UCSF Take The P
Another day, another ridiculous study from the University of California SF attacking vaping.
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by Dave Cross
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Just last week, we wrote about how the “leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research” was prepared to get behind shoddy science.
Michael Siegel pointed out the gaping error in the work: “It is entirely possible that in most of these cases, the smokers suffered a heart attack and then started vaping in an attempt to quit smoking. In fact, I believe that is the most likely explanation for the observed study findings.”
Stanton Glantz, who is currently facing charges of sexual harassment, led the heart study. Glantz’ entire body of work has been described as “junk science” and “lies” by the hugely respected Professor Carl Phillips.
The UCSF is also facing charges over the way it handled the allegations from the employee who worked with Glantz. The latest study follows in the footsteps of previous pieces of work that attack vaping purely for financial motives.
This time the lead author is Mark Rubinstein, a paediatrics professor at UCSF. He oversaw the project that collected urine and saliva samples from 100 adolescents. The samples were tested for known toxins and, surprisingly, they found that those who vaped demonstrated levels present – up to THREE times that found in smokers.
Rubinstein commented: “Teenagers should be inhaling air, not products with toxins in them. They are not “harmless water vapours.”
The study claims: “We have demonstrated that at least 5 potentially harmful toxicants are found in the body of human adolescents who use electronic cigarettes.”
Just to add further suspicion to a study that claims vaping is apparently worse than smoking – it also claims that fruit flavours (the most popular choice in California for young people) is the worst possible flavouring to vape and led to the highest toxin readings.
The team concluded: “Although e-cigarette vapour may be less dangerous than combustible cigarettes, with lower overall exposure to VOC toxicants, with our findings, we challenge the idea that e-cigarette vapour is safe. Many of the VOCs we identified among e-cigarette users are carcinogenic, including propylene oxide, acrylamide, acrylonitrile, and crotonaldehyde. With few exceptions, these toxicants were present whether the product contained nicotine or flavourings. Consequently, as with traditional cigarettes, messaging to teenagers must include warnings about the potential risk from toxic exposure to carcinogenic compounds generated by these products.”
UCSF is rapidly becoming a marker of poor quality studies and flagrant abuse of bias. The claim to be a “leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research” is looking very hollow indeed.
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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