Ecig enthusiasts acting more and more like tobacco and global warming deniers

Reposted with permission from Stanton Glantz blog. See the original article here.

Reflecting on the problems with the paper E-Cigarettes in Historical Context—Innovation, Risk, and Regulation by Michael Pesko, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Rachel Fung and Neal Benowitz reminded me that, as the evidence continues to pile up that e-cigarettes increase harm for both adults and youth, e-cigarette enthusiasts are moving beyond legitimate scientific differences of opinion and acting more like the tobacco industry or global warming deniers, including systematically ignoring or disqualifying inconvenient evidence.

Here are some similarities:

• Nitpicking every study that does not support their position while ignoring the overall patterns of evidence
• Ignoring the latest science when it does not fit their preconceived needs
• Continuing to quote outdated studies that have long since been superseded
• Obsessing about causality in epidemiological studies while ignoring or minimizing consistent biological and clinical evidence
• Disqualifying cross-sectional studies because of the theoretical possibility of reverse causality despite positive associations between e-cigs and disease in never smokers, longitudinal studies with similar results, and other evidence that reverse causality is not likely
• Complaining that epidemiological studies do not adequately control for confounding variables without specifying what those variables are or showing that they they could account for observed outcomes
• Selectively quoting or quoting results out of context in a way that does not accurately represent the original source
• Attributing the gateway effect of youth e-cigarette use to subsequent cigarette smoking to “common factors” despite evidence to the contrary just as cigarette companies’ argued that the association between smoking and lung cancer was due to “common genetics” that led people to smoke and, independently, develop lung cancer
• Disqualifying animal studies as “not human” or because doses were high
• Criticizing scientific papers using letters to the editor or other rapid communications, then citing them as if they were full peer reviewed papers and citing those criticisms even without citing the original scientific paper
• Demanding randomized controlled trials when only observational studies are possible
• Setting practically impossible standards to conclude anything

Other recent examples of similar behavior to the Pesko et al paper by e-cig advocates include Electronic Cigarettes for Smoking Cessation — Have We Reached a Tipping Point? (2024; Nancy Rigotti) and Nicotine e-cigarettes as a tool for smoking cessation (2023; Ken Warner, Neal Benowitz, Ann McNeill, Nancy Rigotti).

These papers were selected because they are all relatively recent, published well after the strong case that e-cigarettes do not represent harm reduction had been published.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that these people are working for the tobacco industry. But, they are following the tobacco industry’s old playbook by defending and promoting e-cigarettes long after the case against them has solidified.

The Tobacco Institute was the cigarette companies’ lobbying and public relations arm from 1958 until it was dissolved in 1998 as a result of litigation against the companies by the state Attorneys General.

I believe the cartoon was created by famed Washington Post editorial cartoonist Herblock, probably in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Learn more about Herblock at the Herb Block Foundation or the Library of Congress Herblock Collection.