Thai Group Demands Rethink
A Thai advocacy group calls for a rethink of the country’s approach to vaping following the retraction of a study used to support a vape ban
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by Dave Cross
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“Use of electronic cigarette poses a risk of myocardial infarction” by Stanton Glantz and Dharma Bhatta was retracted by The Medical Journal of the American Heart Association when it was pressed upon them that the authors had exhibited bias, selectively misused data and ignored that heart attacks (myocardial infarction/MI) occurred before smokers had switched to vaping.
ECST say that Stanton Glantz is “often cited” by politicians and groups looking to put a negative spin on vaping. ECST’s Asa Saligupta commented: “The result of the research that suggested that the use of E-cigarette on a regular basis can double the chance of coronary disease; is a distorted information and does not follow the correct research procedure due to the bias of the researcher.”
“The Medical Journal of the American Heart Association has therefore retracted the research from its publication giving the reason that its conclusions are unreliable. This reflects the dangers of referencing and misusing of inaccurate information from researches by the anti-tobacco associations in Thailand. It also raises questions whether the public can trust the information provided by these organisations.”
“Anti-smoking associations or the Ministry of public health often present only one-sided, negative information, which had caused chaos and panic for the public especially among smokers who had changed from smoking conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes because they want to reduce the risks for themselves.”
“For instance, the most recent research from the Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Centre concluded that the ban on e-cigarette should continue – the public was never been inform or acknowledge about the study of whether or not the study was properly conducted.”
“Therefore, we demand that information presented regarding electronic cigarettes in Thailand must not be biased and must be based on credible researches because accessing accurate and credible information are the basic rights that both conventional cigarette smokers and e-cigarette smokers should have.”
Retracting the study, The Medical Journal of the American Heart Association wrote: “Post publication, the editors requested Dr. Bhatta et al conduct the analysis based on when specific respondents started using e‐cigarettes, which required ongoing access to the restricted use dataset from the PATH Wave 1 survey. The authors agreed to comply with the editors’ request. The deadline set by the editors for completion of the revised analysis was not met because the authors are currently unable to access the PATH database. Given these issues, the editors are concerned that the study conclusion is unreliable. The editors hereby retract the article from publication in Journal of the American Heart Association.”
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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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