In the News January 14th

Thursdays News at a glance:

No smoke without fire? – In Press Release “Correction,” VA Researcher Reiterates that Smoking May Be No More Hazardous than Vaping – Switching from smoking to e-cigarette use leads to improvement in blood pressure – expert reaction to meta-analysis looking at e-cigarette use and smoking cessation – NNA Response to article in Lancet – Scientists condemn new e-cig study – “Whatever happened to be measured” is not the same as exposure+outcome of interest – Nicotine Science and Policy – Daily Digest – Thu, 14 January 2016

No smoke without fire?

University of Aberdeen

Researchers at the University of Aberdeen have been working together to consider the pros and cons of e-cigarettes.
Dr Heather Morgan, Research Fellow, and Dr Steve Turner, Senior Clinical Lecturer, have joined forces to investigate the rise in e-cigarette use and what this means from both a social and medical perspective. They will present their findings at the first Café Med event of 2016…

Switching from smoking to e-cigarette use

Leads to improvement in blood pressure – Dr Farsalinos

A new study has just been published in the journal Internal and Emergency Medicine (available with free access to the full text here). The study evaluated participants from the ECLAT study, a randomized study which assessed the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation product. Specifically, blood pressure was measured at baseline and during follow-up (52 weeks total follow-up period), to assess any potential changes in relation to the smoking status….

ECLAT highlights the benefits of the e-cigarette:

Jérôme Harlay – PGVG

ECLAT (“sparkle” in French) is the acronym of an Italian interdisciplinary study leaded by the Professor R. Polosa from the University of Catania, that aimed at investigating the EffiCiency and safety of an eLectronic cigAreTe as surrogates of smoking tobacco. Here, the effects on blood pressure and heart rate of smoking cessation and reduction were investigated with encouraging results for participants who switched to the e-cigarette as a cessation aid….

In Press Release “Correction…”

VA Researcher Reiterates that Smoking May Be No More Hazardous than Vaping – The Rest of the Story

In response to complaints (see my post here) about its press release and media coverage of a recent study on the cytotoxicity of electronic cigarette vapor, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Research Communications department issued a “correction.”

E-cigarette and body weight:

Jérôme Harlay – PGVG

It is rare, in the scientific literature, to see researchers advocating for the use of e-cigarettes. Rare enough to put forward this study that is also published in one of the most recognized scientific journal, Nature. The authors aimed here at investigating the effects on body weight of quitting or reducing smoking by switching to electronic cigarettes….

Tweet of the Day

Expert reaction to meta-analysis

Looking at e-cigarette use and smoking cessation – Science Media Centre

A meta-analysis of the evidence around e-cigarettes and quitting smoking has been published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal, with the authors reporting that those who used e-cigarettes in their attempts to quit smoking were less successful than those who didn’t.

All our previous output on this subject can be seen here. The SMC also produced a Factsheet on electronic cigarettes….

NNA Response to article in Lancet

NNA is seriously concerned at the lack of scientific rigour and absence of peer review of the paper ‘E-cigarettes and smoking cessation in real-world and clinical settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis’ published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal. It makes assertions based on wildly unfounded assumptions drawn from data and serves only to heighten fears amongst smokers considering switching to the much safer practice of vaping….

Scientists condemn new e-cig study..

But media seems uncritical – Fergus Mason – Blasting News

A new paper claims vaping makes it HARDER to quit smoking. Experts are outraged – journalists are silent.

In December researchers from San Diego issued a press release claiming that electronic cigarettes are as dangerous as smoking. Two days ago, following a storm of criticism from vaping advocates and tobacco control experts, they backed away from that claim in a public correction. The media, who widely reported the original press release, have totally ignored the correction. Perhaps they’re ashamed to admit how easily they were fooled….

“Whatever happened to be measured”

Is not the same as exposure + outcome of interest – Carl V. Phillips

“Public health” research has countless failure modes: not understanding human motivations and other economic innumeracy; poor epidemiology methods that ignore advances since 1980; cherrypicking or just lying about evidence; childish faith in the journal review process; etc. But among the worst is drawing conclusions as if whatever happened to be measured in a study…