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
