OBESITY IS NOT A DISEASE

You’d think that these Canadian studies (article linked below) will finally put to rest the notion that obesity is a disease?  Doubtful.  There is simply too much money involved in the anti-obesity industry to so easily let go of the propaganda that being obese automatically makes one unhealthy.  

Of special interest was the remark from the researchers to the effect that employability and the discrimination that the overweight people face from society are also important in making decisions about obesity treatments.  In light of this, wouldn’t it be much more beneficial for everyone if public health focused its efforts and our tax money towards campaigns aimed at ceasing these discriminatory practices rather than inciting the exact opposite through their anti-obesity fear mongering propaganda?   

We dare hope that this study will motivate more medical professionals to look at the individual on a more personal level rather than basing their advice on the public health’s computer calculated statistical probabilities.  

Fat notnecessarily fatal, new studies find

UNE QUESTION DE VIE OU DE MORT

Est-ce que l’état a le droit de priver ses citoyens de leur seul moyen de défense contre des tireurs fous comme ceux des massacres de la Norvège, du Collège Dawson, de l’Université Concordia ou de l’École Polytechnique entre autres? 

Qu’est-ce que tous ces massacres ont en commun?  Et si seulement une des personnes sur place lors de ces carnages portait une arme, est-ce que ces assassins déséquilibrés auraient fait tant de victimes?  

L’article de Shawn L. Mac Farlane dans le blogue du Québécois Libre nous permet de faire une sérieuse réflexion sur les vrais coupables de ces tueries sanglantes. 

Le vrai tueur de Norvège: le contrôle des armes à feu

 

PLAYING WITH WORDS - HEALTH CANADA'S REPLY TO OUR LATEST APPEAL TO RECONSIDER THEIR STAND ON E-CIGARETTES

Here is Health Canada’s reply to our latest appeal to them to reconsider their stand on electronic cigarettes. 

Health Products and Food Branch 

Inspectorate

Graham Spry Building, 3rd Floor

250 Lanark Avenue

Address Locator #2003C

Ottawa, Ontario

K1A 0K9

July 11, 2011

Thank you for your correspondence dated April 30, 2011 and your request that Health Canada reconsiders its controversial stand on banning the import and marketing of electronic nicotine delivery devices commonly known as e-cigarettes.  We apologize for the delay in our response. 

 

The recent U.S. FDA announcement about its intent to regulate electronic cigarettes as tobacco products when not associated with therapeutic claims will not change the regulation of electronic cigarette products in Canada.  Analysis of the US decision indicate that it is based on very different wording found in the United States Tobacco Act compared to the Canadian Tobacco Act.

Electronic cigarettes will continue to fall within the scope of the Food and Drugs Act because they deliver nicotine, a drug, to a consumer.  All other nicotine containing products, other than naturally sourced nicotine in cigarettes, cigars, etc, have been assessed under the Food and Drug Regulations.  Currently since all approved nicotine products are now non-prescription drugs they fall under the Natural Health Products Regulations.   However, nicotine intended for an electronic cigarette is not exempted from prescription status.  Accordingly, market authorization must be granted by Health Canada prior to the importation and sale of these products in Canada.  In this regard, Health Canada’s approach is in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organisation. 

Yours Truly,

Diana Dowthwaite

Director General 

It is quite clear that according to Health Canada the health of an individual is at the mercy of ‘’different wording’’ and ‘’different acts’’ and that all that matters is that a substance contained in a product occurs naturally as opposed to being extracted from the plant and added to a delivery device.   Little does it matter to Health Canada that that is precisely the process the pharmaceutical industry uses to manufacture different nicotine delivery devices such as inhalers, patches, gums and lozenges and it matters even less to them that the tobacco industry has been (rightly or wrongly) under attack for years for free-basing nicotine to give it a more potent ‘’hit’’ and that there is nothing ‘’natural’’ about that process.  Irrelevant to them that thousands if not millions of smokers throughout the world who wanted to quit have successfully managed to do so with a device that has so far not only proven to be many times more effective than pharmaceutical overpriced nicotine replacement therapy but that has also no documented case of harm since its approximately 7-year existence. 

Dear fellow citizens, the next time your father, aunt, uncle, or grandmother complain that smoking conventional cigarettes worsens their emphysema symptoms yet they find it impossible to renew their supply of nicotine for their e-cigarette because Health Canada does not approve of harm reduction, please set them straight immediately and stress to them that ‘’emphysema’’ is now called COPD and that wording is of utmost importance when one wants to improve their health.    

CAN THE STATE STEAL OUR KIDS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS?

A 9-year old child was removed from her father without due process and medicated with anti-psychotic drugs within 70 hours.  The child is autistic, does not require medication and according to the father the only reason she was removed from him was because she wandered off to the neighbor’s backyard and after he searched for her for 20 minutes, he called the police for help.  According to BC Child Protection Services, the father is too overwhelmed to properly look after his daughter. 

Since Child Protection Services refuse to comment, this of course is only the father’s side of the story.  However, whatever the other side of the story is, nothing can justify that the child gets separated from her father with only a picture of him to appease her worries and medicated without the father’s consent and all this without prior legal process.  The father has no idea how long it will take before the judicial system hears his case and returns his daughter to him.  Meanwhile the child’s mental and physical health is compromised. 

This should be of great concern to all of us.  If we allow the state to get away with such actions, there is no telling how many families will one day live the same tragedy as the Hoares.  

Find out how you can help here :  http://www.facebook.com/groups/152278868178942

 

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

Guest commentary by Andrew Phillips - Libertarian Party of Canada - Ontario Libertarian Party, on an article that appeared in the New York Daily News titled Unlicensed vendors flood area beaches, turning city shores into open-air marketplaces
 

Well the economic law of unforeseen circumstances is certainly at work here!

Nobody ever thought of this happening as the social engineers creating laws are so far removed from the real world. This is the free market at work it's chaotic, unorganized, and worst of all for the social engineers, it works. If the market place (the customers) weren't there the suppliers (the vendors) wouldn't be there as well. Whoever showed up first is not all that important as a market was there to be created and the two principals the customers and the vendors found each other. As there are a lot of vendors they are in direct competition with each other. Thus prices are kept down through competition. In all cases the free market is controlled by the consumer and the purchases they decide to make based on their own needs and / or wants. You're not paying for a government service you have no use for, the salary of the people who supply the service you have no use for, and inflated prices and shoddy service that are the end result of any monopoly.

Here if a vendor screws somebody they would lose their market share. What is also funny is Bloomberg the mayor brought in the smoking bans on public beaches but budget cuts have gutted the people who were supposed to do the enforcing. You have to wonder if any of those vendors might be laid-off enforcement officers who are using the free market to better their own situation. Recently a newspaper article here pointed out the underground economy in Canada has been estimated at 36 billion dollars a year. I'd like to know what the real amount actually is if they'll even admit to that amount in the first place. Markets like this were a permanent fixture in the old Soviet Union as the central planners were completely unable to control the supply of 24 million market items.

I enjoy the irony in this line towards the end of the article, "A guy who doesn't pay rent, he takes business away from the restaurant who pays rent. There should be some more enforcement." What took the business away from those establishments in the first place was enforcement of a ban that they didn't want. That violated their property rights and in many cases forced them out of business or facing the law of diminishing returns. Unwanted social engineering was, and remains, the real problem. In all cases the social engineers are cocooned from the economic fallout of bad decisions by mostly working for the government. However bring in enough bad laws and even they will feel the effects of diminishing returns from the rise of the
underground unfettered free market.

After all, water in the real world always finds its own level.

INSOLITE : CHASSE AUX SORCIÈRES À L'ANCIENNE LORETTE

La ville de l’Ancienne Lorette imite désormais quelques municipalités du Canada anglais et interdit de fumer dans les parcs et les espaces verts selon la source interne des nouvelles de Québécor, le QMI.

L’article en question (lien ici-bas) nous rapporte que l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé (OMS) préconise que les espaces sans fumée protègent les non-fumeurs des effets néfastes de la fumée, elles n’affectent pas l’économie, et elles incitent les fumeurs d’arrêter de fumer. En plus, elle avance que le tabagisme passif provoque plus de 600 000 décès prématurés par année dans le monde, et dans près du tiers des cas ce sont des enfants qui en sont victimes.

Pour faire passer les interdictions de fumer dans les parcs de l’Ancienne Lorette, on a eu recours à beaucoup de rhétorique. La rhétorique est un discours qui fait davantage appel aux émotions et aux sentiments et il est, hélas, facile d'obtenir ce qu'on veut de la part d'un peuple qui est dominé par ses émotions. Est-ce que le discours qu'on nous sert dans cet article approche un si peu soit-il la réalité ? Examinons ce qui en est :

Primo, des études effectuées par des professionnels en toxicologie qui déclarent aucun conflit d’intérêts, ont estimé que dépendamment de la substance en question, il faudrait entre 1250 et 1,000,000 de cigarettes fumées simultanément dans une pièce enfermée de 100m cubes et sans aucune ventilation, pour dépasser les seuils d’exposition acceptables pour l’être humain avant que cela devienne un risque pour la santé (voir le tableau à la page 5 de ce lien http://www.forces.org/evidence/download/ntp915c.pdf ) . Peut-on seulement imaginer à combien de cigarettes simultanément allumées on peut exposer un individu dans un parc sans aucun souci pour sa santé ?

Secundo, malgré ce qu’ils essaient de nous faire avaler, l’économie de l’industrie de l’accueil fut affectée à des niveaux plus ou moins différents suite aux interdictions de fumer et ce partout où des telles interdictions ont eu lieu. L’état du Nevada, dont l’industrie de l’accueil a essuyé des pertes substantielles, a d’ailleurs allégé sa loi anti-tabac pour permettre désormais de fumer aux endroits où on sert de la nourriture.  http://www.rgj.com/article/20110617/NEWS07/110617027/1002 .  D’autres pays comme le Venezuela, la Croatie et la Bulgarie ont totalement abolit leurs lois respectives. La Hollande permet maintenant de fumer dans les petits bars et bistros qui n’engagent pas du personnel et plusieurs comtés américains ont d’une façon ou d’une autre allégé leur loi pour la rendre plus favorable à l’économie.


Tercio, contrairement aux dires de l’OMS, le taux de tabagisme est demeuré inchangé et a même augmenté à plusieurs endroits où des interdictions draconiennes telles qu’on les connaît au Québec furent implémentées. Le Québec ne fait pas exception. Tandis-ce que le taux de tabagisme dans l’année de l’interdiction en 2006 était de 20%, il était de 21% en 2009, et de 20% au courant de la première partie de 2010 http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/tobac-tabac/research-recherche/stat/_ctums-esutc_prevalence/prevalence-fra.php


Pour ce qu’il est des enfants dont le tiers sont supposément emportés par la fumée secondaire, rien de plus absurde. Certes qu’il y a des enfants chez qui les crises d’asthme sont exacerbées par la fumée du tabac, mais généralement, tout comme on protège les enfants allergiques au lactose et aux arachides. la majorité des parents ont assez de jugement pour ne pas soumettre leurs enfants intolérants à la fumée du tabac à des endroits où la fumée est intense.  D'ailleurs, peut-on vraiment  trouver de la fumée intense dans les grands espaces verts du Québec ?  Pour le reste, lorsqu’on considère que cela prend un minimum de 20 ans pour un gros fumeur de peut-être contracter une maladie reliée au tabac et en mourir, combien d’années cela prend-il pour compromettre la santé d’un non-fumeur (adulte ou enfant) qui sent de la fumée des milliers de fois plus diluée lors d’une occasionnelle ou même régulière visite au parc ?


Les journalistes qui ont rapporté les dires de l’OMS, auraient eu intérêt de sauver leur crédibilité en faisant un peu de recherche avant de rapporter des telles aberrations sous la rubrique ‘’Santé’’. La section ‘’Insolite’’ aurait été plus appropriée. Tant qu’à nous, nous l’aurions volontiers classé sous la rubrique ‘’Chasse aux sorcières’’.

On ne fume plus dans les parcs à L’Ancienne-Lorette

MORE PROPAGANDA FROM THE WEALTHIEST NON-PROFIT SOCIETY, THE ACS

A report by none other than the American Cancer Society has found (as to be expected from any tunnel vision anti-smoking organization) that raising taxes and smoking bans could save $2 billion in health costs.

Never mind that the price of tobacco has been found to have no incidence in smoking prevalence https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKoBl9qAKNfHNhAdB2t2pMW-UQlKxWW1h6ZebG8u1-v6lWNJpjvvdsb54yv_4mMOQedgJnP4FHiT_RUGxDm3Oa16x69SXvcHqcefnLmdn3psh3ckhbovf5GwDxJyDFGh-ZEQ4v-KE-N2Yf/s1600/Figure3MolimardEng.jpg excerpted from BELIEFS, MANIPULATION AND LIES IN THE TOBACCO ISSUE - Robert Molimard

Never mind that smoking rates are either stagnating or increasing ever since smoking bans were enacted in various countries including the US, and this during hard economical times which only further proves that disposable income and prices have no real impact on smoking prevalence .  Health Advocates Hope Substantial Cigarette Tax Counteracts Increasing US Smoking Rate

Never mind that high tobacco taxes cause an ever increasing contraband problem which further subtracts governments from revenue.  Canada with $2 billion losses per year is the perfect example, however the U.S.A. has its very own contraband problems U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Charges Elleven Members of Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Organization

The American Cancer Society is wasting tax payers' money and donations to make up reports that don’t even remotely ressemble reality.  Shouldn’t Americans be demanding that their precious tax dollars and donations be going towards better uses such as serious research into the causes of cancer?

Smoking Bans, Taxes Could Save Nearly $2 Billion in Health Costs