Slow
Burn is a highly personal but thoroughly documented journey by the author, Don Oakley, to
find out the truth behind the supposed medical facts undergirding the nation's
three-decades-long crusade against smoking. He begins with a searching critique of the
1964 surgeon general's report, which set the crusade into motion, and details the
reservations of the surgeon general's advisory committee regarding the seven weak studies
which formed the basis for the famous warning that "Cigarette smoking is a health
hazard of sufficent importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial
action." It was that "action"--or, more accurately, actions--flowing from
the report over the past three decades that persuaded the author, a retired newspaper
editorial writer, to undertake his book. A smoker in good health for 53 years, he was appalled at the hysteria
infecting America as a result of an endless series of assaults against smoking and those
who choose to indulge in it. In the course of his research, Oakley acquired, and in
"Slow Burn" gives the reader, a basic knowledge of epidemiology and the
uses--and especially the misuses--of statistics. The book (which you can purchase from
Amazon.com by clicking the book graphic at right) examines the most important studies into
smoking since the 1964 report and reveals that many, if not most of them, are fatally
flawed by deep antismoking bias on the part of researchers who are supported by abundant
antismoking grant money, much of it extorted from smokers themselves. At the same time, he
reports on numerous studies exonerating smoking that the public has never heard about.
The book is also
infused with great humor as the author pokes fun at some of the more ludicrous claims and
almost superstitious beliefs surrounding smoking, beliefs that unfortunately are
entertained by many in the medical establishment as well as by the lay public. "Slow
Burn" is, however, an utterly serious work. Oakley realizes that any attempt by a
nonscientist to challenge "what everybody knows" about smoking will be greeted
with widespread disbelief. But as he asks in Chapter 2, even if everything said about
smoking is true, is what we as a nation are doing on the basis of it wise and necessary?
As detailed in
subsequent chapters, what we HAVE done has been to ostracize and discriminate against a
quarter of the population, to villainize an industry and applaud its plundering by state
attorneys general and the plaintiffs' bar and, above all, to countenance the prostitution
of science and the corruption of the nation's legal system--all in the politically correct
cause of a "smoke-free" society. Because of this, in a daring and provocative
conclusion, Oakley states that "The 1964 Report of the Advisory Committee to the
Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service is one of the most insidiously harmful
documents ever foisted upon a gullible public." "Slow Burn" is not written
primarily for smokers (although they have been taken in by the Great American antismoking
scam along with everyone else).
Non-smokers who value
both truth and fairness will find the book an eyeopener and an alarm-bell warning about
what the excesses of the antismoking crusade could ultimately cost them in terms of
diminished personal freedom and responsibility.
Don Oakley is an author and a
former editorial writer for Newspaper Enterprise Association in Cleveland, Ohio, and
Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C. |