Health Mullahs Ecstatic Over Shaky Thread Between Smoking And AIDS

Statistics are funny things. In the 19th century, when tuberculosis was more common, doctors recommended that patients move to Colorado for the drier air. Critics of Colorado could rightfully cite that the state had the highest tuberculosis rates in the country, and the most deaths from the disease. Cause and effect meant that Colorado caused TB. Now a British study is claiming that the data they have analyzed states that smoking increases the chance of catching HIV. Seriously, people, is there anyone out there who doesn't know that smoking is bad for you? Next they'll be saying some criminals smoke so smoking causes crime. Dr Andrew Furber, of the South East Sheffield Primary Care Trust, and his colleagues, who reported the findings in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, said tobacco smoke may increase susceptibility to HIV infection by modifying a variety of immune system responses. This is not cause and effect at all, this is creating a hypothesis and then interpreting data to support what you want to prove. What the study is finding is that people most likely to catch AIDS - and those people have always been and remain predominantly people who engage in promiscuous, unprotected sexual conduct and IV drug use - are also more likely to smoke. The same study interested in alcohol would find most of them drink. Another study interested in the link between HIV and driving would find most of them don't pay their parking tickets. Nearly 5 million people contracted AIDS in 2005, even with all of the money spent on awareness programs and prevention. Almost 30% of Americans still smoke, even though we simultaneously raise the taxes on cigarettes and advertise against their use. You can't regulate that kind of voluntary conduct. Citing one of those as cause and effect is bad science. Clearly they need a few contrarians in England.