The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7239 p346
8 March 2003

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Filthy habit [more]
Rusty problem [more]
Abusing science [more]
Lawyers' lament [more]

Filthy habit

The smoking of tobacco is seen as filthy, antisocial and unhealthy — except, of course, by organisations concerned with making a massive financial profit from the addiction. But although many individuals who now smoke tobacco claim that they would dearly love to overcome the habit, it remains extraordinarily prevalent. We are to see yet another No Smoking Day on March 12, but I doubt whether it will have any greater effect on reducing tobacco consumption than on previous occasions.

Pharmacists, rightly, are regarded as having their part to play in persuading smokers to relinquish the vice. Several types of replacement therapy can be adopted judiciously. But lasting cure must depend upon sustained intention, and cannot be achieved by the half-hearted.

One effective method of dealing with smoking is to control tobacco advertising firmly. Ideally, nothing short of a worldwide total ban on tobacco advertising will work. Even then the initial effect of a ban will be feeble after so many years of heavy promotional activity.

I admit never having acquired the smoking habit, though at school there was peer pressure enough. When our school choir participated in music festivals we used to travel to Bournemouth and Winchester, and it was considered a lark to consume illicit Woodbines in the chines or along the riverbank. This was the height of stupidity, since no singing voice was ever improved by smoking, but that did not enter our minds.

How many of my classmates succumbed to the temptation to continue the practice I cannot tell, but I never did, despite the efforts of a music colleague to tempt me into smoking foul Russian cigars with him.

I strongly suspect that smoking is a sign of boredom, and that if you have enough constructive demands on your time you will not suffer from the temptation to see your aspirations twirling up in blue spirals to the ceiling or the sky. Indeed, that may be one of the secrets of a healthy life.

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Rusty problem

Those who have studied the prospect of a rising temperature of the earth's surface have known for years that something must be done if the human race is to survive. The increasing concentration of so-called greenhouse gases in our atmosphere results from ever more and more consumption of fossil fuels in our pursuit of greater comforts and machines. Those who dismiss the prospect of global warming as misleading, notably the industrialists who need unlimited energy supplies to pursue their production goals, are now looking a trifle foolish, but seem unwilling to seek a remedy.

Two methods for reducing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, and thereby limiting climatic deterioration, are reforestation of those parts of the world that have been devastated by uncontrolled tree felling, and restoration of the depleted algal flora of the oceanic phytoplankton. Both actions would help the photosynthetic reactions by which carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is removed and oxygen liberated.

A report in Nature for 9 January has mentioned earlier experiments in which the addition of iron promoted phytoplankton growth in oceanic waters that contained plenty of other nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates. A more recent study comparing different methods of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has indicated that adding iron would be 10 to 100 times cheaper than attempts to achieve the same end by afforestation, which would be the next choice. However, there have been warnings that altering the natural carbon flux with iron might bring unwanted side effects, notably the encouragement of the growth of toxic algae capable of killing other marine life or removing the oxygen produced. And phytoplanktonic algae influence cloud formation through the production of dimethylsulphide, increase the amount of sunlight absorbed by the oceans, and cause ozone depletion because of the methylhalides they emit. Any large-scale attempt to use an iron-enriching technique involves risks that must first be evaluated. So far, politicians have shown no awareness of what might happen if the warnings are not heeded in good time.

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Abusing science

Politics has been defined in the dictionary as "the science and art of government". This carries a shade of confusion, since science is defined as "the pursuit or principles of systematic and formulated knowledge".

Politics is, to a great extent, pursued by way of opinion, sentiment and the jostling of individuals for power and influence. In the strict sense, then, science does not enter into political decisions, any more than sentiment enters into scientific conclusions, which are strictly objective (although the hypotheses on which the laws of the universe are based must be raised initially on personal beliefs).

An editorial in Science for 31 January draws attention to the way in which appointments to scientific bodies are increasingly being determined according to tests of political loyalty, particularly in the United States. Scientific appointments, comments the editor, "should rest on more objective criteria of training, ability, and performance". And certainly any peer review of scientific proposals should exert no political bias.

Recently, the members of the advisory committee concerned with environmental health were replaced wholesale without consultation with the centre's director. Members of committees dealing with human research and genetic testing have also been changed without consultation, as have others concerned with workplace injuries. The practice of shutting down advisory committees and reassembling them with new, politically loyal, candidates is nothing new, but the areas now subjected to loyalty tests are increasing steadily.

When a distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology nominated to serve on the National Council on Drug Abuse was interviewed by an official from the White House, he was told that he would be vetted "to determine whether he held any views that might be embarrassing to the president." This is really alarming.

As the editorial states frankly: "The purpose of advisory committees is to provide balanced, thoughtful advice for the policy process; it is better not to put the policy up front". And in making decisions over which public research projects to support, objective peer review is imperative. Political loyalties have nothing to do with it.

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Lawyers' lament

Men would pass their whole Lives in Litigation were not Law Suits attended with Expence; and risque their Neighbours Lives perpetually — were they not restrained by fears of losing their own.
— Hester Lynch Piozzi: 'Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson' (1786).

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