Timeless Knowledge from an Insightful Mathematician
I recently read on X (Twitter) a tribute to the book, “A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper,” by John Allen Paulos. The author is a professor of mathematics at Temple University, and his bio, here, is impressive. The book, still in print and available on …
Lessons to be Learned About Menthol from Lung Cancer Mortality Rates
For years we have seen a battle over the banning of menthol cigarettes. On one side are prohibitionists, who believe that society’s ills can be cured by proscribing specific behaviors and products. Opposing a ban are libertarians and those civil rights advocates who fear …
FDA Briefs U.S. Supreme Court on the Nicotine Brain Fallacy
Responding to a petition from the FDA, the Supreme Court agreed to review the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the Triton case (formally known as Wages & White Lion Investments, LLC). The Circuit Court, sitting en banc, had found that the FDA failed …
No Guardrails in JAMA for Tobacco Prohibitionists
In the July issue of JAMA, Robert Jackler and Pamela Ling discussed Medscape’s agreement with Philip Morris International to produce continuing medical education on tobacco harm reduction. I objected to their screed in a letter to the JAMA editor, noting that Jackler/Ling made false …
Smoking and Vaping Prevalence Charts That the FDA and CDC Don’t Want You to See
My colleague and I have published a new article in Harm Reduction Journal entitled “Joint Smoking-Vaping Prevalence Rates Among American Youth and Young Adults 2011-2022.” This post is dedicated to U.S. federal government officials, especially at the FDA Center for Tobacco Products and the …
A Deeper Dive into High School Vaping from the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that about 1.56 million U.S. high school students were current users (i.e., past 30 days) of e-cigarettes or other vaping products in 2023. Although this number is substantially lower than at vaping’s peak in 2019 …
Up in Smoke: The American Heart Association on Smokeless Tobacco
The American Heart Association published a policy statement in its journal Circulation, titled, “Impact of Smokeless Oral Nicotine Products on Cardiovascular Disease.” (here) Below, I cite with permission excerpts from a review by Clive Bates, along with my comments. The smokeless tobacco [ST] policy …
Robert Kennedy’s Nicotine Pouch Can Make America Healthy Again
The level of misunderstanding among American doctors about vastly safer cigarette substitutes is stunning. Last week I critiqued the president of the American Medical Association (here), and this week it’s Dr. Nicole Saphier, a breast cancer imaging specialist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer …
Tobacco Prohibitionists Kill Safer Cigarette Substitutes… and Smokers
Dr. Michael Siegel has published a blog entry criticizing a “new article in American Journal of Medicine claim[ing] that youths who use e-cigarettes are 5 times more likely to become cigarette smokers.” The commentary was authored by tobacco and nicotine opponents Pamela Ling and …
5 Vaping “Facts” You Don’t Want to Know
Dr. Michael Blaha, Director of Clinical Research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, has published an article titled, “5 Vaping Facts You Need to Know.” The piece contains a number of glaring falsehoods. While Dr. Blaha acknowledges “that vaping …
