NNA Zoom Webcast with Dr Farsalinos
The New Nicotine Alliance (NNA) hosted its second webcast on Zoom last week with guest speaker Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, talking about the link between nicotine and COVID-19
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by Dave Cross
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The New Nicotine Alliance is a charity dedicated to representing the voice of nicotine users, including vapers, snus and heat-not-burn product users. The board of the NNA donate their time and services for free, relying on public donations to fund activities, and the NNA does not take funding from vape or tobacco companies.
The NNA has contributed in the last two years to improving individual, organisational and public understanding of what is known as ‘tobacco harm reduction’ - a term used by the Department of Health, Public Health England and the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence amongst others to describe ways of reducing harm from cigarette smoking without necessarily giving up the use of nicotine.
The NNA has launched a series of webcasts on Zoom, accessible for free, covering a wide range of subjects and featuring genuine experts in their field. The first Zoom webcast featured advocate Clive Bates talking on the subject of, “TPD Review: Opportunity or Catastrophe?” [link]
Konstantinos Farsalinos is a cardiologist and research fellow at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in Athens. As well as being an expert in tobacco harm reduction, he is also a specialist in echocardiography. POTV has been covering his harm reduction and vape research since 2011.
He has looked at the cytotoxic effects of e-cigarette vapour on cultured cells, the immediate effects of e-cigarette use on cardiac function, the impact of vaping on coronary circulation, patterns of e-cigarette use, the first systematic review on e-cigarette safety, and heated tobacco products. In total, Doctor Farsalinos has been published over 75 times on the subject of smoking, tobacco harm reduction, and e-cigarettes in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.
In April, Dr Farsalinos published “COVID-19, a disease of the nicotinic cholinergic system? Nicotine may be protective” as a preprint paper. In it, the authors noted, “evidence of a low prevalence of smoking among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in China”.
The NNA says: “There has been global debate about the beneficial effects or otherwise of nicotine towards the chances of contracting Coronavirus and ensuing severity of outcomes once infected. Dr Farsalinos is one of the first in the world to analyse the mounting data and produce research suggesting that nicotine may have protective properties.
“What exactly does the evidence tell us so far? Why are we seeing such wildly conflicting and confusing messages on the subject? What should we make of the nascent studies being undertaken in several countries to figure out the role of nicotine as a potential preventative force against Covid-19 and what should consumers make of it all?”
Related:
- Donate to the New Nicotine Alliance – [link]
- Join the NNA as a supporter – [link]
- Dr Farsalinos on Twitter – [link]
- Dr Farsalinos on Facebook – [link]
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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