they will do that at any cost. They buy government staff as a matter of course.
Can we legitimately refer to the MHRA as murderously corrupt? You will have to make up your own mind on this issue. Whereas the simple facts are unavoidable in the case of the EU Health Commission, the situation is less clear with regard to the MHRA. Judge for yourself, based on the evidence:
1. Pharmaceutical interventions have a less than 1 in 10 success rate for smoking cessation. Nine out of ten patients will return to smoking. Any suggestion of evidence to the contrary can easily be refuted by the facts. No independent research (i.e. not paid for by pharma) says different. The MHRA enthusiastically supports the pharmaceutical interventions and attempts to remove more effective competitors. Ecigs can be shown to have a minimum efficacy of 31%, under the worst possible conditions, which is at least three times the best that pharmacotherapies can achieve under the best conditions. By its actions here, the MHRA acts directly against the best interests of public health.
2. In every survey of ex-smokers ever carried out by anyone, about 75% of ex-smokers reported thay had quit without assistance. The other 25% reported various methods as successful, including the Allen Carr method, hypnosis, and so on. The percentage of successful quitters reporting pharmaceutical interventions as being sucessful, however, is always very small. There is no evidence in the real world that pharmaceutical interventions are anything other than ineffective, with a 9 out of 10 failure rate or worse.
If, in the real world, pharmacotherapies are proven to be ineffective, why base so much effort and spend so much money on them? A very good question, since public health certainly does not benefit. Someone benefits, for sure - but not smokers who wish to quit. The MHRA assists with promotion of pharmaceutical interventions and against rival approaches proven more successful, thus demonstrating a willingness to work against public health where the only people to profit are the pharmaceutical industry. It would be rather naive to think that there are no personal benefits for MHRA staff, given that their actions are likely to kill people.
3. Sweden reduced their smoking by 45%, by free and unhindered access to Snus (only about 11% of Swedes now smoke), and the number of smokers falls every year. The reduction in smoking among men is even more dramatic, at around 55%, as only around 8% of Swedish men now smoke.
As a result the Swedish national health statistics are incredible: the lowest smoking related-death rate of any developed country by a wide margin; a smoking death rate about half the EU average; and the lowest rate of male lung cancer and oral cancer in the EU. Sweden is the only developed country in the world that has any realistic prospect of reducing smoking disease and death to very low proportions, a goal absolutely impossible for any other country. This is why it is called the Swedish Miracle. This has been a disaster for pharma, who are desperate to stop the Sweden scenario spreading.
The EU Health Commission has banned Snus in other countries in order to protect pharma. The UK Dept of Health enthusiastically support the Snus ban as it protects their good friends in pharma. The DoH always backs the Snus ban, showing they are willing to sacrifice thousands of smokers' lives in order to protect pharma. We can assume that a good deal of this support originates from within the MHRA, who are pharma's principal channel into the DoH.
4. The most common form of corruption of government staff is now the revolving door staff corruption method. It has taken over from payments to offshore bank accounts, which leave an embarrassing paper trail and are also vulnerable to exposure by whistleblowers. The way this works is as follows:
a. Staff move freely between the industry and the regulator. At any given time, ex-industry staff will be working within the government agency, and government staff move to the industry.
b. Instead of paying off government officials at the time, the industry rewards them later for their corrupt work while in government. A highly-paid position is made available either within the industry or by using a 'cut-out' - a staff position at a foundation or third-party organisation that can be argued as unrelated to the corporation who benefitted from the corrupt practices.
c. Another method is to use a well-paid non-executive board position as bait: no work is even needed.
d. There are people of the opinion that government staff such as Jeremy Mean at the MHRA will be found working for pharma or one of its client foundations or cut-outs at a later date, as a reward for services rendered. Of course, we at ECCA could not possibly condone such unfounded accusations, and vicious rumours of this type have no foundation in fact whatsoever.
e. Pharma pimps within government are relatively easy to identify since their work to protect pharma income and against public health is so obvious. Until forensic accountancy examinations of such persons' financial affairs are conducted; and until really committed fraud investigations are made; it will be rather difficult to say that agencies such as the MHRA are corrupt as there is no legal basis for doing so. There might be a great deal of circumstantial evidence that appears to point to widespread corruption within the MHRA but that is a different matter. After all, it is fairly obvious to most people that they don't work for the public good in the smoking-related area, and that their actions either now or in the future will lead directly to thousands of deaths.
Until the revolving door staff corruption ploy is made illegal (as in some government's arms procurement departments for example), it is likely this situation will continue. This government apparently has no stomach for eliminating corruption, which extends to the highest offices in the land, as demonstrated by recent events involving the Prime Minister's office, Metropolitan Police management, and criminal organisations within the press.
f. If you are now of the opinion that the MHRA is murderously corrupt, then you are welcome to it. Do keep in mind that they are very well-protected by pharma, if you wanted to make such accusations public. At ECCA we couldn't possibly support such statements because there is no legally-admissible evidence for it, at this time.
Politics or no politics?
Politicians and government staff decide how you live or die. They decide what you can buy and what you can't buy. They decide how long you will live and by how much your life will be shortened or extended. They decide who you pay and how much. They decide where your money goes. They decide what you do, and even influence what you think.
You ignore them at your peril because they control your life. You can't change anything from the outside, especially by complaining, or by signing petitions which end up on the desk of someone bribed to ignore you.
You have to get involved and get your hands dirty. Or just go away and die - after paying them and their friends for the privilege.
Your choice.
Politics and E-Cigarettes
For many years now I have been advising the electronic cigarette community
that the only way to survive is to fully engage with the political process. I have
received a fair volume of criticism for this, mainly centered around the
argument that such issues are irrelevant to us and that there is no immediate
problem. Naturally, people wish to avoid politics as it is perceived as a 'dirty'
area that all right-thinking people avoid. This may be true, but unfortunately it
dictates every aspect of your life.
However, it seems that people are finally getting the message at last - now that
an outright ban on vaping is on the horizon from two separate quarters: the EU
and the UK's Department of Health.
If the EU succeeds in its ban on vaping, it will cause massive problems for us
in the UK, for several reasons:
1. The UK implements EU law more strictly than any other country in Europe. I
have travelled widely through Europe and I have never seen such a slavish
determination to follow EU regulations to the letter as exists in the UK. Reports
from Germany also indicate that, even there, they do not take the attention to
detail that we do with regard to implementation and enforcement of EU
regulations, which are in effect the superior law of Europe and override UK
law. As you may know, the further south you travel in Europe, the less relevant
EU law becomes. In southern Europe they regard our devotion to EU law as
madness; even in France they are selective about which aspects to
implement.
2. The UK's Department of Health has the authority for enforcement of EU law
relating to health and consumer products related to health in any way. They will
absolutely enforce EU law here to the maximum level possible.
One of its departments, the MHRA, is regarded as the UK's best example of a
'regulatory captured' government agency: one that has eventually been turned
into a legal arm of the industry it is supposed to control, and works for that
industry as opposed to for the benefit of public health, which in theory is its
statutory task. The MHRA has immense power in this area, but works for
pharma not the public (otherwise they would not be attempting to block the
single largest benefit to public health since the invention of antibiotics). The
DoH itself follows the pharmaceutical industry's lead in all areas related to its
operations.
Together, the MHRA and the DoH are working to the pharmaceutical industry
agenda, which is (as per usual) to remove commercial competitors.
Unfortunately in this case their competitor is the e-cigarette trade, which
intrinsically by its very existence will save orders of magnitude more lives in
the smoking-related area than pharma ever has or ever will.
3. As a concrete example: the NHS reduces smoking prevalence in the UK by
an estimated 0.001% per annum. In effect the reduction in smoking has
plateaued and cannot be reduced further by NHS/DoH initiatives. Reducing
smoking prevalence to much below one-fifth of the population, within any
realistic or useful timeframe, is generally recognised as either difficult or
impossible. In contrast e-cigarettes have already captured 6% of smokers and
will therefore achieve a parallel reduction in smoking prevalence: a 1% per
annum reduction as ecigs have only been available for six years. This is 1,000
times more effective than the government-sponsored methods.
4. The pharmaceutical industry's main aim is to preserve the status quo, in
order to protect its vast income from the drug trade for treating sick smokers.
This is between £1.5bn and £2bn annually in the UK. Since Snus reduced
smoking in Sweden by 45%, with a concomitant fall in the smoking-related
disease and death rate, we can expect an even larger fall in smoking in the UK
as a result of ecig use (since ecigs are much more popular with smokers than
the Snus oral pouched tobacco where both are sold together such as in some
areas of the USA). It is not unreasonable to estimate that, in the long term,
60% of smokers may switch to ecigs - leading to a 59% to 60% fall in
pharma's income from their drug trade, as there is zero evidence that ecig use
has any significant implications for health.
The NRT market is tiny by comparison and of far less importance (a few
hundred million pounds per year): but it is imperative for pharma to protect
their income from the treatment of sick smokers. Virtually all resistance to
ecigs can be traced back to a pharma funding source in one way or another.
The murderous corruption within government agencies
The EU Health Commission ultimately determines what you can or cannot buy
in the area of health-related consumer products in Europe. This committee is
famously corrupt, having had members exposed for soliciting bribes from the
tobacco industry, and its members' secret offshore bank accounts exposed
by whistleblowers. The bribes demanded were for millions of Euros; the bank
accounts hold huge sums paid in bribes.
It is no misnomer to describe the EU Health Commission as murderously
corrupt, in these circumstances - they work for their own benefit and where this
is directly against the interests of public health then they decide in favour of
the highest payer; as is clear from the Snus ban, which benefits the
pharmaceutical and cigarette industries at huge cost to public health.
According to their own statistics, 700,000 die in the EU each year from
smoking; but Sweden reduced smoking by 45% as they are exempt from the
Health Commission's Snus ban. Since Snus is proven by 30 years of data to
have no statistically-visible negative effect on health at population level, this
means that up to 45% of EU smoking deaths might theoretically be laid at the
feet of Health Commission members. At the very least, you could not fail to
support a figure of 10% of these deaths: 70,000 a year. The EU Health
Commission kills 70,000 EU citizens a year by preventing access to Snus
Europe-wide. Don't forget that about 10,000 of these deaths are in the UK
where about 100,000 die from smoking every year (80,000 in England).
The EU Health Commission kills thousands of UK citizens every year.
Now, looking at the UK Dept of Health, they broadly support the EU in this
effort. The MHRA in particular have tried their best to ban e-cigarettes but
were blocked by a higher government agency, the RPC, when they tried this in
2010. Because their paymasters, the pharmaceutical industry, demand action,
they have to try again (keep in mind they work for pharma, not the government
and certainly not for public health, in this area). This means they must explore
other options to outmanoeuver higher government, of which two are apparent:
either go to law and get a legal ruling that e-cigarettes are a medical device
that delivers a drug that must be classified as a pharmaceutical; or cleverly
persuade anyone who will listen that they should be in charge of 'light-touch'
regulations to 'ensure safety'.
a. They are unlikely to succeed in a legal ruling because in every country
where such a ban has been challenged, it has been overturned (the USA,
Holland, two German States). The legal arguments for such a classification are
non-existant and in any case farcical (since it would also mean that coffee
percolators, teapots, tobacco pipes, and cocktail shakers would need to be
classified as drug delivery devices). Nevertheless they may indeed try this
route, as it is a zero-cost option for them (the taxpayer will foot the bill for the
legal work and the pharmaceutical industry will pay for the background
documentation); it also has the added benefit of costing the UK ecig industry a
lot of money and trouble, for the legal costs to overturn the ban. This is a win
for the MHRA and may be attempted just for the aggravation factor, since only
the taxpayer loses, and the MHRA have clearly demonstrated no interest in the
public's opinion or the cost to the public.
b. A far more likely approach is that the MHRA will attempt to gain ownership of
this consumer product by trying to show there is some sort of danger to the
consumer, therefore they should have the right to regulate the products, as the
products are within the health area. They would attempt to persuade
government that light-touch regulations are sufficient and in the best interests
of the consumer. This is problematic in two ways:
i. The MHRA have no interest in 'protecting the consumer' - their task is to
protect the income of the pharmaceutical industry. There is only one way to do
that: either remove ecigs from the market, or hamstring them so they are
useless. Any 'light-touch' regulations would become stiffer and stiffer year on
year, leading to a ban by way of stealth regulations - the classic 'backdoor
approach'. This would be extremely difficult to counter once the MHRA has the
legal framework in place to regulate ecigs, meaning that such a framework
must be resisted with maximum force, otherwise ecigs will be banned in the
Uk within a short space of time.
ii. The MHRA have the power to stop inward posted packets of supplies to the
consumer. The vital vaping supplies needed if banned in the UK would be
classed as 'unlicensed drugs', which they already have the power to block
should they choose to do so. There are costs involved, and inter-departmental
issues to resolve (such as the cost to Border Control and the Post Office); but
pharma funds would be diverted to resolving these issues. Pharma has an
inexhaustible supply of funds for these purposes. The MHRA have already
carried out a pilot project to show they can block inbound post, and this
system would certainly be implemented in the event of a successful backdoor
ban of ecig products. Packets from China, for example, would be at the top of
the list for examination by the MHRA's partners.
iii. There is absolutely no evidence of any harm or even potential for harm from
e-cigarettes. Some sort of demonstrable reason should be needed to change
the current highly-effective regulatory system, whereby the UK is the only
country in the world where electronic cigarettes are comprehensively and
effectively regulated.
The huge drug trade that must be protected at all costs
All these instances of current and future restriction of e-cigarettes can be
traced back to pharma's need to protect the drug trade in treatments for sick
smokers - a vastly profitable market that is one of the jewels in their crown. It is
also worth keeping in mind that the pharmaceutical industry are officially and
legally the world's largest criminal corruptors and criminal fraudsters, regularly
paying record-breaking fines for these activities. Indeed, they were the world's
largest criminal grouping until recently when the oil industry took over that title
due to the level of fines paid. That title is only being temporarily leant to the oil
industry, though - oil can learn from their mistakes and probably won't want to
repeat them. Pharma's normal mode of business is fraud and corruption so
they are quite likely to regain the title of overall world's biggest criminals fairly
soon.
There is no functional difference between a drug cartel headquartered in
Medellin, Colombia and one headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Their job
is to move product, and they will do that at any cost. They buy government
staff as a matter of course.
Can we legitimately refer to the MHRA as murderously corrupt?
You will have to make up your own mind on this issue. Whereas the simple
facts are unavoidable in the case of the EU Health Commission, the situation
is less clear with regard to the MHRA. Judge for yourself, based on the
evidence:
1. Pharmaceutical interventions have a less than 1 in 10 success rate for
smoking cessation. Nine out of ten patients will return to smoking. Any
suggestion of evidence to the contrary can easily be refuted by the facts. No
independent research (i.e. not paid for by pharma) says different. The MHRA
enthusiastically supports the pharmaceutical interventions and attempts to
remove more effective competitors. Ecigs can be shown to have a minimum
efficacy of 31%, under the worst possible conditions, which is at least three
times the best that pharmacotherapies can achieve under the best conditions.
By its actions here, the MHRA acts directly against the best interests of public
health.
2. In every survey of ex-smokers ever carried out by anyone, about 75% of
ex-smokers reported thay had quit without assistance. The other 25%
reported various methods as successful, including the Allen Carr method,
hypnosis, and so on. The percentage of successful quitters reporting
pharmaceutical interventions as being sucessful, however, is always very
small. There is no evidence in the real world that pharmaceutical interventions
are anything other than ineffective, with a 9 out of 10 failure rate or worse.
If, in the real world, pharmacotherapies are proven to be ineffective, why base
so much effort and spend so much money on them? A very good question,
since public health certainly does not benefit. Someone benefits, for sure - but
not smokers who wish to quit. The MHRA assists with promotion of
pharmaceutical interventions and against rival approaches proven more
successful, thus demonstrating a willingness to work against public health
where the only people to profit are the pharmaceutical industry. It would be
rather naive to think that there are no personal benefits for MHRA staff, given
that their actions are likely to kill people.
3. Sweden reduced their smoking by 45%, by free and unhindered access to
Snus (only about 11% of Swedes now smoke), and the number of smokers
falls every year. The reduction in smoking among men is even more dramatic,
at around 55%, as only around 8% of Swedish men now smoke.
As a result the Swedish national health statistics are incredible: the lowest
smoking related-death rate of any developed country by a wide margin; a
smoking death rate about half the EU average; and the lowest rate of male
lung cancer and oral cancer in the EU. Sweden is the only developed country
in the world that has any realistic prospect of reducing smoking disease and
death to very low proportions, a goal absolutely impossible for any other
country. This is why it is called the Swedish Miracle. This has been a disaster
for pharma, who are desperate to stop the Sweden scenario spreading.
The EU Health Commission has banned Snus in other countries in order to
protect pharma. The UK Dept of Health enthusiastically support the Snus ban
as it protects their good friends in pharma. The DoH always backs the Snus
ban, showing they are willing to sacrifice thousands of smokers' lives in order
to protect pharma. We can assume that a good deal of this support originates
from within the MHRA, who are pharma's principal channel into the DoH.
4. The most common form of corruption of government staff is now the
revolving door staff corruption method. It has taken over from payments to
offshore bank accounts, which leave an embarrassing paper trail and are also
vulnerable to exposure by whistleblowers. The way this works is as follows:
a. Staff move freely between the industry and the regulator. At any given time,
ex-industry staff will be working within the government agency, and
government staff move to the industry.
b. Instead of paying off government officials at the time, the industry rewards
them later for their corrupt work while in government. A highly-paid position is
made available either within the industry or by using a 'cut-out' - a staff position
at a foundation or third-party organisation that can be argued as unrelated to
the corporation who benefitted from the corrupt practices.
c. Another method is to use a well-paid non-executive board position as bait:
no work is even needed.
d. There are people of the opinion that government staff such as Jeremy
Mean at the MHRA will be found working for pharma or one of its client
foundations or cut-outs at a later date, as a reward for services rendered. Of
course, we at ECCA could not possibly condone such unfounded
accusations, and vicious rumours of this type have no foundation in fact
whatsoever.
e. Pharma pimps within government are relatively easy to identify since their
work to protect pharma income and against public health is so obvious. Until
forensic accountancy examinations of such persons' financial affairs are
conducted; and until really committed fraud investigations are made; it will be
rather difficult to say that agencies such as the MHRA are corrupt as there is
no legal basis for doing so. There might be a great deal of circumstantial
evidence that appears to point to widespread corruption within the MHRA but
that is a different matter. After all, it is fairly obvious to most people that they
don't work for the public good in the smoking-related area, and that their
actions either now or in the future will lead directly to thousands of deaths.
Until the revolving door staff corruption ploy is made illegal (as in some
government's arms procurement departments for example), it is likely this
situation will continue. This government apparently has no stomach for
eliminating corruption, which extends to the highest offices in the land, as
demonstrated by recent events involving the Prime Minister's office,
Metropolitan Police management, and criminal organisations within the press.
f. If you are now of the opinion that the MHRA is murderously corrupt, then you
are welcome to it. Do keep in mind that they are very well-protected by
pharma, if you wanted to make such accusations public. At ECCA we couldn't
possibly support such statements because there is no legally-admissible
evidence for it, at this time.
Politics or no politics?
Politicians and government staff decide how you live or die. They decide what
you can buy and what you can't buy. They decide how long you will live and by
how much your life will be shortened or extended. They decide who you pay
and how much. They decide where your money goes. They decide what you
do, and even influence what you think.
You ignore them at your peril because they control your life. You can't change
anything from the outside, especially by complaining, or by signing petitions
which end up on the desk of someone bribed to ignore you.
You have to get involved and get your hands dirty. Or just go away and die -
after paying them and their friends for the privilege.
Your choice.
Update From ECCA UK
