Oh my, what a credulous press corps we have. Selectively credulous that is. Put it this way: if a report compiled by a Philip Morris board member suggested smoking was good for you it wouldn’t be taken terribly seriously. But let an ASH board member – in this case Dr Anna Gilmore – put together a report that says the smoking ban in England & Wales “caused” a “dramatic” fall in heart attacks and the newspapers will be happy to be spoon-fed their reporting.
Now, you may say that the existence of the report is itself news. Perhaps so. But, again, the provenance of the report matters too and should be borne in mind. But no: the BBC, the Times, the Telegraph, the Independent and the Daily Mail all swallow the party line with only the BBC daring to even include a solitary dissenting
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