And speaking of sleaze from Juul
Wow, Juul just keeps copying the 1960s tobacco industry.
Seriously, this is a move straight out of the old Tobacco Insitute for Research Committee, a front organization for the tobacco industry to discredit scientific studies on tobacco and cancer.
The TIRC was active from the late 50s to the 70s. Turns out Juul has been doing something very similar.
Juul founded some fake pro-vaping studies, then actually paid for a scholarly publication to publish them. Jesus, a double-whammy of sleaze here.
The FDA may be issuing a ruling in September whether or not to ban nicotine vaping products. Apparently, Juul’s little scheme was designed to influence that decision, but fortunately, it got outed.
From a Philadelphia Inquirer article:
In less than two months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is supposed to decide, at long last, whether the company most responsible for the teenage vaping epidemic should be stopped, or at least restrained, from marketing its e-cigarettes.
The decision will hinge on whether scientific research shows that Juul’s sleek nicotine-delivery device has public health benefits. Does it enable smokers to break or reduce their addiction to cigarettes? Or does it primarily lead to dual use of e-cigs and traditional cigarettes, while luring nonsmokers — especially young people — into nicotine addiction?
Juul, which is partly owned by tobacco giant Altria, decided to add to that scientific evidence.
Juul paid more than $50,000 to a scholarly journal so it would devote the entire May-June issue to 11 studies that Juul funded, all showing vaping is a public health boon. The availability of e-cigs could “avert millions of premature deaths in the U.S.,” one Juul study concluded.
But Juul’s gambit may have backfired.
Three members of the editorial board of the 45-year-old American Journal of Health Behavior resigned in protest, while editor and publisher Elbert D. Glover retired shortly after the “Special Issue on JUUL Use” was published, according to The New York Times.
I love this part of the Inquirer article:
[A peer reviewer] shared with the Inquirer the email from Glover to scores of potential reviewers. “Peer reviewers” are usually not paid, but Glover offered $75 per review if it could be turned in quickly — one week. He said the special issue was on “e-cigarettes” in general and did not mention that the authors of the 12 studies were on Juul’s payroll. The actual manuscripts redacted the name of the sponsor.
The design of one study she reviewed seemed so biased that she recommended rejecting it. “I thought, ‘No way it wasn’t funded by Juul.’ ” She questioned Glover about it. Soon, he sent another email to the group.
“It has been brought to my attention that some reviewers were unaware that the special issue on e-cigarettes is being funded by JUUL,” Glover wrote. “My apologies for not alerting everyone. … I honestly did not believe it to be a concern as the comprehensive reviews always purge weak or biased manuscripts.”
The whole thing smacks of desperation from Juul. They know the hammer is coming down soon.
E-cigarettes like Juul MIGHT have some benefit in helping SOME people quit smoking … I’ve always tried to keep an open mind about this. But when Juul resorts to this kind of sleaze and dishonestly, they know the truth. And the truth is Juul and other e-cig companies have hooked millions of kids on nicotine and that a big percentage of those kids move on to cigarettes to get their nicotine fix. It appears that e-cigs likely do a lot more harm than good.