Vaping causes shrunken penises - you read it here first
Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 15:01 Just stumbled on a news report from July 1998.
It made me laugh because there have been some strong denunciations of junk science in relation to e-cigarettes.
This week, for example, it was claimed that vaping could lead to hearing loss, a suggestion that first surfaced last year.
One of the most outspoken critics of this and other attempts at scaremongering has been Clive Bates, the former director of ASH who is now a leading advocate of vaping as an alternative to smoking.
Listen to tobacco control campaigners like Clive and you'd think junk science and public health propaganda are a relatively new phenomena.
If only.
See 'Penis shock tactics 'could cut smoking' (BBC News, July 1998) and this quote in particular:
Clive Bates, director of ASH said: "There may be people out there who don't care at all about the risk of getting cancer later on, but might be really upset if they thought it was interfering with their sex life.
"The advantage of the penis from a communications point of view, is that it is easy to imagine it shrivelled up and shrunken, whereas damage to other vital organs such as the heart is much less obvious or easy to visualise."
Fancy that!
The suggestion that smoking may be a significant cause of impotence or some form of erectile dysfunction always struck me as one of the more desperate arguments against smoking.
After all, when smoking was at its most popular in the Fifties, with 80 per cent of men puffing happily on their fags, Britain and other Western countries were enjoying a baby boom.
It's only a matter of time, surely, before someone suggests vaping can interfere with a person's sex life or, worse, shrivel men's penises. When that day comes I look forward to Clive's indignant response.
Meanwhile, here's that quote again. It's so good I had to publish it twice:
"The advantage of the penis from a communications point of view, is that it is easy to imagine it shrivelled up and shrunken, whereas damage to other vital organs such as the heart is much less obvious or easy to visualise."
PS. I've just had an idea. 'The A-Z of Junk Science'. Now, who wants to write it - and what shall we put in it?
Reader Comments (6)
N - smoking makes your NIPPLES fall off
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2070561/Smoking-make-nipples-fall-Plastic-surgeon-warns-gangrene-following-breast-lift.html
Oh - a good laugh! Clive Bates said that? Fortunately I have no penis to worry about and I have genetic deafness - no worries for me! Loved this post. Please make more!
Blimey! With my having clocked up 55 years of smoking, now you've got me in a mild panic! Do you think I should quit now, to avert the the awful scenario of my willie shrivelling up and my becoming impotent?
Or is it only long-term smokers that it happens to?
Should I be worried? After all, 'experts have said', and they can't be wrong, what with being 'experts' and all...innit?
M - male baldness (report of research by Daily Mail, 2007)
Really you could bring up hundreds by googling "smoking linked to..."
A published A-Z would highlight that tobacco control does just perpetrate junk and should be ignored.
C - children of smokers are more likely to grow up as CRIMINALS
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/05/smoking-pregnant-children-involved-crime-study_n_7937732.html
A - Z of junk science?
How about A - Z of hate campaigning. There isn't much to laugh about about to those targeted by this nasty junk.
This is funny, I hope I've got nothing to worry about, if I'm divorced in the future you'll know why.