Article exposes NRT's lack of effectiveness, drug industry funding for promoters of NRT products

[Bill Godshall]

An excellent article in this month's issue of tobacco Reporter (a tobacco industry trade publication) entitled "Prescription for Conflict: Smoking-cessation strategies are perversely dominated by ineffective nicotine-replacement therapies"

 

[Liv2Ski]

Thanks for the post. I for one can attest to the failure of NRT's. I would also be interested to see how many people (like me) actually get hooked on something like the gum and once relapse occurs continue to use that product too. Anyway all the NRT's I tried did not help and after many attempts over 28 years to quit smoking (including cold turkey) vaping is the ONLY thing that got me past 12 months without a smoke. The Gov't, Big Pharma and all others can put that in their NRT's and chew it!!!!

 

[rothenbj]

Those last three paragraphs say it best-

Smokers and the general public are being told a story—the superiority of NRT over unassisted quitting—that is scientifically untrue, but the reason for this misrepresentation is not apparent. Smokers deserve unbiased and accurate information about something that could literally save their lives. And the rest of us need to be confident that public policies serve our interests and not just those of commercial interests such as the pharmaceutical industry.

Finally, the ill effects of the “bargain” between Big Pharma, the antismoking movement and the public health community go
beyond the question of smoking-cessation and NRT. By considering tobacco-control policies only through the lens of self-interest, Big Pharma ends up championing and funding policies that have little proven effectiveness and ignoring policies that might genuinely prevent and reduce tobacco use.

Instead of pushing the antismoking movement to critically examine its approach to tobacco control, Big Pharma’s blank checks
permit it to continue business as usual. And that is a tragedy for smokers and nonsmokers alike.

 

[ByStander1]

Thank you very much for the post, Bill.

Thank you for the extra work (insert friendly sarcasm here)... needs to be replicated and published repeatedly by, and from, different sources (i.e. not conflicted).
(hint hint... Bill, Elaine )

 

[rothenbj]

BS, there is very little chance that the article will ever see more light than can be gained within our small group. If it received any publicity it would be strongly denounced by the ANTZ as further lies emanating from the tobacco industry. I'm happy to see Bill was willing to share some of Luik's work, but it is a bit surprising in light of decades of refuting ANTZ science.

 

[Vocalek]

BS, there is very little chance that the article will ever see more light than can be gained within our small group. If it received any publicity it would be strongly denounced by the ANTZ as further lies emanating from the tobacco industry. I'm happy to see Bill was willing to share some of Luik's work, but it is a bit surprising in light of decades of refuting ANTZ science.

Oh, yeah? They have no excuse for finger-pointing.

“This greater availability of funding for certain sorts of research produces a distorted research emphasis on pharmacotherapy that … concentrates both scientific and public discourse on cessation around assisted pharmacotherapy,” write Chapman and Mackenzie. In their 2009 analysis of cessation research, they report that “of the 84 papers for which competing interest information was available, … 48 percent of pharmacotherapy intervention studies, … 10.3 percent of non-pharmacotherapy intervention studies and 0 percent of unassisted cessation studies had at least one author declaring support from a company manufacturing cessation products and/or research funding from such a company …”

Further there is also the question of whether the source of cessation research funding influences the outcomes of NRT trials and research. Etter et al. looked at all the randomized controlled trials for nicotine gum and patches that were included in the Cochrane review (“The impact of pharmaceutical company funding on results of randomized trials of nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation: a metaanalysis,” Addiction 2007). They found that compared with independent trials, industry-supported trials were more likely to produce statistically significant results and larger odds ratios.

 

[Bill Godshall]

I'll be forwarding this article to many abstinence-only tobacco prohibitionists, but their likely response would be "The tobacco industry has long funded Luik to protect their financial, public relations and lobbying interests."

 

[ByStander1]

All of these responses are in accord with my suggestion... The facts/sources and comparisons/conclusions need to be re-presented by a different author and published in a different venue...

 

[Bill Godshall]

ByStander1 wrote:

All of these responses are in accord with my suggestion... The facts/sources and comparisons/conclusions need to be re-presented by a different author and published in a different venue...

That's already occurred, and is how Luik obtained the information he re-presented in his article.

 

[ByStander1]

I'm saying not in a tobacco industry publication and with a non-tobacco-tainted author.

 

[DC2]

I'm saying not in a tobacco industry publication and with a non-tobacco-tainted author.

The entire scam is big enough to appear on the cover of Newsweek and/or be the featured story on 60 Minutes.
How is it even remotely possible that no large news organization has discovered this story yet?

 

[rothenbj]

The entire scam is big enough to appear on the cover of Newsweek and/or be the featured story on 60 Minutes.
How is it even remotely possible that no large news organization has discovered this story yet?

Simple, it's not on the agenda. BP invests a lot of advertising dollars in the media in case it went unnoticed.

 

[DC2]

Simple, it's not on the agenda. BP invests a lot of advertising dollars in the media in case it went unnoticed.

It was more of a rhetorical question, though my approach was to frame it as an honest question.

If people want to learn about real conspiracies, I always think it's best they find out for the themselves.
Before I got involved in electronic cigarettes I thought conspiracy theories were all bunk.

Now I know they swirl around me every day.
And I really hate knowing that.

Money + Power = Conspiracy

It seems a given to me now.


If you have money and power, and you're not involved in a conspiracy to keep it, you're a ......
And ...... don't usually have money and power.

 

[rothenbj]

It's not a conspiracy really, it's just business. You don't bite the hand that feeds you.