There has been an orgy of claims in the media that the smoking ban, in the year after its introduction, led to 1,200 fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks. But, as Pete Robinson points out here in his typically robust way, these claims are thoroughly dishonest:
This result is pure bunkum and a disgrace to true medical research. Anyone who inspects genuine NHS hospital admissions data will clearly see they have continued to fall at the same rate as the years before the smoking ban.But since when was the inconvenient truth allowed to get in the way of the antismoking crusade?