The BMJ-"Hold the line against Tobacco"

[Orb Skewer]

More 'tactical blurb' from the BMJ
Dr Paul Danaher (in the comments) speaks up

Hold the line against tobacco | BMJ

 

[Kent C]

" The authors conclude that e-cigarettes should be regulated not as medicines but as tobacco products, and that the tobacco industry should be excluded from the policy making arena. And, I would add, from the funding of medical research, since this is another way in which industry seeks to legitimise itself. The BMJ and its sister journals recently announced that we would no longer publish research funded by the tobacco industry (doi:10.1136/bmj.f5193). Unsurprisingly, tobacco company researchers are unhappy with this decision. In a letter this week, Christopher Procter calls the new policy “antiscience” and invites the BMJ to reconsider its decision (doi:10.1136/bmj.f7489). We have no such plans."

The ultimate in 'end justifies the means'

What's next? Will we be accused as being 'nicotine deniers'?

 

[AegisPrime]

The ultimate in 'end justifies the means'

What's next? Will we be accused as being 'nicotine deniers'?

It does rather seem that the BMJ is painting all tobacco industry research as biased and unreliable - I'm just wondering if that includes research from e-cig companies and trade/consumer associations too - whilst of course, any research sponsored by Big Pharma will be completely trustworthy

Not liking the direction some of this stuff is moving in.

That regurgitated 150+ year old crap spouted by 'Doctor' Scheibner about the toxicity of nicotine was just the icing on the cake - nice riposte from Clive Bates though.

 

[Kent C]

It does rather seem that the BMJ is painting all tobacco industry research as biased and unreliable - I'm just wondering if that includes research from e-cig companies and trade/consumer associations too - whilst of course, any research sponsored by Big Pharma will be completely trustworthy

Not liking the direction some of this stuff is moving in.

That regurgitated 150+ year old crap spouted by 'Doctor' Scheibner about the toxicity of nicotine was just the icing on the cake - nice riposte from Clive Bates though.

Me neither... it is almost always assumed that BT studies are biased and gov't's not. Gov't gives grants to universities and the top scientists/professors rely on that income in the same manner that BT relies on income from tobacco. In universities, if you disagree with the 'known bias' or your research shows contradicting, contravening or even in some cases (global warming) anything that detracts from the 'consensus' then you lose tenure and your job. There are several cases of this.

Gov't also relies on taxes and control, so their bias is in there as well - maybe doubly so with the universities, where if their results may result in a loss of revenue, they lose their grants. The EPA had to change statistical standards and delete some studies from the 'metastudy' in order to come up with their fake 1.007 results where 1.0 shows no statistical difference.

 

[sebt]

Gov't also relies on taxes and control, so their bias is in there as well - maybe doubly so with the universities, where if their results may result in a loss of revenue, they lose their grants. The EPA had to change statistical standards and delete some studies from the 'metastudy' in order to come up with their fake 1.007 results where 1.0 shows no statistical difference.

"Science must be protected from ideologies; and societies, especially democratic societies, must be protected from science"
(Paul Feyerabend, introduction to Against Method)

I wish this rude genius was still around; I'd pay good money to hear what he might say about Tobacco Control. Ironic that he taught at UC Berkeley, where you now can't vape on an e-cig even in the open air... Though of course, he might take Tobacco Control's side, just to be annoying and stir things up. I don't think they'd welcome that - any more than the faculty at Berkeley enjoyed trying to control him; he loved taking one side of an argument just to subtly subvert it .

I agree with previous posters that this BMJ position is really worrying. The TL;DR version of their editorial is: the right message is more important than the facts.

 

[Fulgurant]

It does rather seem that the BMJ is painting all tobacco industry research as biased and unreliable - I'm just wondering if that includes research from e-cig companies and trade/consumer associations too - whilst of course, any research sponsored by Big Pharma will be completely trustworthy

Not liking the direction some of this stuff is moving in.

That regurgitated 150+ year old crap spouted by 'Doctor' Scheibner about the toxicity of nicotine was just the icing on the cake - nice riposte from Clive Bates though.

Yeah, Scheiber's commentary is hilariously bad: even if her assertions about the toxicity of nicotine were accurate, her conclusion doesn't follow from those assertions. "Nicotine is toxic in such-and-such quantities; it's more poisonous than arsenic; therefore nicotine is the most harmful substance in cigarette smoke." Nevermind that her toxicity arguments could be applied to any number of generally well-regarded substances; there's no evidence to suggest that smoking-related deaths have anything whatsoever to do with nicotine poisoning.

One wonders where Scheiber got her PhD, and in what field. One also wonders whether her retiring from science was by choice or whether her obvious lack of critical-thinking ability drove her out. Then again, in a world where the freaking British Medical Journal can publish unreasoning crap like Fiona Godlee's editorial ("e-cigarettes are bad cuz, uh, big tobacco"), my cocker spaniel could credibly claim scientific expertise.

On the plus side, Bates is dynamite, as usual. Danahar and Houezec's comments are pretty magnificent too.

 

[Kent C]

"Science must be protected from ideologies; and societies, especially democratic societies, must be protected from science"
(Paul Feyerabend, introduction to Against Method)

I wish this rude genius was still around; I'd pay good money to hear what he might say about Tobacco Control. Ironic that he taught at UC Berkeley, where you now can't vape on an e-cig even in the open air... Though of course, he might take Tobacco Control's side, just to be annoying and stir things up. I don't think they'd welcome that - any more than the faculty at Berkeley enjoyed trying to control him; he loved taking one side of an argument just to subtly subvert it .

I agree with previous posters that this BMJ position is really worrying. The TL;DR version of their editorial is: the right message is more important than the facts.

I'll take a 'wild guess' and assume this "sebt" comment was you:

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...tes-blog-re-tobacco-control.html#post11820438

Nice!

 

[Orb Skewer]

Clive Bates weighs in with a direct comment

Re: Hold the line against tobacco | BMJ

 

[rothenbj]

An interesting read from the comments for those that don't get that far. From Dr Jacques Le Houezec (PhD), Consultant in Public Health
Amzer Glas (self-employed), Rennes, France-

In response to Dr Viera Scheibner, I would like to stress the fact that all toxicology textbooks and scientific publications have reported for more than a century that the lethal dose of nicotine is 30-60 mg for adults. But none of these publications have ever found the source of this statement. A recent paper published by Dr Bernd Mayer [1] has shed some light, pointing to original articles in German, relating self-experiments of some physicians who then made assumptions not based on evidence. Bernd Mayer, reviewed the literature on accidental or volontary poisoning with nicotine. On most cases, high doses of nicotine had no fatal consequences, and resolved in a few hours or days, even in children. One recent suicidal attempt report described the case of a woman who ingested 1500 mg of nicotine with no fatal consequences. Based on this review, and in a very conservative way, Bernd Mayer has established that the lethal dose of nicotine is at least 500 to 1000 mg of nicotine (6.5 to 13.0 mg/kg).

In addition, if nicotine is partly responsible for tobacco dependence (other compounds in smoke participate to this process), it is not responsible for tobacco-induced diseases which are due to other substances in tobacco or tobacco smoke (cancer causing substances, carbon monoxide, oxidant gases...). The most deadly form of tobacco use is smoking (combustion), using oral tobacco without combustion, particularly the safest one - snus as used in Sweden - is less harmful, and using pure nicotine with e-cigarette is considerably safer. It is important that correct and evidence-based information on nicotine and e-cigarettes is given to smokers, and to let them know that a safer alternative to smoking exists. The gain in Public Health will surpass all the efforts that have been made until today. For the first time in history, the end of tobacco use is achievable, we should not miss this opportunity.

[1] Mayer B. How much nicotine kills a human? Tracing back the generally accepted lethal dose to dubious self-experiments in the nineteenth century. Arch Toxicol. 2014 Jan;88(1):5-7.

Competing interests: Scientist with 30 years of experience in the field of nicotine pharmacology. Consulting for public and private sector. No link to the tobacco industry.

What I am seeing in the comments, certainly not in the ANTZ driven editorial, is a realization of where the thoughts on e cigs is changing as time goes by. Time is indeed our friend in this effort.

 

[NorthOfAtlanta]

An interesting read from the comments for those that don't get that far. From Dr Jacques Le Houezec (PhD), Consultant in Public Health
Amzer Glas (self-employed), Rennes, France-

What I am seeing in the comments, certainly not in the ANTZ driven editorial, is a realization of where the thoughts on e cigs is changing as time goes by. Time is indeed our friend in this effort.

This, I was pleasantly surprised at the comments as the truth is starting to win.

 

[rothenbj]

Yeah, Scheiber's commentary is hilariously bad: even if her assertions about the toxicity of nicotine were accurate, her conclusion doesn't follow from those assertions. "Nicotine is toxic in such-and-such quantities; it's more poisonous than arsenic; therefore nicotine is the most harmful substance in cigarette smoke." Nevermind that her toxicity arguments could be applied to any number of generally well-regarded substances; there's no evidence to suggest that smoking-related deaths have anything whatsoever to do with nicotine poisoning.

One wonders where Scheiber got her PhD, and in what field. One also wonders whether her retiring from science was by choice or whether her obvious lack of critical-thinking ability drove her out. Then again, in a world where the freaking British Medical Journal can publish unreasoning crap like Fiona Godlee's editorial ("e-cigarettes are bad cuz, uh, big tobacco"), my cocker spaniel could credibly claim scientific expertise.

On the plus side, Bates is dynamite, as usual. Danahar and Houezec's comments are pretty magnificent too.

She got her doctorate in doctorate in Natural Sciences. She has no medical qualifications other than a year of studying medicine before she got into Geology. I think that makes her qualified as a stoner. However she is a strong opponent of vaccination policy.

 

[Uma]

An interesting read from the comments for those that don't get that far. From Dr Jacques Le Houezec (PhD), Consultant in Public Health
Amzer Glas (self-employed), Rennes, France-



What I am seeing in the comments, certainly not in the ANTZ driven editorial, is a realization of where the thoughts on e cigs is changing as time goes by. Time is indeed our friend in this effort.

Thanks for sharing!
I have a question. Considering the random vapor exhaled contains 0.038 trace of nicotine, how many Traces would make for the Threshold of danger?

 

[Jake6731]

From WikiPedia for Viera Scheibner: "A great number of doctors, scientists, legal professionals and other critics have questioned her qualifications, research abilities, and honesty."

 

[NorthOfAtlanta]

Thanks for sharing!
I have a question. Considering the random vapor exhaled contains 0.038 trace of nicotine, how many Traces would make for the Threshold of danger?

Not an answer to this question but I wondered what the ppm would be if you vaporized the entire contents of a 30ml bottle of 36mg in a 10'x10'x8' room with no losses. With a little help from google and some online calculators it works out to 7.186 ppm. I don't think that would be dangerous to anyone, might show up as a slightly above base on a cotinine test.

Here's the calculator I used after calculating the mg per meter and finding the molecular weight online.

ppm to mg/m3 conversion calculator

 

[Kent C]

She got her doctorate in doctorate in Natural Sciences. She has no medical qualifications other than a year of studying medicine before she got into Geology. I think that makes her qualified as a stoner. However she is a strong opponent of vaccination policy.

It happens. Naomi Oreskes was in large part responsible for the 'consensus' in Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth". She was a professor of History. (History of Science). Her exact method of basically collecting 'google sites' that mentioned "global warming" was duplicated by others with different results. Christopher Horner looked into the 'study' in his book "Politically Incorrect Guide for Global Warming":

"Ms. Oreskes claimed she did an analysis of all 928 articles on climate change and found none that disputed the claim of manmade global warming. The fact that she cherry picked her 928 articles from a total of over 11,000 did (eventually) receive some coverage. Readers of this book will further learn how she intentionally distorted the findings of the limited articles she bothered to peruse. For the record, only 13 of those articles actually defended manmade climate change. This says much about the so called consensus, but even more about the tactics and mentality of those who believe in environmental Armageddon."

She has attacked her detractors as 'tobacco scientists'.... along with the 'denier' tag.

We have and will be running into this "settled science" fallacy in ecigarettes as well. It's an attempt to close debate. Consensus is the opposite of science. It's... politics.

 

[rothenbj]

Thanks for sharing!
I have a question. Considering the random vapor exhaled contains 0.038 trace of nicotine, how many Traces would make for the Threshold of danger?

By my calculation, 6.3m people exhaling into a 3 cubic yard box may be toxic to a lab rat. <joking> In truth, I've seen no research but I know that smoking an average of 2 1/2 packs of cigarettes every 24 hours didn't kill me yet and I worked up to that level over a 43 year period. I still my pay for my foolishness, but I'm still kicking.

 

[Uma]

By my calculation, 6.3m people exhaling into a 3 cubic yard box may be toxic to a lab rat. <joking> In truth, I've seen no research but I know that smoking an average of 2 1/2 packs of cigarettes every 24 hours didn't kill me yet and I worked up to that level over a 43 year period. I still my pay for my foolishness, but I'm still kicking.

LoL, we must have had the same math teacher.

I used the calculator, two different ways, & one way (using 1000 ppm) came out to 6635.174 which is magnitudes above 0.038 as said.
Another way, (using 1000 mg/m) came out to 150.712 ppm which is also magnitudes higher than the random 0.038
I calculated using 1000mg (fatal doses being 1000 mg-1500mg correct?)

Remembering I'm math challenged, I went over to the neighbors site, and asked Dr. Farsalinos for the answer. Hopefully he will be able to decipher and answer my question. I'll update if so.

 

[Vocalek]

Clive Bates weighs in with a direct comment

Re: Hold the line against tobacco | BMJ

I wish there were a Like button on the BMJ comment page. Better yet, how about the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down icons that are provided for comments on many sites. They should be provided for the articles themselves, as well.

 

[Orb Skewer]

I wish there were a Like button on the BMJ comment page. Better yet, how about the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down icons that are provided for comments on many sites. They should be provided for the articles themselves, as well.

If memory serves Elaine, I'm pretty sure the BMJ used to have up/down voting on their articles page, I wonder why they would remove it...hmmm.

You could send Clive a tweet of support @Clive_Bates xxx

 

[sebt]

I'll take a 'wild guess' and assume this "sebt" comment was you:

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...tes-blog-re-tobacco-control.html#post11820438

Nice!

It was.... thanks!

I tried posting a comment on the BMJ piece as well - don't know if it'll get published.