Major U.S. Study That Sparked Nationwide Panic Among E-cigarette Users Has Been Retracted

On February 21, news reported that after months of pressure from the scientific community, a prominent American Heart Association journal retracted a widely circulated e-cigarette study that claimed using e-cigarettes increased the risk of heart attacks.

Last June, the authors of the article, Stanton Glantz and Dharma Bhatta from the University of California, San Francisco, pointed out in the original study that using e-cigarettes and smoking posed similar risks, and that using both simultaneously was an even more dangerous choice.

After the summer publication, the peer-reviewed study was cited by major news outlets including CNN, Yahoo News, and USA Today.

The editors of the American Heart Association journal (JAHA) explained in their retraction statement that they were concerned that the study may have been based on misleading data.

They wrote: The editors are concerned that the study's conclusions are unreliable.

Brad Rodu, a tobacco control expert at the University of Louisville, pointed out that many of the smokers analyzed for this study were current or former smokers, and JAHA retracted the paper. Rodu believes that using combustible cigarettes could make them more susceptible to heart disease.

Rodu told the media on Wednesday: The retraction is not a trivial matter. This is a significant action. To call it a mistake is too weak.

Last month, scholars from several public health schools, including New York University, Yale University, and King's College London, wrote to JAHA, highlighting Rodu's criticisms and requesting a proper investigation.

Among the signatories was David Sweanor, a part-time law professor at the University of Ottawa, who has studied the global tobacco industry for decades.

Sweanor said: There are serious problems with the peer review process, and journals are reluctant to retract invalid work. This undermines trust in academia and the scientific community.

The journal's editors explained in their retraction statement that during the peer review process, others raised similar concerns. Although the study was published, the journal gave Glantz and Bhatta a deadline to revise their findings, which they did not meet. In explaining the reason, Glantz stated that his access to the dataset used for the study had been revoked because he was not authorized to use it.

Glantz supported the paper on Twitter and his blog, claiming that JAHA simply yielded to pressure from e-cigarette interests.

In recent months, Glantz and Rodu have criticized each other. Glantz often points out that Rodu receives some financial support from the tobacco industry. Rodu and other harm reduction advocates are frequently criticized by Glantz for their scientific methods and views on tobacco control. After the study was published, Rodu initially expressed his criticisms of Glantz in early July 2019.

JAHA's decision may turn out to be a small victory, but the paper's conclusions have already created a moral panic around e-cigarettes. At the time of publication, there was growing concern about youth vaping and ongoing misunderstandings about the life-saving potential of switching from combustible cigarettes to e-cigarettes.

Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University, stated: To me, this story simply confirms the argument I have long made: there is a serious anti-e-cigarette bias among smoking control researchers, and this is what led to this debacle.