Follow the science on smoking and COVID-19
5 December 2022
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Christopher Snowdon writes in Spiked!
IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon has written in Spiked! discussing the widespread dismissal of data correlating smoking with reduced harms from COVID-19.
Christopher wrote:
“After a brief burst of incredulous coverage in the spring of 2020, the media soon lost interest in the hypothesis that smokers are less likely to get Covid-19, but dozens of studies have been quietly published in the past two-and-a-half years which confirm it.
“Of the 100 studies from around the world, 87 of them show a statistically significant reduction in SARS-CoV-2 infection risk among current smokers as compared to non-smokers.”
Christopher concluded:
“When evidence is dismissed sight unseen, we are in the realms of faith rather than science. Awkward facts become heresies, the heretics are condemned and the truth is withheld – all because the public are considered too stupid to handle nuance.
And yet the smoker’s paradox is more than an amusing curiosity. The relationship between nicotine and SARS-CoV-2 could offer promising avenues of research for dealing with coronaviruses in the future. We must hope that real scientists ignore their noisy cousins in public health and see where those avenues lead.”
Christopher’s full article can be read here.
Christopher wrote:
“After a brief burst of incredulous coverage in the spring of 2020, the media soon lost interest in the hypothesis that smokers are less likely to get Covid-19, but dozens of studies have been quietly published in the past two-and-a-half years which confirm it.
“Of the 100 studies from around the world, 87 of them show a statistically significant reduction in SARS-CoV-2 infection risk among current smokers as compared to non-smokers.”
Christopher concluded:
“When evidence is dismissed sight unseen, we are in the realms of faith rather than science. Awkward facts become heresies, the heretics are condemned and the truth is withheld – all because the public are considered too stupid to handle nuance.
And yet the smoker’s paradox is more than an amusing curiosity. The relationship between nicotine and SARS-CoV-2 could offer promising avenues of research for dealing with coronaviruses in the future. We must hope that real scientists ignore their noisy cousins in public health and see where those avenues lead.”
Christopher’s full article can be read here.
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