Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
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Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary is providing the whole story behind tobacco news and industry. For incisive commentary on issues regarding tobacco and public health, there’s nothing else like it.
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
3M ago
Just over one month ago, I reported that the National Academies had appointed to their newly formed expert committee to review the health effects of alcohol two scientists who were principal investigators of a research grant funded by the alcohol industry to the tune of $67 million (Dr. Eric Rimm and Dr. Kenneth Mukamal). After New York Times reporter Roni Rabin exposed these conflicts of interest in an article, the National Academies announced that it had pulled both Dr. Rimm and Dr. Mukamal from the panel and would replace them.
The National Academies recently announced the replacement panel ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
5M ago
I have always thought of the National Academies (full name is the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM]) as being a highly reputable, impartial entity that objectively reviews scientific issues by appointing panelists who do not have conflicts of interest with industry that could create the appearance of bias. The National Academies has a detailed policy that disallows panel members who have a conflict of interest by virtue of funding by industries whose interests could be affected by the results of the panel review.
Well, that view of the National Academies has jus ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
8M ago
In submitted to the FDA in response to the Center for Tobacco Products' (CTP) draft strategic plan, the American Lung Association expressed its opposition to one of the strategic goals, which was to "inform adults who smoke about the relative risks of tobacco products." This goal primarily expressed the desire of the CTP to inform smokers that electronic cigarettes are much safer than real cigarettes and therefore may be considered as a safer alternative for smokers who are unable to quit using other cessation methods.
The American Lung Association does not approve of this goal, writing: "Remo ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
9M ago
In an article published today by ABC News, a physician from the University of Maryland is quoted as telling the public that he isn't sure that smoking is any more hazardous than vaping.
According to the article: "'We just cannot make a conclusion that it [vaping] is safer than cigarettes,' said Dr. Jason Rose, a Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician who is also the Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Innovation & Physician Science at The University of Maryland."
Of course, stating that you're not sure if vaping is safer than cigarettes is equivalent to saying ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
9M ago
A very well-researched and well-documented article on the CDC's misinformation campaign about electronic cigarettes by my friend and colleague over at Handwaving Freakoutery: "Real Talk About Nicotine: How CDC Propaganda Leads to Bad Medicine and Kills People ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
9M ago
The journal BMC Public Health has announced that it will be retracting a paper it published last October which concluded that the use of electronic cigarettes has helped accelerate the decline in cigarette smoking.
The study, entitled "Population-level counterfactual trend modelling to examine the relationship between smoking prevalence and e-cigarette use among US adults," analyzed U.S. population-based data on trends in e-cigarette consumption and smoking prevalence from approximately 8 years prior to when e-cigarettes became popular in the U.S. through 2019. The authors used adult cig ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
9M ago
In an American Heart Association (AHA) "scientific statement" published this week in the journal Circulation, the AHA continues to confuse the public about the so-called EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury) outbreak that occurred in 2019, suggesting that it may be due to "flavoring agents," "viruses," or "bacteria" and that no specific agent has been identified as the cause.
Despite the fact that vitamin E acetate was found in a miraculous 94% of bronchoalveolar lavage fluids of EVALI patients, that no putative contaminant has ever been found in a non-tainted nicotine-con ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
2y ago
A new study published just days ago in the journal Circulation reported that adults who exclusively use electronic cigarettes experience a 34% reduction in their risk of heart disease.
(See: Berlowitz JB, et al. E-cigarette use and risk of cardiovascular disease: A longitudinal analysis of the PATH study (2013-2019). Circulation 2022; DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.057369.)
The study used a longitudinal design, following approximately 32,000 adults over a six-year period from 2013 to 2019. E-cigarette use and tobacco cigarette use were assessed periodically, as was self-reported heart d ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
4y ago
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is concealing and suppressing information on the number one cause of severe, vaping-related health harm to youths in order to deceive the public into thinking that e-cigarettes are at the top of the list. In fact, the number one cause of severe, vaping-related health damage to youths is not electronic cigarettes, although you would not know that from reading the CDC's literature on youth vaping. The Rest of the Story The chief cause of substantial health harms to youth from vaping is actually not e-cigarettes. It is marijuana or THC vapin ..read more
Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary
4y ago
Imagine if a tobacco company came out today and publicly claimed that smoking might very well be safer than using an e-cigarette. It would be a completely irresponsible statement and the company would rightly be vigorously criticized and attacked for asserting that its deadly products, which kill more than 400,000 people each year, are potentially safer than e-cigarettes, which do not contain tobacco, involve no combustion, and have been documented to have much lower levels of thousands of different chemicals compared to cigarettes. In a strange an shocking irony, that exact claim was made to ..read more