Let's do a thought experiment.
Suppose, for the purposes of it, that smoking is harmless. There is no objective evidence that it causes lung cancer, or any other kind of cancer or heart disease - no demonstrated correlation between rising levels of smoking and increasing incidence of any kind of ill health. There are some studies which show that tissue exposed to levels of nicotine many times greater than those in cigarette smoke can become damaged, but other studies show no such damage, so even this is questionable.
Now suppose that a few people get it into their heads that smoking causes all kinds of health problems, including their own. They insist that cigarette smoke is damaging everybody's immune system and thus making people more susceptible to all sorts of diseases, including a new one that is responsible for a current pandemic. They have not a shred of scientific evidence to support these claims, indeed blind testing shows them to be mistaken about a connection between smoking and their own health problems.
Some of these people write books and make documentaries full of factual errors and deliberate misrepresentations to push their beliefs, despite the total lack of scientific evidence for them. Gullible, uninformed people read them and believe them. As a direct result, they target cigarette factories and tobacconists. Shops are being burnt down, law abiding factory workers and shopworkers are being threatened and intimidated.
What do you think would be a reasonable response to this situation, PartSkeptic? Would the cigarette companies be justified in trying to get these books and documentaries withdrawn? Do the publishers of them bear any responsibility for the damage being done, and if so what steps could they reasonably take?
