Let’s talk about how @American_Heart is again spreading anti-vaping propaganda under the guise of promoting public health. Before examining their latest claim, a brief history lesson is in order. THREAD 🪡
Last November, the AHA's annual conference included an abstract which claimed that “E-cigarette users face 15% higher risk of stroke at a younger age than traditional smokers.”
Nobody could evaluate the study since it had yet to be presented publicly. Still, the media eagerly regurgitated AHA's press release:
The problem? The study's most striking finding was that "Stroke was far more common among traditional cigarette smokers than e-cigarette users or people who used both, 6.75% compared to 1.09% and 3.72%, respectively." acsh.org/news/2021/11/1…
After critics pointed out that the abstract documented lower stroke risk in vapers, AHA pulled the presentation from its conference without explanation.
AHA's latest claim, also based on unpublished abstracts, was that people who vaped or smoked experienced acute increases in heart rate and blood pressure, and performed significantly worse during exercise compared to those who didn't use nicotine.
The media predictably parroted the abstract:
Independent experts were skeptical of this result. The acute change in heart rate was just a benign, short-term effect of nicotine. Moreover, comparing smokers to vapers is misleading because most vapers are former smokers. https://t.co/uqugnRhPLiinews.co.uk/news/health/va…
The study authors' defense?
Three questions: If nicotine wasn't the relevant "toxic" agent, what was, and in what dose did it cause the observed effects? If Dr. Hajek was wrong to "pass judgment" on an abstract, why did the researchers give hyperbolic quotes to the media based on the abstract?
Bottom line: this is more anti-vaping spin from AHA. Unpublished results should not reach the public via exaggerated headlines before independent experts have a chance to review the research.
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Doctors routinely mislead smokers about the benefits of vaping. How do we know? A member of our team was just subjected to a misinfo-laden lecture during a doctor's appointment. Let's dissect some of the myths health care providers are passing off as medical advice. THREAD 🧵
The "information" sheet we were given after the appointment (pictured above) was produced by academic publishing giant @ElsevierConnect, and it's an absolute train wreck. It's also more than two years out of date.
The first and worst bit of nonsense in the document is that nicotine is "thought to" increase your cancer risk. Exactly who thinks this and why isn't explained.
🔎⚖️ Solid forecast just posted on the legal undercurrents at issue before the Supreme Court in the upcoming Triton v. FDA case. tobaccoreporter.com/2024/09/09/vap…
Features incisive analysis from our @GregTHR.
Also quotes US Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar. NB: If she ends up arguing the case at SCOTUS herself, we'll take it as a sign the government has confidence in FDA's actions and is sending in their ace pitcher. OTOH, her absence *could* indicate FDA is on shaky stilts.
🔎 Let's talk for a minute about why the Supreme Court amicus brief from Sen. Dick Durbin might actually be a good thing. It's because Durbin's fanaticism and hyperbole are on such lurid display that it'll give the Court a clear sense of just who's pushing vape prohibition.
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The first thing SCOTUS law clerks will notice is the Durbin brief is strictly partisan -- all the signatories are part of Durbin's particular wing of the Democratic party. On political issues, that's fine -- but in this context it signals there's no unanimity, as Durbin pretends.
The Court will also see that Durbin is not deploying measured persuasion but instead the most hyperbolic rhetoric he can dream up.
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We need to talk about the debacle of 22nd Century's bet on low-nicotine cigarettes -- not only as an asinine business model but what the implosion says about @FDATobacco and the news media that covers nicotine policy. 1/ 🪡
Here is the company's stock chart for the last year and it's a complete wipeout. It's hard to overstate just how bad this is -- but if you invested in this company, you have basically lost your shirt.
But there was once a time, not long ago, when this stock was flying high -- selling for more than $1,200 per share with a market cap of nearly a billion dollars! What explains that? Why were investors flocking to this company?
By granting cert in the Triton case, the Supreme Court is now poised to rebuke @FDATobacco's unlawful and destructive vape regulatory scheme. But readers of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, the nation's two biggest papers, would have no idea. They didn't cover it.
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It's not like these papers don't obsess over SCOTUS / FDA. They've each got scores of stories in just the last few days, including this one on Loper fretting how the agency's "critics" (read: the American people) may confront the agency. (Shut up and eat your spinach, peasants!)
@By_CJewett even indulged Mitch Zeller whining that he can no longer rig the system for his friends. (Unmentioned: Zeller was the architect of the ban on flavored vapes that now has the agency facing an epic defenestration. Cheer up, Mitch, you're about to make history!)
It’s literally incredible. The world’s leading public health authority, @WHO, is now getting regularly lit up by @CommunityNotes for brazen and calculated deceits about nicotine vaping. Let’s take a close look.
THREAD 🪡
There is a widely-held scientific consensus that vaping is vastly less harmful than smoking. Yet with zero supporting evidence, WHO flatly insists the opposite, with the clear intent to dissuade the public.
Not only is WHO's claim wrong—they themselves have said it's wrong. Among the more than 100 scholarly sources cited in this community, two are from the World Health Organization itself!