The Journal of the
American Heart Association on June 5, 2019, published an article,
“Electronic cigarette use and myocardial infarction among adults in the US
Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health [PATH],” by Dharma N. Bhatta and
Stanton A. Glantz (here). In reading the article, I discovered that the
authors misrepresented the research record; presented a grossly inaccurate analysis of
PATH Wave 1 survey data, and omitted critical information with respect to (a)
when survey participants were first told that they had a heart attack, and (b)
when participants first started using e-cigarettes. The article reflected a significant departure
from accepted research practices.
The authors reported that current e-cigarette users were
twice as likely as never users to have had a heart attack, based on information
from 38 survey participants. They
reported odds ratios (ORs) of 2.25 (95% confidence interval, CI = 1.23 – 4.11)
for 19 daily vapers, and 1.99 (CI = 1.11 – 3.58) for 19 some-day users
(Abstract, Table 3 and Table S6). Drs. Bhatta
and Glantz claimed that their study confirmed that “e-cigarette use is an
independent risk factor for having had a myocardial infarction…” In a blog post on the University of
California San Francisco website, Dr. Glantz cited the study as “more evidence
that e-cigs cause heart attacks” (here).
I have extensive experience conducting research on the PATH
data files. I conducted an analysis of
the Public Use Wave 1 data, which has no restrictions on release of
results. I found that at least 11 of the 38 current
e-cigarette users were first told that they had a heart attack years before
they first started using e-cigarettes.
My research team conducted further analyses that were
discussed in letters we sent to JAHA
editors on July 11 and July 18; these letters were never acknowledged. At the instruction of the Inter-university
Consortium for Political and Social Research, I am not able to share those
letters with you.
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