New claims about burden of disease from smokeless tobacco are utter junk (the short version)

[BuGlen]

Another great article by Dr. Carl Phillips (he's on a roll lately):

New claims about burden of disease from smokeless tobacco are utter junk (the short version) | Anti-THR Lies and related topics

There have been a spate of claims recently, stemming from this junk science paper (“Global burden of disease due to smokeless tobacco consumption in adults: analysis of data from 113 countries” by Kamran Siddiqi, Sarwat Shah, Syed Muslim Abbas, Aishwarya Vidyasagaran, Mohammed Jawad, Omara Dogar and Aziz Sheikh) that there is some huge health burden from smokeless tobacco. This piece of utter crap — bad even by the standards of tobacco control “research” — deserves a detailed point-by-point critique, but it is just so bad that I cannot stand to do it right now. So I am going to provide the short version.

 

[Bill Godshall]

While the ischaemic heart disease estimates shouldn't have been included in the study, at least the authors acknowledged that fact.
BMC Medicine | Full text | Global burden of disease due to smokeless tobacco consumption in adults: analysis of data from 113 countries

"For cancer, our extrapolation was based on estimates obtained from several studies; for ischaemic heart diseases, extrapolations were mostly based on a single although large multi-country study (INTERHEART). As a result, almost three-quarters of the estimated SLT disease burden, which is attributed to ischaemic heart disease, is uncertain. Therefore, a cautious interpretation would be to exclude ischaemic heart disease burden figures from our estimates."

This study, however, is NOT all junk, as it estimated that smokeless tobacco is attributable for just 215 cancer deaths in America each year. Had the authors not included several poorly designed studies in their calculations, the number of cancer deaths would have been just several dozen.

But 215 deaths compared to 450,000+ deaths attributable to cigarette smoking in the US (and assuming there are ten times more cigarette smokers than smokeless tobacco users) indicates that cigarettes are 200 times more harmful than smokeless tobacco (450,000 / 215 x 10 = 209.3)

Even by including the unwarranted ischaemic heart disease estimates, the authors estimated that cigarettes are 50 times more harmful than smokeless tobacco (or that smokeless is 98% less harmful than cigarettes).

 

[Kent C]

It should be noted that the "Levy" paper that is cited in Carl's link in the one BuGlen posted above is David T Levy, not Robert Levy. In case anyone is conflating the two. :- )

 

[nicnik]

Another great article by Dr. Carl Phillips (he's on a roll lately):

New claims about burden of disease from smokeless tobacco are utter junk (the short version) | Anti-THR Lies and related topics

He sure is, on a roll. It's wearing me out, though. I really appreciate this:

This piece of utter crap — bad even by the standards of tobacco control “research” — deserves a detailed point-by-point critique, but it is just so bad that I cannot stand to do it right now. So I am going to provide the short version.

I don't know about anybody else, but I get stressed reading long articles that have me glued to every word.

 

[BuGlen]

He sure is, on a roll. It's wearing me out, though. I really appreciate this:

I don't know about anybody else, but I get stressed reading long articles that have me glued to every word.

I really like his articles because he puts scientific information in plain English that I can understand. And yes, I usually have to bookmark his longer articles and then make the time to come back to them so I can read them with a full tank of my favorite vape.

 

[gmoney$]

I dunno. Leave a can of copenhagen out in a warm room for a couple days. open and smell. What is that, yes amonia. What's that inside your lip, yep, lesions. Not gonna end well. loved dipping for many years.

 

[skoony]

its interesting to note that here many years ago when the PSA
poster campaigns began, the ones showing those poor people
that had gotten oral or other cancers of the jaw and throat
from chewing or other oral use of tobacco always haunted me
for some reason. at that time i had the distinct impression
those poor souls all looked like they came from Appalachia or
some impoverished part of the country. i thought it was just
me and,forgot about it over time.
many years later i found out they looked liked they came from
Appalachia because they did in fact come from Appalachia.
they grew their own tobacco and made their own chew putting
lord knows what additives in them. when you consider that in
Appalachia at that time dental care was not readily available
and even unheard of in parts of Appalachia it was no wonder
there was such a high rate of these cancers there. i have
since suspected but, can't prove there were ulterior motives
behind the selection of those particular photo's.

regards
mike

 

[Uma]

Even if this BS were true, we didn't hire the gov to protect us from ourselves, we hired them to protect our constitution, country from foreign invasion, and to work out commerce between foreign countries.

 

[CarolT]

While the ischaemic heart disease estimates shouldn't have been included in the study, at least the authors acknowledged that fact.
BMC Medicine | Full text | Global burden of disease due to smokeless tobacco consumption in adults: analysis of data from 113 countries

"For cancer, our extrapolation was based on estimates obtained from several studies; for ischaemic heart diseases, extrapolations were mostly based on a single although large multi-country study (INTERHEART). As a result, almost three-quarters of the estimated SLT disease burden, which is attributed to ischaemic heart disease, is uncertain. Therefore, a cautious interpretation would be to exclude ischaemic heart disease burden figures from our estimates."

This study, however, is NOT all junk, as it estimated that smokeless tobacco is attributable for just 215 cancer deaths in America each year. Had the authors not included several poorly designed studies in their calculations, the number of cancer deaths would have been just several dozen.

But 215 deaths compared to 450,000+ deaths attributable to cigarette smoking in the US (and assuming there are ten times more cigarette smokers than smokeless tobacco users) indicates that cigarettes are 200 times more harmful than smokeless tobacco (450,000 / 215 x 10 = 209.3)

Even by including the unwarranted ischaemic heart disease estimates, the authors estimated that cigarettes are 50 times more harmful than smokeless tobacco (or that smokeless is 98% less harmful than cigarettes).

So why do you think it's OK to count heart disease deaths against smoking but not against smokeless tobacco? The real cause of those extra heart disease deaths is cytomegalovirus anyway. And knock off the deaths from COPD, because they are CMV-related as well. And don't forget all the other viruses (and bacteria such as Helicobacter pylori) that are the real causes of cancers blamed on smoking.