New use for tobacco could save lives: US researcher

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - One acre of genetically engineered tobacco plants can produce enough anthrax vaccine to inoculate the entire U.S. population safely and inexpensively, a molecular biologist at the University of Central Florida said on Tuesday.

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See the article: The Ten Biggest Lies about Smoke & Smoking

By Robert Hayes Halfpenny

Future of Tobacco?

By Mike L Super Moderator at www.smokersforums.org

Posted with permission.

What is the future of tobacco? For this we must go into the past. According to the American Indians, tobacco was to a certain extent a sacred healing plant and this belief was held by the early explorers, importers and medical profession. Then in the early 1600s, King James issued his famous Counter Blast in which he primarily states that anything that smells as bad as tobacco smoke must be harmful to the human body. Immediately most of the doctors in his court agreed just to maintain their Royal position. Those who did not agree found them selves outside of the Royal favor. At approximately the same time, King James hired a group of scholars to translate the "original" Bible scriptures into what then was modern English. Immediately, most of the Christians in the English speaking world thought of him as a saint, so when Saint James said smoking was harmful to your health, it had to be true, a fact not to be argued with. From this point on, all little old ladies and little old men who did not like the smell of tobacco smoke fell in line with Saint James’ thoughts on the subject even to the point of calling it a sin.

In 1955, we find our next major step in anti-tobacco-ism. A group of little old ladies, who did not like the smell of tobacco smoke, approached President Eisenhower and demanded that he do something about the harm that tobacco smoking was causing. It had to be harmful if it smell so bad! Sound familiar? Several times more in the following year or two, they demanded a meeting with the President and continued to demand action against tobacco. Finally Eisenhower called in his Surgeon General and told him to do something about it. The Surgeon General said there was nothing wrong with tobacco smoking but he would conduct a study on it. A couple of months later, Eisenhower called the SG in again and asked him what he had done about tobacco. After the SG explained to the President how long it would take for an accurate study, the President told him to forget the study and place a warning label on cigarette packs or find another job for he was "tired of the old biddies complaints."(*) So in 1956 Warning Labels became a record to be of long standing. The little old ladies swelling with pride over having won a major battle formed them selves into a health organization which continues to put out erroneous "studies" and "test" today.

There has never been a study or test conducted under the rigid rules of science and medicine to state that tobacco smoking was harmful. Regardless of this, health organizations and governmental bodies continue to scare the populace into believing that tobacco smoke is harmful. Several years ago, one such study was reported that over 40,000 people a year died because of tobacco smoke. Where did this figure come from? These health organizations sent out a request to all their local offices asking them to check all hospitals in their area for how many people died of cancer, heart problems, respiratory problems, etc in the last year. These figures were totaled and the health organizations reported that 40,000 people that year had died of tobacco smoking. Never once did their "study" asked how many of these deaths were smokers! How many of these deaths had a family history of said disease! The head research librarian of the Library of Congress was fired from his job when he pointed out that this "study" was in error. Another great victory for the anti-tobacco crowd. As far as we know there has never been another "study" of this kind, yet the figure is now reported at over 55,000. At the same time, these health organizations want us to believe that the numbers of smokers are way down!!

However, these groups are making head way against tobacco. Here in the State of Georgia, two or three tobacco farmers are quitting this field each year and planting other crops because they can no longer break even on tobacco. They are being ostracized by the governments, their communities and even their churches. Our cousin, a tobacco farmer was telling us that he was seriously thinking of getting into other crops. As stated above, he is no longer breaking even on tobacco and he is being categorized as a criminal by his community and church. His pastor roared from the pulpit that tobacco farmers were worse than drug lords! Of the church’s deacons, our cousin and two others are tobacco farmers and were asked to relinquish their office in the church. What is the world coming to when people think drug taking is more moral than tobacco smoking? Several years ago this was very vividly shown when a California talk show medical doctor stated on the air that he thought marijuana should be legalized and that tobacco smokers should be jailed with the keys thrown away. Ebay/PayPal will not accept the sale of tobacco and certain tobacco containers and are considering pipes as a tobacco container, so it may not be long before the sale of pipes are kicked out. Yet, eBay/PayPal allows drug paraphanilia to be sold. We have never taken drugs nor will we ever; yet the government and our civilization would rather see us as heroin addicts than for us to smoke tobacco!

What is the future of tobacco? Very dim indeed! All because of some people not liking the smell, tobacco is on the way out. We have stated before that within twenty years tobacco will be outlawed and classified as an illegal substance - We still believe this. Whether or not our government likes the taxes on tobacco, they have started the ball to rolling and cannot at this date stop the snow-balling of anti-tobacco-ism.

(*) As related to us by President Eisenhower’s granddaughter.