Respected Physicist Attacks Tobacco Control Journal
Roberto Sussman attacks the lies lying behind a journal’s attempts at censorship.
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by Dave Cross
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There had been growing criticism of the journals willingness to publish (what amounted to) vape-related junk science. Phillips explains: “all debate about the papers in Tobacco Control must take place in the pages of Tobacco Control, specifically the publisher’s (BMJ’s) ‘rapid response’ system. (For those who do not know, this is an aggressively-moderated online letter-to-the-editor type system, that requires prior approval and which I would guess refuses to post far more comments than it allows to appear.)”
What they are keen to further is the removal of discussion anywhere else. Michael Siegel comments: “In a revelation of the religious-like character of the modern-day tobacco control movement, the journal Tobacco Control has suggested that there can be no legitimate discussion about articles it publishes without its permission.”
Roberto Sussman is more used to dealing with theoretical physics and cosmological matters at the Institute of Nuclear Science, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. But the professor has penned an article after he left a comment on Carl Phillips’ original piece attacking Tobacco Control’s censorship. Phillips was so impressed with deep dive into the policies of the “journal” that he felt it important to be explored in depth.
Sussman notes that debate takes place across all scientific specialisms in a range of forms, from blogs to Facebook. Also, being published in a specific journal is no guarantee of being a solid contribution to the advancement of science either: “publication in peer-reviewed journals is not a guarantee of solid or good quality research, as many peer-reviewed articles in ‘official’ journals report false, methodologically inconsistent, or dishonest results.”
When he gets on to the nature of the publication itself is where Sussman cuts deepest: “To the external eye, Tobacco Control looks like an ordinary scientific journal … However, this resemblance is a deceptive illusion based on common external markings and trappings. Tobacco Control is not a proper scientific research journal that serves a real academic community. It is a journal for a loose alliance of academics and regulators (mostly, physicians, lawyers and other non-scientists) whose main task is to advocate and promote a specific tobacco regulation policy with the aim of eradicating tobacco and nicotine usage.”
He likens Tobacco Control to “the echo chambers of political activists or dogmatic sects”. Conversely, Sussman details how scholarly a number of the blogs Tobacco Control’s editorial board object so strongly to; blogs such as the ones written by Clive Bates, Michael Siegel and Carl Phillips being prime examples.
Sussman, through a reply to a comment, leaves us with the sense of light at the end of the tunnel: “in my opinion, there are reasons to be a bit cautiously optimistic: the tobacco regulatory paradigm devised in the 1990’s, based on coercive abstinence and deliberate misinformation on ETS damage (together with infinitely bad “Big Tobacco” and a junk “addiction” theory) has now run its course, it has become sterile dogma devoid of real scientific value. As all rigid ways of thinking, sooner or latter it starts cracking. Those who uphold this dogma (or benefit from it) know that once a little hole is pierced in the doctrine its decline becomes unstoppable, hence their desperate opposition to THR. The paradigm shift towards THR can reactivate and regenerate tobacco/nicotine science and (hopefully) provide an alternative more humanist regulatory policies. Evidently, this implies a clear public health benefit. I believe that this process has already begun and will overcome the old authoritarian eugenic paradigm in the end.”
The full article is powerful, damning and incredibly readable. You can find it on Phillip’s blog here.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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