Where there’s smoke — the cigarettes-and-COVID story is growing harder to ignore | Colby Cosh

Date:

For smokers to do better in ANY health measure taken from ANY sample in ANY situation is astonishing. But now we have two studies showing that smokers do better with COVID

Maybe it’s time to talk about cigarettes and COVID-19. As a smoker I did not really want to be at the forefront of this conversation. When early data from China, where half of adult males smoke, showed that current cigarette smokers were bizarrely underrepresented among severe COVID-19 cases, I was happy to let Vice have its countercultural fun with the story. When the same thing seemed to be happening in France, the United States and elsewhere, I let the revered Economist handle it.

Things got a little more serious on Thursday, when researchers based in England, with the renowned Ben Goldacre as joint principal investigator, released a population-based study of COVID-19 risk factors based on National Health Service electronic health records. The “smoker’s paradox,” up until that moment a sort of odd smell that was motivating small-scale French research into nicotine, fell out of the data and lay wriggling like a boated flounder on the floor.

This is prospectively collected data, albeit in rushed “preprint” form, from a sample of 17 million people. It turned out current smokers had a significantly lower risk of COVID-19 death than both never-smokers and former smokers when you correct for other variables, including many of the health problems that smoking intensifies. (Note that former smokers will still have these, but should still, as any doctor will tell you till your ears plop off, be better off than those who have kept the habit.)

Read full article here.

Colby Cosh – National Post – May 11, 2020.

Want More Investigative Content?

Curate RegWatch
Curate RegWatchhttps://regulatorwatch.com
In addition to our original coverage, RegWatch curates top stories on issues and impacts arising from the regulation of economic, social and environmental activity in Canada and the U.S.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

MORE VAPING

Real Threat | Health Minister Unravels Canada’s Tobacco Strategy | RegWatch

Canadian Federal Health Minister Mark Holland is launching a crusade against safer nicotine products, driven by the uncompromising stance of non-profit health groups vehemently...