Thinking 'bout THR News and Views
Mar 17-22, 2025
I just got poked by my own finger!
I like it when papers or commentaries are published and discussed. I admire respectful dialogue, which allows people to consider multiple perspectives and decide what to believe.
I read Scientific Inaccuracies in Smoking Cessation Guidance with interest. It sounded fair and reasonable. Wanting to learn more about what was being discussed and see if I agreed with the critique, I read the commentary the critique was referring to: A Practical Guide to Smoking Cessation. I can’t find a link to the critique in A Practical Guide to Smoking Cessation, but it did contain a link to the response to the critique titled “The Reply,” which I also read.
My first observation in reading the reply was that the authors agreed with a point in the critique about terminology. COOL! I thought. I like it when people can say they made a mistake. It showed me the potential for reading something by open-minded people.
Then, the reply refers to a paper referenced in the critique from 2018 as “outdated,” while the reply cites a paper from 2017. That made me scratch my head a bit.
Next, they present their views differing from the critique on how much nicotine a consumer takes in from vaping vs. smoking. I would have to do more reading before deciding which I believe.
I like it when all the parties are transparent about anything people might want to consider a potential conflict of interest. I thought the authors of the three things I read did a good job of being transparent.
The reply to the critique ended with, “Further, author of this letter Foxon is an employee of Pinney Associates, a company with ties to e-cigarette and tobacco companies that have clear financial interests in textual content.”
“Character assassination by innuendo has no place in scientific discourse.” ~Dr. Brad Rodu.
That settled it for me. I now find the critique more credible than the original commentary and the reply to the critique. Why? Everyone’s affiliations were already stated. When people have been transparent, and someone throws mud at them about affiliations, it tells me that the mud-slingers are not confident of their points and, therefore, feel the need to influence me not to believe the credibility of others.
I want to ask all of you to give this issue a moment’s thought. If you don’t want someone pointing the innuendo finger at you, do you return the favor and avoid pointing the same kind of finger at them? Or is the part we don’t say aloud, “all’s fair in love, war, and scientific discourse-as long as no one is doing it to us?”
While I’m sitting here pondering this, I realize I have to be the first one to raise my hand and shout, “GUILTY!” It makes me angry when someone tries to discredit my voice because I vape, or because I owned a vape shop, or because I have spoken at an “industry” event and have friends in the “industry.”
Suddenly, I realize it would be impossible for me to count the times I have discredited the voice of someone I disagree with because I can tie them to Bloomberg or other funding that is known not to support tobacco harm reduction.
Memories of myself and others pointing fingers flood my mind, and I’m stunned to think about how often we do this. UGH! I hate “do as I say, not as I do,” yet it happens to many of us. Isn’t it strange how it feels so unjust when it happens to us and so right when we do it to someone else?
As a kid, I often heard the saying, “When you point a finger at me, three fingers are pointing back at you.” Today, I realized I’ve been poked with my own finger, and I deserve to have that finger pointed at me.
I hope we reach the day when we do less pointing and listen more to each other. Let’s sit down, break bread together, and see how many lives we can save. Fingers will be put to much better use in the breaking of bread than being pointed at the people across the table.
Until next time…
P.S. I like to learn a new word every day. Today’s word is abulia (noun), which some people are diagnosed with. It affects their ability to make decisions. After reading about it, I am grateful that it is not on my list of “labels.”
E-cigarettes linked to lower cardiac risks compared to tobacco cigarettes in people with HIV. “Electronic cigarette use may pose lower cardiovascular risks in people living with HIV compared to tobacco cigarette use, new UCLA-led research shows.”
New CoEHAR Umbrella review: no significant impact on lung function with E-cigarette use. “The study highlights the importance of distinguishing between different vaping behaviors in future research, as well as addressing methodological weaknesses and biases observed in many previous studies on the topic. But it allows us to state once again that vaping cannot be associated to significant changes in respiratory function.”
Scientific Inaccuracies in Smoking Cessation Guidance. “These errors are not merely semantic and may worsen misperceptions about tobacco use. Scientific accuracy is of utmost importance in works intended as medical guidance.”
DESTINED TO FAIL | How Study Design Distorts Vaping Science. “Research on e-cigarette health effects often includes former smokers—skewing results and misleading the public. Dr. Arielle Selya explores why flawed study designs, academic incentives, and NIH funding pressures shape the science on vaping and tobacco harm reduction.” (Video)
Sacramento County, CA, USA (on X) - “E-cigarette aerosol isn’t just “water vapor”—it contains toxic chemicals like formaldehyde and acrolein (yes, a weed killer!). Vaping can lead to lung disease, “popcorn lung” [emphasis added], and even a collapsed lung. Plus, secondhand vape emissions harm others too. Protect your lungs. Protect those around you. #VapeFree #LungHealth”
Update - Tweet(s) now displaying a community note:
GF Public Health, ND, USA (on X) - “Do you know about vaping and popcorn lung? Diacetyl is frequently added to flavored e-liquid to enhance the taste. Inhaling diacetyl can cause popcorn lung [emphasis added], which makes breathing difficult. Get help quitting vaping or other tobacco products, visit NDQuits.org.”
Observational studies of exposure to tobacco and nicotine products: Best practices for maximizing statistical precision and accuracy. “The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the precision and accuracy of recent studies and to identify opportunities for further optimizing future study designs.”
Modeling the Impact of Vaping: What We Need to Know and Which Methods to Use. “Now is the time to make use of these varied methodologies to improve our knowledge of the impact of vaping on population health.”
Retraction Watch - “Journal EIC explains “why AJPH has consistently declined requests motivated by political and ideological pressure.” https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2025.308100… [One there, click the PDF link]. A case in which the journal's editors declined to publish a paper they had invited. https://retractionwatch.com/2022/07/28/an-editor-invited-me-to-submit-a-commentary-then-he-rejected-it-and-named-and-blamed-me-in-an-editorial/…”
Karl Dunn - “If you don't get an invite to the table, build your own table.
Start your own thing.
In a garage, on a front porch, at a community space. Create the room where voices like yours belong.
Then invite the people from that other table to pull up a chair.”
Mike Cummings - “The nicotine pouch products are far safer than smoking and nothing like oral tobaccos sold in India. Nicotine addiction won’t kill you the smoke will. Look at Sweden where snus now is used far more than cigarettes- much lower rates of lung cancer, other cancers, COPD, and heart disease compared to counties where cigarettes remain the most common form of tobacco used. We should all applaud if cigarette companies get out of the cigarette business. Opposing noncombustible forms of nicotine are likely to keep cigarettes around longer.” (Comment to a post)
Representative James Spillane - “NH House votes to indefinitely postpone the proposed tax on vapes and cigarettes by a voice vote. No increased taxes.”
Kiran Melkote - “Every regulatory hurdle placed in the path of nicotine pouches, every sensationalist headline about the supposed dangers of vaping, every tax levied on safer nicotine products while traditional tobacco remains relatively unscathed – 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘉𝘪𝘨 𝘛𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰.
It's akin to refusing a fire extinguisher because you're worried about foam on the carpet, while your house is engulfed in flames.”Jeffrey Weiss - “I believe the “gateway” issue does serve an important role, but perhaps not the one that its champions intended. Anyone who argues today that e-cigarettes are a gateway to cigarettes, in the face of years of extraordinary population level data on youth smoking, is betraying the fact that they are engaging in advocacy rather than science.”
Arielle Selya - “Another mini [thread] on the importance of flavored non-combustible nicotine products. There are now [3] papers – using very different data – all showing that people who use a noncombustible prod. flavor *different* from their usual cig flavor are more likely to switch:"
Conducting Tobacco Harm Reduction Research Despite Constant Headwinds - “Academia in the U.S. is a pressure cooker for faculty who are required to attract funding from external sources. Excluding small grants from pharma and medical device companies, the only game in town is NIH. When NIH makes a researcher non gratis, it poses an existential threat.”
The people who want to un-ban flavored tobacco in Denver just submitted enough signatures to put it back on the ballot. “Vaping interests already waged an expensive campaign last year when this issue was wisely approved by a vote of 11-1 by Denver City Council,” he wrote in a statement. “I will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with health care providers, educators, families, and concerned community members to maintain these hard-fought protections for our families.”
Growing anti-vaping hysteria risks undermining EU’s tobacco-free goals. “Aptly displaying the ideological basis of these regulatory proposals, Estonian Health Minister Riina Sikkut recently quipped that “we don’t just need a smoke-free generation, we need a nicotine-free generation.” This disturbingly prevalent failure to distinguish between tobacco and tobacco-free nicotine products is at the heart of the problem, representing a serious public health menace for Europe.”
Thailand Cracks Down Harder on Vape Possession. Is There Hope? “The hope,” Saligupata said, “is that the government will thoroughly consider the proposed approaches and listen to the voices of all involved stakeholders, rather than just the opponents” of legalization.”
Pakistan says THR is “imperative” to solving its smoking crisis. “Pakistan’s Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Ali Pervaiz Malik said tobacco harm reduction (THR) policies are vital for protecting future generations from the risks of smoking and for reducing the country’s spiralling healthcare costs.”
Hysteria in the Netherlands. “Reporting from The Hague, the World Vapers' Alliance has called out the Dutch officials’ misguided statement comparing vaping to crack and heroin use.”
Harry’s blog 127: The truth is still out there. “In today’s era of post-factual politics and divisive and polarising social media, it’s starting to feel like the Truth has become less of an objective fact and more like An Opinion.
But ‘The Truth’ really is out there about tobacco harm reduction. By this, I mean that there is one irrefutable scientific fact at the heart of the approach: any combustible nicotine product is far more dangerous than any non-combustible nicotine product.”
Not everyone's on board with Whitmer's 32% vaping tax plan. “Yohan House was a pack-a-day cigarette smoker until six years ago, when he switched to e-cigarettes, known as vaping.
The 56-year-old Detroit resident has since given up cigarettes completely, and said he can feel major improvements in his health.”
Do Pre-Existing Brain Structures Influence Early Nicotine Use? “Pre-existing differences in brain structure are associated with earlier substance use in young people, according to a recent study. The research informs our limited understanding of the complexity of factors behind drug use.”
More news: Vapers Digest March 17, March 19, March 21.
Final thoughts…
I’m grateful for the opportunity to use my voice in a new way. I was invited to co-author a commentary about the need to include the voices of people living with neurodiversity in the obesity space. I am excited to inform you that “A call for greater involvement of people with obesity and neurodiversity” has been accepted for publication in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal. Such an honor! Thank you to all who have encouraged me to use my voice.
Notes:
I create these newsletters as a personal project. They are not affiliated with any current or past employers or groups I do volunteer work with. I receive no financial compensation for my efforts to create these newsletters.
My blog, Skip's Corner, has an X/Twitter account. My personal accounts are on BlueSky, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter).