Padraig McGuinness

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Paddy McGuinness was a flamboyant newspaper columnist in the curmudgeon mould who worked for Rupert Murdoch Australian" newspaper. McGuinness wrote in the affected style made popular in the UK by Bernard Levin and Auberon Waugh, who were also secretly paid lobbyists for the tobacco industry. Levin and Waugh projected an image of avuncular academic men of the world and they were afforded celebrity status and appeared regularly as commentators on culture with the BBC radio and TV. Levin and Waugh also worked for Murdoch newspapers in the UK, and McGuinness copied both their style of writing and acting, and also succeeded in becoming a regular commentator on ABC radio and TV in Australia.

The tobacco industry paid these curmudgeon philosophers to tour the world and preach against the Nanny State and political correctness without mentioning the source of their new-found wealth. They used as an example of these tendencies, the prohibition of smoking in public places -- even in private clubs and pubs. Also brought into play was the Slippery Slope argument -- that following the banning of smoking, the "blue-nose Nazis of the health and environmental movements" would then seek to ban all other pleasures in life -- like good wine and a good brandy with your cigar in the Conservatives Club.

Philip Morris created a pseudo scientific organisation for these global tours, and enlisted many academics into their association by giving them free travel and accommodation to attend ARISE conferences. ARISE was run (nominally) by Professor David M Warburton of Reading University -- but actually an extension of the Libertad organisation controlled by Andrew Whist. The acronym ARISE stood for Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment.

in Australia, ARISE conferences were supported by the institute of Public Affairs and its members, J Raymond Johnstone (Uni of Western Australia), Alan Moran (Institute of Public Affairs director) and John Luik (an imported Canadian tobacco lobbyist). [2] These were all Paddy McGuinness's associates at the IPA and on overseas trips and other functions funded by the Australian tobacco industry.

Documents & Timeline

1990 Oct 25 A conference known as Smokepeace 90 was an international talk-fest organized in Helsinki (25-27 Oct 1990) supposedly by the "Considerate Smokers Association" (Finnish). The tobacco industry did the major part of the practical arrangements and paid for the conference.

The main thrust of the conference was to challenge the medical evidence against ETS, using a team of cooperative doctors (However only one had an actual medical degree).

This conference followed a similar one held in Vienna a couple of days earlier.

See an critical report (by someone who wasn't there but from Philip Morris's legal department) [3]

1993 Oct The international INFOTAB newsletter "InfoTopics" has a front-page story [But see Page 20 version]

Magistrate dismisses ETS case in Perth

A MAGISTRATE in Perth, Western Australia, has dismissed the claims of the Department of Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare (DOHSW) against Burswood Resort Casino. The DOHSW alleged that the casino operators were breaching their statutory duty to provide a safe environment for their employees because they were exposing them to ETS at work. In dismissing the claims, the court stated:

    "While ETS (passive smoke) is annoying and of discomfort to non-smokers, it has not been proved at the required standard, or at all, in this prosecution, that it is a risk to the health of the employees at the Casino."

The court found that the health of the employees was not at risk when they were exposed to ETS levels at the casino, even during the "busiest times of the week".

Two leading respiratory physicians testified in the case, Dr. [[Julian Lee and Dr. Bryan Gandevia. Both Dr. Lee and Dr. Gandevia testified that no diseases in adults are proven to be caused by exposure to ETS. Dr. Gandevia described the evidence against ETS as "unconvincing".

Dr. Gandevia testified that, with regard to the incidence of respiratory disease in adults, it "wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference" if "passive smoking in all places including residences and public buildings and other buildings was banned tomorrow".

Padraig McGuinness, a well-known Australian newspaper columnist, commented on the above decision.

McGuinness discusses various aspects of the hearings, including the expert witnesses called by both sides. [Snip} According to McGuinness, this judgement is important since it serves to underline the objectionable and premature intolerance of many employers.

He also says that it can serve to remind us that "much of the propaganda of the anti-smoking lobby, especially as it applies to passive smoking, is tendentious and unproven.[4]

Re this last observations: It had been made by an Australian journalist commenting about a ETS case in Western Australia. This only made sense for this INFOTAB to report because they knew that Paddy McGuinness, who was a Murdoch News Ltd columnist in the "Australian", was also in the pay of the tobacco industry. The director of INFOTAB, Bryan Simpson (also an Australian who worked for Murdoch), had probably recruited him.

References

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