A public health advocate and analyst, who has been engaged with tobacco and science and policy since 1977, has written to a Manchester Metropolitan University academic over ‘irresponsible publicity’ about an unpublished study.
Clive Bates, a former director of Action on Smoking and Health (UK) who now runs his own consultancy, said he was disturbed at how the study was being promoted.
The research, which is currently ongoing, has generated national paper headlines including: ‘Vaping horror as first ever study reveals deadly side effects – heart disease, organ failure, dementia’.
Bates, posting on his blog The Counterfactual, published the letter he has written to Dr Maxime Boidin, a senior lecturer who is conducting research into the effects of nicotine on blood vessels and blood flow.
The vape advocate wrote: “You have not published the study, and from the reporting, it seems you have not even completed it. There is no published paper, pre-print, protocol, trial registration, or even conference abstract. There is no information on the participants, how they were selected and their smoking history. Nor have you disclosed competing interests or funding information. Yet, you are making alarming statements to the media about the findings of a study no one else has seen. It is unethical and unacceptable to conduct science in this way.
“You are making statements to the media that are claiming an equivalence in risk between smoking and vaping or even suggesting that vaping may be worse. “What we have found is the dangers for someone who keeps vaping are no different from smokers.” There is no basis for you to make this claim and a large body of evidence that shows that this claim is false. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, but you have not provided any evidence, let alone enough evidence, to support this claim.”
Bates added: “You have not explained why meticulous, credible assessments that find that vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking are somehow mistaken. To make heroic projections of vaping mortality risks relative to smoking, you should assess the full spectrum of harms caused by smoking and not just use a small sample of vapers and a few measurements, which are, at best, poor markers for longer-term cardiovascular outcomes only.”
Clive Bates’ full blog post can be found here: Irresponsible publicity related to an unpublished vaping study