Bad Science

On the Centre For Tobacco Control Research & Education site, controlled by him and hosted by the failing University of California San Francisco, Glantz posts up his latest research. Today was the turn for one entitled ““Super High” Nicotine Youth Appealing Electronic Cigarette Flavors”.

We are going to ignore the almost intelligible gobbledygook masquerading as a title and quickly skip over to the Stanford Report, July 23, 2014.

Meet Catherine Yu. Catherine is just the kind of girl I want my daughter to become – hard-working, full of effort and dedicated to expanding her knowledge and skill base. Catherine is spending this summer working at Stanford Blood Centre’s immunology and pathology lab.

During her internship she is “gathering data to help her supervisor's research project” including “separating blood into T cells, monocytes, dendritic cells, and then culturing them together”.

What does she think of it?  “It's very neat" says Catherine (unaware that science isn’t meant to be neat but what the hey, she’s only 17). "It's definitely a different dynamic where they expect you to learn a lot of information at a very fast pace," Yu said. "I have to stay on my toes so I don't fall behind."

Brilliant, that’s what I think of it. Real work in a real workplace getting real-world real work experience, real world science experience being overseen by a trusting mentor. In the real world.

Now let us consider for a moment young Maya Ben-Efraim. Poor little Maya.

Maya has been placed into the hands of Robert Jackler and Glantz. It will come as no surprise therefore that her experience is quite different from Yu’s.

"I was looking for a position in a lab, so I interviewed with Dr. Jackler from the department of otolaryngology, but he did not have any," Ben-Efraim said. "Then we started talking about his organization, SRITA, and I went to his lecture about electronic cigarette advertising and teens. I found it very interesting and relevant."

On a matter of principle I am not including Maya’s Facebook account or personal pictures here, such kind of intrusion isn’t warranted for an idealistic and impressionable girl. Jackler and Glantz on the other hand, if I were to happen upon their pictures on the news in connection with Operation Yewtree I’d not express any surprise.

Maya has been used in a shocking way. Despatched to collate a list of flavours for e-cigs she’s then had her name attached to it as if this constitutes proper research. The almost empty list of references gives the game away that this is the product of a child, a piece of research so poor I’d have my daughter repeat it during her free time. Properly.

Again, I don’t blame Maya – I blame the predatory Jackler who has used her for his own misguided and nefarious ends. Who spoon-fed her idiotic lies and had her perform work of unbelievable insignificance or weight, wasting her time, her opportunity for real placement and forever associating her with this piece of gash.

And then I blame Glantz for attempting to pass this off as research to be added to the canon of work on electronic cigarettes; disgusting, underhand, despicable and bent behaviour to the extent that I would call it amoral and bankrupt behaviour from the pair of them.

At least we can be happy for Catherine Yu, carrying out proper science with a legitimate outcome. Everyone makes mistakes when they're young, Maya. Intelligent people learn from them and don't repeat them, stupid people make careers out of lying and misrepresenting science for personal gain over public health. Good luck in the future, Maya.

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• Top Photo credit: uıɐɾ ʞ ʇɐɯɐs via photopin cc

Toby Kilroy

Journalist at POTV

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Toby has been vaping since early 2012 and has used an array of devices and kit in that time. He sometimes writes up reviews but is often found with his head stuck in pages of code with a confused smile on his face. Toby also helps run his wife's site gethistory.co.uk and has two children. He sometimes fondly remembers having free time and occasionally manages to sneak away to put his head into a good book!