Fake Science Denying the Relative Safety of Smokeless Tobacco Cost Millions of Lives; Don’t Repeat that Error with New Smoke-Free Products

 

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, recently confirmed as director of the National Institutes of Health, tweeted on November 23, 2024, “If the NIH were serious about the replication crisis, it would devote a significant chunk of its budget to funding replication studies by independent researchers and require NIH funded researchers to make research materials available to replicators.”

I welcomed that statement because, over the past decade, my colleague Nantaporn Plurphanswat and I have challenged distorted and blatantly false studies concerning safer tobacco products (examples here, here, here and the list below).  Those efforts followed my earlier work with other authors on similar flawed research articles, but together they addressed only a fraction of defective FDA/NIH-sponsored tobacco research.  Because replication is time-consuming, it detracts from the performance of original research; additionally, findings are rarely published, and they often draw derision from the original authors and the research establishment. 

One might ask, why bother to address bad studies?  I answer that question in a new Sensible Medicine article titled, “Defining the Risk of Oral Tobacco Products,” in which I focus on the false narrative of a 1981 New England Journal of Medicine study that fatally undercut the fact that smokeless tobacco is vastly safer than cigarettes.  As a result of the 1981 publication, millions of smokers were denied information that could have extended their lives. 

Repeating that deadly error with vapor products, heat-not-burn tobacco and nicotine pouches will cost millions more lives.

 

 

List

Plurphanswat N, Rodu B.  Is the smoking population in the United States really softening?  Addiction, 2016 Jul;111(7):1299-303. doi: 10.1111/add.13340. Epub 2016 May 13. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27177450

Farsalinos K, Rodu B.  Metal emissions from e-cigarettes: a risk assessment analysis of a recently-published study.  Inhalation Toxicology 2018. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30384783/ 

Rodu B, Plurphanswat N.  A re‐analysis of e‐cigarette use and heart attacks in PATH wave 1 data. Addiction, First published 13 August 2020.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32794213/

Rodu B, Plurphanswat N. Heterogeneity and other problems in a pooled analysis of snus use and mortality. F1000Research 2021, 10:388 (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.52127.1 )

Rodu B, Plurphanswat N.  Cross-sectional e-cigarette studies are unreliable without timing of exposure and disease diagnosis. Internal and Emergency Medicine 18(1):319-323, 2023. Epub 2022 Nov 25. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11739-022-03141-3

Plurphanswat N, Selya A, Rodu B. Questionable effects of electronic cigarette use on cardiovascular diseases from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS, 2014-2021). Cureus 2024. DOI:10.7759/cureus.57119. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11055619/

Rodu B, Cole P.  Excess Mortality in Smokeless Tobacco Users Not Meaningful (Letter).  American Journal of Public Health 85:118, 1995. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7832248/

Rodu B, Cole P. A deficient study of smokeless tobacco use and cancer (letter).  International Journal of Cancer 118: 1585, 2006.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16206262/

Rodu B. Snus and the risk of cancer of the mouth, lung, and pancreas.  Lancet 370: 1207, 2007.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17920914/

Rodu B, Heavner KK.  Errors and omissions in the study of snuff use and hypertension (letter).  Journal of Internal Medicine 265: 507-8, 2009. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19019185/

Rodu B, Heavner KK, Phillips CV.  Snuff use and stroke (letter).  Epidemiology 20: 468-9, 2009.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19363361/

Rodu B, Plurphanswat N, Phillips CV.  Discrepant results for smoking and cessation among electronic cigarette users (letter).  Cancer 2015 Mar 4. doi: 10.1002/cncr.29307. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25740231/

Rodu B, Phillips CV.  Regarding “Discontinuation of Smokeless Tobacco and Mortality Risk after Myocardial Infarction” (letter).  Circulation 2015 Apr 28;131(17):e422. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.114.012038.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25918044/

Rodu B.  Re: Smokeless tobacco use and the risk of head and neck cancer: pooled analysis of US studies in the INHANCE consortium.  American Journal of Epidemiology 2017.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28911014/

Rodu B, Plurphanswat N.  Response to Bhatta and Glantz.  Addiction First published: 13 August 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32794301/ 

Rodu B, Plurphanswat N.  Gaiha et al. disregarded conventional publishing standards (letter).  Journal of Adolescent Health 68;215, January 1, 2021. https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(20)30566-8/fulltext 

Plurphanswat N, Rodu B.  “Association between electronic cigarette use and fragility fractures among US adults” contains significant errors.  American Journal of Medicine Open 8: December 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajmo.2022.100017 

Rodu B.  Methods questions.  Tobacco Control June 12, 2023. https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2023/03/20/tc-2022-057717.responses 

 

Rodu B.  The many dangers of e-cigarette misinformation. Oral Surgery Oral Medicine Oral Pathology 2024.  https://www.oooojournal.net/article/S2212-4403(24)00893-9/fulltext