A TRIBUTE TO BARB TARBOX

A HERO and A SMOKER

Barb Tarbox, a smoker who was most widely known for her dramatic presentations to school children about the possible health risks associated with smoking, succumbed to brain and lung cancer on May 18, 2003.

There are two very certain facts about Barb Tarbox.
One is, that she embodied personal characteristics that have caused many people to applaud her as a true and genuine hero.
The other is, she was a smoker. Barb Tarbox remained a smoker to the last day of her life. She was never an ex-smoker or a former smoker. Barb Tarbox was a smoker. That fact cannot be emphasized enough, in light of the relentless efforts through hundred-million dollar de-normalization propaganda campaigns to portray smokers as having no value as persons or as citizens, and as lacking any positive character traits.

"She was "the Real McCoy" amidst a sea of actors in the anti-smoking movement." - Pat Tarbox, her husband of 20 years.
Truer words were never spoken. Barb Tarbox, a smoker and an ordinary citizen, may well end up doing more for the cause of reducing deaths attributable to smoking in our society, than all the professional "tobacco experts" - the professional anti-smoking and tobacco reduction activists - and all the fans of coercive and punitive health policies in governments, medical associations and health charities, combined. Should that turn out to be the case, it will surely be a result of her being far more genuine, honest, straightforward, self-deprecating and selfless than the fake, fraudulent, deceptive, disingenous, self-aggrandizing, self-interested and greedy professional anti-smoking and tobacco reduction activists.

Dr. Ron Hodkinson, honorary chairman of Action on Smoking and Health, praised Tarbox for her "altruistic" actions.
What a shame, that Dr. Hodkinson cannot say the same about himself and his cohort Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health.
How much do you imagine Les Hagen gets paid to be "executive director" of ASH, not to mention what he might earn from lucrative, related, contracts? Is it possible that Les Hagen might have a yearly income in the same range as some of the smokers that he is constantly exhorting governments to increase taxes on - less than $18,000/year? NOT! How about, less than $36,000/year? Not very likely.
Would professional anti-smoking and tobacco reduction activists like Les Hagen be so devoted to "the cause", if they were not being paid very handsomely for what they do? Would they be willing to do the work which they do, for their organisations, as an unpaid volunteer?
Barb Tarbox, a smoker, began her presentations to schoolchildren without any offers of payment from anyone...

"I had a truck driver phone me about 10 days after the second interview that I had with Barb and he was in tears... he believed that Barb had actually saved his life." - Edmonton radio host Bob Stafford
Now here is genuine irony, for you. In contrast to the de-normalization propaganda which accuses smokers of being complicit in the deaths of thousands of non-smokers, Barb Tarbox - a smoker - is here being credited with saving a man's life!
The irony goes much deeper than this. In Timmins, Ontario, Canada, there is a doctor named Dr. Claudio de la Rocha. He is the acting Medical Officer of Health for the Timmins region, and the only surgeon in that area qualified to do life-saving surgeries on cancer patients. Dr. Claudio de la Rocha recently announced that he would no longer perform such surgery on active smokers. Presumably, that means if Barb Tarbox had lived in Timmins and needed surgery in order to continue making her presentations, he would refuse to save her because she was still an active smoker.
And now, the crown jewel in this irony. Despite all the propaganda about the alleged dangers of second-hand smoke, no one seems interested in accusing Barb Tarbox of having "poisoned" her friends and family members with her smoke. No, you can be certain that Barb Tarbox was never responsible for ending someone else's life - not through her smoking nor through any other means.
On the other hand, the fanatical anti-smoking Medical Officer of Health for Timmins - Dr. Claudio de la Rocha - was convicted in April 1993, in criminal court, of administering a noxious substance to a patient which subsequently caused her death.

Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan praised her for getting through to a hard-to-reach audience. "They listen because (she) is being absolutely straight and unvarnished and true," McLellan said.
Compare those attributes of Barb Tarbox, a smoker, with the deceptive and disingenous public statements of Michael Perley; Director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco, and one of the persons most responsible for the content of an Ontario Medical Association propaganda paper titled; "Duty To Protect" - which showcases this grossly misleading allegation; "second-hand smoke exposure causes between 1,100 and 7,800 deaths per year."
In "Duty To Protect", this statement is referenced and attributed to a paper by the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, in which the statement appears with five very important words preceding it - words which have been omitted from "Duty To Protect", without any notification of the OMA re-write;
"It has been estimated that..."
These preceding words are essential, because they qualify the figures "between 1,100 and 7,800" as something less than a proven fact. Omitting them makes the statement much more dramatic, but also creates a (mistaken) impression that these figures have been compiled from or verified by records of the examination of bodies after death to assertain the precise cause of that death.
Michael Perley and the Ontario Medical Association are very much aware that no study containing claims about the number of deaths attributable to exposure to second-hand smoke - conducted anywhere in the world - has ever been based on such post-mortem records. The reality is, neither Michael Perley nor the OMA have any idea how many deaths occur each year in our country, that would be proven through post-mortem examination to have been caused, without any reasonable doubt, by exposure to second-hand smoke. Their attempts to portray that they do possess such certainty on the subject betrays their willingness to manipulate and distort "the truth" in service to their ideology and agenda.

"When we first met Barb, we were struck by both her courage and commitment. Courage to share a very personal story in a very public way. Commitment to delivering her powerful message about the impacts of smoking while coping with those same impacts as her own health failed." - Tracy Bertsch, Alberta Lung Association
Barb Tarbox, a smoker, is here being praised for her courage and her unceasing commitment in the face of exceptionally difficult personal circumstances. Contrast that, with the childish temper-tantrum and subsequent resignation of four prominent professional anti-smoking activists from the Health Minister's Council On Tobacco. Mary Jane Ashley, a professor of public health sciences at the University of Toronto, Neil Collishaw of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, Heidi Rathjen of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, and Les Hagen of Action on Smoking and Health all quit the Minister's Council in a tantrum over not being permitted to dictate public health policy to elected representatives. Naturally, they all lack the courage to actually submit their policies to public scrutiny by running for public office themselves...