More evidence that smoking protects existing smokers against Covid-19
Monday, August 10, 2020 at 13:20 In a blog post on Saturday Chris Snowdon returned to the issue of smoking and Covid-19. He wrote:
The tireless @phil_w888 has now catalogued over 700 studies of Covid-19 patients that have data on smoking prevalence.
In the last week, the largest observational study yet conducted found that smokers (in Mexico) were 23 per cent less likely to test positive for Covid-19. This is in line with the results of an ongoing meta-analysis by some researchers who would clearly prefer the hypothesis to be disproved but who nevertheless have found a 26 per cent reduction in infection risk for current smokers.
A study published in the Lancet a couple of weeks ago looked at the factors associated with Covid-19 caseloads at the national level. It found that countries with higher rates of smoking tended to have lower rates of Covid infection.
And a newly published prospective study of nearly 20,000 Covid cases tells a familiar story. Your chances of ending up in intensive care with the virus are increased if you are male, non-white, from a low income area, obese ... or a nonsmoker.
You can read the post in full here. It concludes with Snowdon noting that:
The 'public health' lobby has done a good job of ignoring these findings so far, but how long can it continue?
I think we all know the answer to that. The 'public health' lobby will never acknowledge the findings. How can they? The entire anti-smoking crusade is based on the argument that there is nothing beneficial or positive about smoking.
Meanwhile, having publicised some early studies that suggested smokers might be protected against Covid-19 (credit to MailOnline in particular for publishing some extremely detailed reports), the media apparently lost interest as the evidence grew.
The problem, I think, is that there are now so many studies supporting the case that far fewer smokers are being hospitalised with Covid-19 compared to non-smokers, it's no longer news.
"What's the story?" journalists always ask. "Is there a new angle?" In this instance the answer is, no, just more of the same.
It would only be a news story now if studies began to suggest something different – for example, that smoking is a clear risk factor in testing positive for Covid-19, and that's not happening.
Put it this way. If there was evidence, significant or otherwise, that the prevalence of Covid-19 was greater among smokers, we'd never hear the end of it.
The Department of Health, Public Health England and the rest of the 'public health' industry would be screaming themselves hoarse.
As for health secretary Matt Hancock, since March he's been completely silent on the subject, perhaps regretting his rash assertion, in response to Bob Blackman, chairman of the APPG on Smoking and Health, that “It is abundantly clear from the research into previous coronaviruses that smoking makes the impact of a coronavirus worse."
Instead, led by Boris, the Government has decided to focus on fighting obesity. Smoking has barely got a mention.
Likewise, if there was evidence that the exhalation of tobacco smoke could pass the virus to non-smokers, governments worldwide would have been racing to ban smoking in even more public places, regardless of social distancing.
That hasn't happened. Why? Because the evidence doesn't support it.
In spite of that tobacco control zealots like ASH continue to use Covid-19 as a Trojan horse to further their anti-smoking agenda with stuttering campaigns like Quit for Covid.
Last month anti-smoking peers – with the "assistance" of ASH – even tried to force the Government to ban smoking in the new outdoor seating areas that are designed to help the hospitality industry get back on its feet after lockdown.
The attempt failed but, taking advantage of a 'compromise' amendment, Manchester City Council decided to flout the spirit of the legislation and ban smoking in new outdoor seating areas anyway.
Ignoring the fact that there is almost no evidence of risk to non-smokers, Councillor Rabnawaz Akbar shamelessly said: "We have not endured one health crisis to sleepwalk into another."
The media, including the BBC, reported this comment without a single opposing voice and it was only after I made a bit of a fuss that the Manchester Evening News added a quote from Forest to its report. It included the comment:
"There is no evidence that smoking in the open air is a threat to non-smokers so this is not even a public health issue."
Returning to the list of 700+ studies concerning Covid-19 patients and smoking prevalence, what makes me laugh is the extent to which researchers and tobacco control campaigners have desperately sought to cast doubt on the research in the hope, no doubt, of lessening the impact of the findings.
Initially perhaps there was good reason to be sceptical. Decades of anti-smoking propaganda have conditioned most people to assume there are no advantages to smoking.
Research suggesting that millions of smokers get pleasure from smoking is ignored. Likewise David Hockney's claim that smoking is good for his mental health is dismissed as the sort of thing only an eccentric uncle might say.
Week after week however the evidence about smoking and coronavirus has mounted up and, bizarre as it sounds, it is now very difficult to dispute the claim that smoking protects existing smokers against Covid-19.
Some research even suggests that heavy smokers enjoy greater 'protection' from Covid-19 than moderate or light smokers, who still enjoy more protection from the virus than ex-smokers or non-smokers.
To be clear, this is not an argument in favour of smoking because smoking carries many other risks. Indeed, it may be the case that, once in hospital, smokers with Covid-19 are more likely than non-smokers to end up in intensive care, but even this is being questioned by some studies.
What is undeniable is the extraordinary nature of this developing story. To the best of my knowledge however the clear ‘protective’ effect of smoking against Covid-19 has yet to be acknowledged by anyone in the public health industry.
All we have are a list of excuses. I haven't got time to list them all but they're out there, believe me. If you want to see what some of them are here's as good a place as any to start start - Smoking probably puts you at greater risk of coronavirus, not less
Meanwhile ASH Scotland has posted a long and 'non-exhaustive list of published articles on scientific research which includes information or data on smoking, nicotine and Covid-19 ... collated to facilitate research and help inform opinion.'
Significantly however they have chosen not to comment on or analyse the research. It's just a handpicked list of studies and articles.
And what of Public Health England?
Having whipped up unnecessary alarm four months ago with a scandalous press release that used a single, tiny study to claim that 'Emerging evidence from China shows smokers with Covid-19 are 14 times more likely to develop severe respiratory disease' (April 3), PHE subsequently offered the following Covid-19 advice for smokers and vapers (May 29):
The evidence on smoking and coronavirus (Covid-19) is mixed and developing ...
That was it. Since then, nothing.
Someone who has written about the evidence is Carl Phillips. See Smoking protects against Covid-19, but most of the related “science” is badly misguided (August 9).
Worth reading.
Reader Comments (4)
I don't see the importance of this idea that smoking protects against CV
If anyone in public health chose to acknowledge the protective effect, they could just follow it up with a long list of all the nasty things that smoking supposedly does cause, so they may as well do
Nobody is going to stand up and suggest that people should take up smoking to prevent getting CV, so the only benefit is to people who already smoke anyway. Those people are already targets of public health and will continue to be so, even if it's proved that smoking causes immunity to all strains of CV
Now if nicotine can be used to create a cure or vaccine, that would be something, but the only point I see in proving the protective effects of active smoking is just to say, "ha!" to the anti-smokers, then carry on as normal
"There has been speculation that in places like Italy where there weren’t always enough intensive care beds to go round, some may have lied about smoking, he says."
Wow, what a nasty little bully.
Is Hopkinson seriously suggesting that a) smokers would be denied intensive care if their identity is revealed or b) smokers are fcuking liars never to be trusted.
Either way, this thug has shown his true credentials. It is not about health or "saving lives" it is about an irrational fear and hatred of smokers by smokerphobics who have been demanding public money for a public hate campaign to deny smokers all social and health rights which are afforded without prejudice to everyone else.
Our Government should put as much distance between policy making and these prejudicial bullies as soon as possible if it really wants to be fair to all as it has claimed in the past.
Government does not fund any other hate group. It should not fund those from the anti smoker industry whose only message is : "Hate and fear those scumbag lying smokers who would suck the life out of you and your children by seeking you out to specifically to blow smoke in your face."
As I said, it's not about health. That has become obvious. Perhaps that is the new news angle if only the media was brave enough to report it or even investigate it.
There is I think something in the latest research which is newsworthy. Ex-smokers have the highest risk. Encouraging smoking cessation at this time sounds ethically dubious.
The real story here is that tobacco control and the antismoker faction off public health suppress data that gets in the way of their ideological stance. Here they ignore data about positive attributes of tobacco for Covid just as they ignored it for many other diseases and ignored the role of random genetic mutations in causing cancers. Of course they surpassed all the data that weakened their second hand smoke arguments. It is not about health It never has been. It is about power and profit. Tobacco control's lies must be exposed.