i have been following with interest reports that smoking may protect against the virus.

Frank put up an excellent piece yesterday [which saves me a lot of typing] and Simon Clark has similarly posted an article or two.

There are a couple of things that struck me.

The first is that everyone is being very cautious and muttering things along the line of “we don’t have the full facts” or “it’s too early to make any claims”. This is pretty magnanimous considering that Anti-Smokers will pounce on any item that would apparently “prove” their cause?

Taking just one example from the study produced by the CDC in America, out of a sample of 7,162 cases, only 96 were current smokers. That is a tiny number compared to [say] Diabetes where the figure is 784. Of course the Anti-Smokers are dismissing this report on various grounds such as hospitals not recording whether someone was a smoker or not. If that’s the case, where do they get their figures from that apparently show that smoking causes every malady under the sun?

I do wonder though what would have happened if smokers had accounted for a much higher proportion of victims? You can be damned sure that the Antis would be screaming from the rooftops that smoking causes Covid-19. Every newspaper on the planet would have received a press release designed to scare the shit out of everyone.

These reports must be a nightmare for the Anti-Smokers. They cannot ever admit that smoking might protect against the biggest pandemic in a lifetime. To do so would be counter to everything they have ever preached. It would be like having to admit that the Earth orbits the Sun and isn’t the centre of the universe. And if a link is proven, what is that going to do to their campaigns?

Even worse, suppose an antidote is produced involving Nicotine which is plausible? Are they still going to insist that anything involving Nicotine is Baaaad? Worse still, if that antidote is produced by a tobacco company? Are they going to demand that the world rejects a vaccination that can save lives?

I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes just now.

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Update: I had just published when I came across Christopher Snowdon’s latest post. Apparently the Antis are fighting back already.

We will widely disseminate our findings working with the media and interested clinical and public health groups.

I bet they will!