On January 27, a group of tobacco control experts published a letter in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), urging the public health community to move away from categorizing scientists as either “opponents” or “supporters” of e-cigarettes.
The co-authors—including Micah Berman, an associate professor of public health and law at Ohio State; Pamela Ling, a professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco; and Joanna Cohen, the Bloomberg professor of disease prevention at Johns Hopkins University—write that the terminology “highlights division rather than the many areas in which there is agreement.” Meaning, they go on, that most scientists would agree both that e-cigarettes have a place for adult smokers looking to switch and that youth should not experiment with nicotine.
The authors of the letter were responding to an AJPH article from last August, when some of the most esteemed and influential tobacco control experts endorsed the harm reduction benefits of vaping and lamented that news coverage skews overwhelmingly toward risks to youth. They agree, they write, “that much more needs to be done in the United States and in countries around the world to reduce the burden of combustible products quickly and decisively and to help smokers quit.”
Alex Norcia – Filter – 2022-01-28.
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