HS patients of all countries, unite!

Last year, German communist thinker Karl Marx (1818-1883), was ‘diagnosed’ with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), a skin disease consisting of “’furuncles, boils and carbuncles’”. Historical research by British dermatologist Sam Shuster revealed that Marx complained about them being on his “posterior and near the penis”.

Well, let’s not dig too deep into the hypothesis that this illness may have influenced Marx’ scholarly works and political thinking. Whatever one might think of him, Marx continues to be an inspiration for economists, sociologists, philosophers, political scientists and historians. Today junk being the leading scientific discipline it is no wonder that Marx also inspires lifestyle epidemiologists. Two of them, Rudolf Happle and Arne König, from the Department of Dermatology at Marburg University, recently came up with “research” providing “evidence” for the cause of Marx’ skin disease.

„Smoking triggers hidradenitis suppurativa“ was their ground-breaking conclusion in an article in the British Journal of Epidemiology.

Sure, Marx loved his cigars, according to a contermporary, he was a “passionate smoker” – like many influential thinkers and revolutionaries. But how do the skin doctors link these two factors?

The quote two questionnaire studies, one of them carried out by themselves, saying that a high percentage of HS patient were active smokers, higher than the average of the population or the control group. Needless to say that the value of such studies is limited due to their methods (sampling, often without random groups and a very small number of cases, omission of other risk factors etc.). But, combined with some “in vitro” study, enough “proof” for the Germany scientists to complain about smoking not being recognized as a risk factor “of crucial causative significance” for HS.

This has been quoted by a few media, including the German Ärzteblatt. But they failed to mention the comment by the above mentioned professor Sam Shuster, directly following the Happle/König article in the same issue of the BJD.

“Happle and König go well beyond what is permissible from the evidence“

, he explains in his witty and sharp analysis, pointing out that of the 63 patients mentioned in their own questionnaire study, only 32 started smoking before their skin disease, 10 of them took up the habit AFTER they began suffering from HS.

“While a smoking trigger makes an interesting variant on the smoking gun, the notion that smoking fires HS is a totally unsubstantiated allegation."

Even for the historical case of “patient” Marx, the authors’ conclusion cannot stand scientific scrutiny:

“If most of his confreres smoked, Marx’s smoking habit would have no statistical significance“.

We would have to know more facts and data from that time.

For Shuster, the Happle/König contribution to blame smoking for all evils in the worlds, is a typical example for the abuse of statistical associations in epidemiology:

“Causal mechanics is something it cannot do, and the frequent, inappropriate attempts serve only to produce the daily horror stories and lists of unsubstantiated associations that clog our journals and newspapers. Use of this bastard epidemiological substitute for science has spread like a cancer; it is doing much damage to genuine research, and has done much harm to the public’s belief in medical science. Old Marx was a tough thinker, very keen on a scientific rationalism, and he would have hated this development. But he also had a wicked sense of humour, and would have laughed it out of court – between bouts of his smoker’s cough.”

Wise words. We can only add that these methods are a standard procedure in anti-smoking research and that people using this “bastard […] substitute for science” might themselves be “bastard substitutes” for scientists.

Smoking bans in Germany – Laws

Federal ban since September 1^st, 2007

- Federal buildings (separate smokers’ room are allowed, but don’t exist in many of them)

- Means of public transport and taxis (separated smokers’ coaches in trains are allowed but state-run monopolist Deutsche Bahn abolished them)

- General smoking ban for 16- and 17-olds in public (and prohibition of selling tobacco products to them, exemption for publicly accessible vending machines until the end of 2008)

The protection of work force is federal competence. Note that there is no total smoking ban for workplaces.

Statewide bans (starting between August 2007 and July 2008)

- Public Buildings, (public and private) hospitals, nursing homes, schools, youth clubs, cultural and sports facilities etc. (with some variety between the individual states, especially with regard to smokers’ sections and prisons)

- Hospitality venues (in all states except Bavaria, separate smoking areas are allowed)

Rules about smoking areas differ from state to state. In all of them, the non-smoking sections must be larger than the smoking sections. In some states, access to the non-smoking section and the toilets has to be non-smoking, in others, landlords are granted more flexibility.

A crucial question is the possibility of venues becoming smokers’ clubs, which exists in several states. This also applies to freedom of choice for non-public meetings (“Geschlossene Gesellschaften”) in bars and restaurants.

In one small state, bars with no employees are exempt.

Here you can find official comments by Forces Germany in the legislative procedures.

"Smokers of all countries, unite!"

Our opening fanfare is a text by Guenter Ropohl, an outspoken critic of “health fascism”. Professor Ropohl has a Ph.D. in engineering (same as the infamous Stanton Glantz, ironically) and later specialized in sociology and philosophy of technology. He has written a couple of excellent pieces on junk science and smoking bans.

The following call, which we wholeheartedly support, is a part of his website translated into English.

Smokers of all countries, unite!

Millions of our people are being deprived of fundamental rights, on a worldwide scale there are hundreds of millions. They are refused the right to enjoy tobacco in public buildings, transportation, and places like restaurants, pubs, and bars. So their basic right to social interactions expressing their own personalities and choices is drastically restricted. This will certainly not stand up to judicial review by supreme and constitutional courts.

This violation of basic human rights is justified by the claim that a higher ranking value is at stake, the health of nonsmokers. The environmental air, it is said, is polluted by tobacco emissions which, involuntarily (“passively”) inhaled by nonsmokers, will cause lethal diseases.

This claim, invented in the USA some 30 years ago, has been examined ever and again. Most of the studies it is based on, however, are nothing more than statistical estimates. The results, inconsistent and highly debated among scientists, are not able to demonstrate causal evidence for the alleged health dangers of environmental tobacco smoke. Activists of public health, however, vehemently maintain the contrary and seek to abolish a basic human right just because of scientifically questionable speculations. To control an unproven hypothetical risk they fight against real freedom.

The smoking bans offend against a fundamental principle of legislation: the principle of appropriateness.
(1) Smoking bans are not a suitable means for establishing an additional protection of health. If environmental tobacco smoke really does not harm people’s health, smoking bans are not only unsuitable, but do not make any sense at all.
(2) Smoking bans are not required. Even if they may be suitable to protect a minority of sensitive nonsmokers against annoyance, there are measures more moderate that would obtain this protection goal. In public places, separated nonsmoker and smoker areas may be set up, so that everybody has a free choice. This had been successful in railway trains for years, until total smoking bans now are introduced that clearly have no basis at all.
(3) The disadvantages of general smoking bans are out of proportion to very questionable benefits. Millions of people have their participation in public sociability and mobility strongly interfered with. In work places, long distance trains, hospitals and retirement homes they are forced to painfully refrain from enjoyment. Finally tens of thousands of restaurant and bar owners are threatened with the loss of their business, and traditional pub and tobacco culture is being destroyed.

The managers of airlines, transport services and public buildings misuse the baseless fear of tobacco smoke as a cover-up for saving money on cleaning and ventilation through smoking bans. Yet the smokers enrich public finances through enormous sums of tobacco taxes. The basic right to full personality and social development is to be sacrificed on the altar of misplaced stinginess.

Managers and organization persons belong to the so-called ”higher circles”, and among those people smoking has come out of fashion. The “higher circles”, however, exercise the power in society. What they on their part, more or less voluntarily, are refraining from, they try to forbid others: the hairdressers and the lorry drivers, the office employees and the workmen, the shop assistants and the labourers, in a word, the “ordinary people”, who cannot stand up on their own.

The fight against smokers is a novel class struggle, a class struggle from the top. Health fanatics and managers form an alliance against the smoking third of mankind to deprive them of freedom and life enjoyment. Just as in former times the labour movement had to fight for their rights by forming powerful organizations, nowadays the smoking people have to resist growing suppression attempts. Smokers of all countries, unite!

Guenter Ropohl (Professor Emeritus of General Technology at the University of Frankfurt on Main, Germany)

Welcome

Netzwerk Rauchen – Forces Germany is the leading smokers’ movement organization in Germany, a chapter of FORCES and a member of The International Coalition against Prohibition.We are fighting Nannyism, Junk Science and intolerance. At this moment, smoking bans and the passive smoking fraud are major topics we are dealing with.

This blog has been created to satisfy the increasing need for first-hand information about developments in Germany in the English-speaking world. We will inform you about our activities and also cover Austria (German-speaking) and Switzerland (partly German-speaking) because there is a lot to discover as soon as the language barrier is bridged.

The first entries are to follow in the coming days.