Caution in reporting researches on vaping

Islamabad : The Pakistan Alliance for Nicotine and Tobacco Harm Reduction (PANTHR) has called for cautiously reviewing and reporting research on vaping (activity of using electronic cigarettes).

The Journal of American Heart Association (JAHA) has recently retracted a widely circulated study claiming e-cigarettes use increased the likelihood of having a heart attack.

Stanton Glantz and Dharma Bhatta of the University of California San Francisco said in the original study that vaping and smoking cigarettes

posed a similar risk, while doing both at the same time was an even more dangerous option.

The journal retracted the paper after Brad Rodu, a tobacco control expert at the University of Louisville, noted that most of the subjects that

Glantz and Bhatta analyzed for the study had heart attacks before starting vaping.

Kashif Farooqi, manager advocacy PANTHR, said that there is a need to shed anti-vaping bias as Safer Nicotine Delivery Systems (SNDS) can be a game changer for a smoke-free world.

He further said, “Every care should be taken in order not to fuel misconceptions regarding vaping, and it’s potential to help smokers in quitting smoking.”

The research study got 780 plus pieces of coverage, 99 million plus impressions and was picked up by 26 news outlets causing serious damage to the efforts around alternative and safe nicotine delivery systems before it was retracted.