[20,000 - 30,000 unique visits so far]

 (range due to mirror sites (PubMed Central, etc.)

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1-CONFUSION OVER SMOKE CHEMISTRY. The report insists that moassel (the tobacco-molasses based mixture) is burnt when it is only heated. This difference is crucial and has tremendous consequences (tar, carcinogenicity, etc.).

2-SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT. Results from flawed smoking machines were quoted as supporting references. This is in contradiction with the very recommendations of WHO experts themselves -and prominent scholars- who have warned against the use of smoking machines in assessing toxic emissions. What it true for cigarettes (5 minutes) is true for hookahs (45 minutes).

3-REPETATED PUBLICATION BIAS. pioneer work (more than a dozen scientists) of the past decades and contemporaneous studies were dismissed on purpose in a document supposed to rely on a "comprehensive review" of the "world literature". For instance, Hoffmann and colleagues' study (1963) was not cited, on purpose, because this prestigous scientist found that the "water filter" was very efficient.... Rakower and Fatal' study (1962) on lung cancer was not cited, on purpose one again, because these researchers found that the risk was low among exclusive smokers of  narghile. Etc, etc.     

4-CHILDREN USE. In contradiction with all available epidemiological data (including those published by the authors of the report themselves) and anthropological observations, children in the Arab world (called "Southern Asia and North Africa"...) are said to smoke narghile (hookah, shisha) with their parents. What if such a statement (by WHO, keep in mind) had been issued about European parents teaching their children how to smoke the cigar or the pipe.... ?

5-ORIGINS. The narghile and its practice are declared Indian in the first 2 sentences of the report (one of both is a blatant misquotation...) while the most solid evidence presently points to Eastern and Southern Africa. This is not new. The authors of the WHO report have repeated, for half a decade, the same error in a long series of papers published in so-called "prestigious" "peer-reviewed" journals".

6- The INVENTION of Hookah "Passive smoking" 

7-FREQUENT MISQUOTATIONS. Studies are cited for imaginary statements as if the authors of the report and the WHO "peer-reviewers" had not read these documents...

-ETC (“Nicotine Addiction”, Harm Reduction, Gender Use by women), etc.)

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IMPORTANT NOTES: This report was prepared by Alan SHIHADEH (1), Thomas EISSENBERG (2), Kenneth WARD (2) and Wasim MAZIAK (2)

(1) US-American University of Beirut

(2) US-Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies

Note: Wasim MAZIAK' co-authorship was camouflaged and declared only 2 years after the publication: check HERE)

The report was peer-reviewed ["several layers" (sic)] by WHO TobReg. Read exchanges between Director of WHO Tobacco Free Initiative and Kamal:

WHO and Peer-Review Standards in Studies on Hookah Smoking . The Lancet Early Online Publication 2007 (29 Oct). In reply to Dr Douglas BETTCHER, Dir. WHO/TFI a.i.’s comment: Bettcher D. WHO Response to Use of evidence in WHO recommendations. The Lancet Early Online Publication 2007 (10 Sept) 

 Apart from the above, please have a look at the geographical, ideological and scientific representativity of this group:

NOT THE LEAST: The WHO report was later laundered and recycled:

29 Oct 2007. The Cochrane 2007 Review Masquerade on ““Waterpipe”” Smoking Cessation  (by Wasim MAZIAK, Kenneth WARD and Thomas EISSENBERG),  its By-Products and the Suspect Unbalanced Focus on   ““Waterpipe”” Smoking vs. Cigarette Smoking.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgbz283m_110kvmzdt