So we had all the scientific evidence we needed, now, to prove that NHS Stop Smoking Services were no more successful than willpower alone, and therefore a total waste of taxpayers’ money.

Using the very reports that the Department of Health had assured us were the “scientific basis” for the advertising slogan of “four times more likely to quit with NHS Services”, we have found this to be pure hype. We can prove that the DoH and NHS authorities have been deliberately misleading the public about the performance of these products and services, and that the entire policy is defrauding the taxpayer! Pretty big news story, right?

So freedom2choose sent out a press release to 717 press destinations. Surely some of them would want to warn the public about this massive scam, wouldn’t they?

Good Doggie - Roll Over!

Well now, this is getting very interesting, isn’t it? freedom2choose found exactly the same total lack of response that I found myself, when I sent out my original whistle-blowing heads-up to a number of major newspapers in January 2008. Total silence. Not even a polite enquiry about any of the evidence. Nothing.

But hang on a minute! 120,000 smokers die needlessly every year! Surely if they are being told lies and encouraged to use methods that won’t help them at all, and those spreading the lies know that perfectly well - that’s obviously a scandal, isn’t it? Newspaper editors: this is a golden opportunity for a huge expose involving drug companies and the health department, isn’t it?

Play Dead!

No reaction. Absolutely nothing.

But it can’t be because newspapers aren’t interested in scandals, they expose things like that regularly, and always pat themselves on the back for it at the same time, congratulating themselves for protecting the public and upholding simple moral standards of right and wrong. It can’t be because they want to protect the Department of Health either, because they are more than happy to lay into government when it suits them - look at the way they dragged out the M.P.’s expenses palaver. So why the great silence and apparent lack of interest in the Global Nicotine Scam?

Good Boy! Here’s a Juicy Bone!

Could it be that all nicotine replacement products are advertised in newspapers, and newspapers are very much dependent on that revenue, and it has been made very clear to them that if they report FACTS like the ones we are pointing to, that revenue will disappear or go to one of their competitors?

Sit up and Beg!

So they made you an offer you couldn’t refuse, and you’re not going to bite the hand that feeds you, is that it? Bugger the truth, screw the evidence, sod smokers, eh? Let ‘em die.

The Drug Companies Make a Killing

Ladies and Gentlemen, roll up roll up, the headless body of True Science can now be viewed adorning the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. After years of being held captive and forced into prostitution by the pharmaceutical industry, she has now been beheaded and dumped there as a warning to all those who oppose the will of Big Pharma.

Bloody footprints can be clearly seen leading off to the offices of the Department of Health, the B.M.A., NICE, Action on Smoking and Health (A.R.S.E.) and a number of drug giants, but they’re not worried. They’ve got a big stack of juicy bones to throw to any news-hounds that might come sniffing around.

R.I.P. Science. R.I.P. Investigative Journalism. The Truth will be buried with you.

Unless…

Remember that scene at the end of Carrie, when the hand suddenly comes up out of the grave? You can buy off the media, but you can’t kill the truth - and the Truth Will Out! Spread the word, people. For the sake of smokers everywhere, and their loved ones - use Facebook, twitter, whatever - spread the word. Tell the truth. Expose the liars and the global gangsters who murdered Science and muzzled the press. Spread the word.

The Last Post

Well, that’s it from me. I’ve said all I have to say - feel free to use this site as a reference source, please credit the site if you quote from it, please credit the book if you quote from that.

Any further comments that come in will appear on the site usually within 48 hours, but I will not add any replies or further comments of my own. I am a hypnotherapist by profession, not a campaigner, and I’m developing a new project now which is entirely unconnected with Truth Will Out. This site now speaks for itself.

I’m going to end on a positive note, though: a little belatedly, I would like to pay tribute to the Professor Emeritus of Cardiology at the University of Edinburgh, Michael Oliver, who earlier this year criticised the over-prescribing of medications particularly to the elderly, blaming a ‘tick box culture’ operating within the NHS. Writing in the British Medical Journal he warned that unnecessary prescribing of drugs to supposedly prevent high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes could actually be harmful. Yes, and it is also ridiculously expensive which leads to cost-cutting elsewhere, which is also harmful.

Elsewhere on the site (see ‘Trust Me, I’m a Doctor’) I have been somewhat critical of the pharmaceutical industry’s attempts to get the whole of Western civilisation on tablets ‘for their health’. It’s not hard to imagine them convincing everyone to take a pill that will prevent the return of The Black Death, then arguing that the NHS should fund that indefinitely, since “it seems to be working very well”. To anyone who thinks that is far-fetched, I have but one word to say: Tamiflu.

I would also like to welcome the recent decision by N.I.C.E. to approve NHS funding for acupuncture for pain relief. You want to try looking again at hypnotherapy for stopping smoking too, it works a treat in about 80% of cases when it’s done properly, and involves no risk. Only don’t consult the ever-so-iffy Cochrane Library about such matters in future, because there’s a secret passage under there which leads straight to Pfizer’s headquarters. Maybe you didn’t know. And for God’s sake don’t get Edzard Ernst to investigate it this time. All he does is compile inconclusive ‘reviews’ from old Cochrane ‘reviews’ of trials that were probably worthless in the first place because they were conducted by scientists, not hypnotherapists. That’s like assessing the value of a new and complex surgical procedure by letting me have a go at it.

A Really Easy Test

Look, it’s really very simple: take 2000 smokers who sign up for NHS services to stop smoking, list them in alphabetical order and don’t ask them any questions at all, so there’s no cherry-picking with regard to lifestyle or attitude, then split the group in half. Surnames A to M go through the standard NHS treatment, N to Z go to local hypnotherapists who specialise in smoking cessation. Scrap the ridiculous four-week review, just review the results at six months, then again at one year. Then compare the costs.

We already know what the current NHS results would be: only 6% success at one year, which is exactly the same as willpower. I guarantee you hypnotherapy would turn in a result of 60% to 80% - which would prove to everybody that whatever Edzard Ernst and the Cochrane Library are really up to, with their deeply uninspiring ‘reviews’, it doesn’t involve anything resembling real, professional hypnotherapy as any of us would recognise it. ‘Us’ being the real experts, of course.

Finally: not all medications are bad, folks. Just wanted to say that in case anyone thinks I’m a purist, or a conspiracy theorist generally. It was only my research into the current ‘Keep Smoking, and Keep Trying to Stop with the Useless Products’ Policy (codename: MoneyGoRound) that led me to the conclusion that something is very rotten in the state of Healthcare. It’s not doctors that are responsible for that, it is politicians and those horrible, scary, evil, unscrupulous drug pushers who want to get us all on tablets. So don’t take ‘em - especially if you’re not ill!

Fare thee well,
Chris Holmes

Filed under: Drugs on Trial, Publicity, The Campaign by Chris