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Butthurt Stan

Posted 9th June 2020 by Dave Cross
 Butthurt Stan lead image
An article produced by the Kentucky Centre for Smoke-free Policy has prompted a bitter Stanton Glantz into revealing his unapologetic feelings over a retraction of one of his papers. Called “fraudulent”, his deeply flawed paper on vaping’s impact on the heart was pulled by The Journal of American Heart Association.

Stanton has been striving to prove a link between vaping and heart attacks for years. In 2018, Colin Mendelsohn, a tobacco treatment specialist and Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, reacted to his work: “Shameful! Professor Glantz claims his study shows that ecigs double heart attack risk. The study finds no such thing; it shows heart attack survivors are more likely to use ecigs to quit than others. It is impossible to make any causal link. No wonder the public is confused.

Before accepting the conclusion that vaping causes heart attacks in unsuspecting smokers, remember the old adage: correlation does not equal causation. This study is a perfect demonstration of that phenomenon.”

When the Journal of American Heart Association published “Electronic Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction Among Adults in the US Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health” it was met with almost universal condemnation. Scientists who do not comment on vaping matters joined in a call to have it retracted – something the journal resolutely refused to do for eight months.

Finally, it wrote: “During peer review, the reviewers identified the important question of whether the myocardial infarctions occurred before or after the respondents initiated e‐cigarette use, and requested that the authors use additional data in the PATH codebook (age of first MI and age of first e‐cigarettes use) to address this concern.”

Glantz refused to let people examine his work and ended up not just with egg on his face, but also managed to get banned from using the PATH data in future – and succeeded in getting his colleagues and institution banned into the bargain.

Smoore

From experience, Glantz is one of those people who never apologises or admits mistakes. This was clear throughout the shocking process after he was accused of sexual harassment by two colleagues.

He settled a no fault-no apology complaint lodged by Dr. Eunice Neeley, following her claims of sexual harassment and race discrimination. Then news broke that Juliette Jackson had made similar claims.

But it was this attack on his academic credibility that stung the worst.

At a time where Stan is running low on friends, the Kentucky Centre for Smoke-free Policy has leapt to his defence. Why would it do this? It receives its funding from the State’s declining Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement income [link].

Innokin

Maybe they wouldn’t be so keen had the state not wasted 50% of its income on agricultural programs. And maybe, through grabbing the money up front by issuing bonds, Kentucky will have to find 1,800 times the $2.5 billion it borrowed when they mature [link].

In “On the Glantz Retraction and Phillip Morris Tactics”, the Kentucky Centre writes that the retraction bore the hallmarks of previous tobacco industry tactics. It, the centre says, “has an extensive history of attempting to divide scientists and researchers to disrupt the evidence of harm due to tobacco products.”

Nothing to do with his serious flaws and academic fraudulence then?

Glantz leapt on the centre’s article, saying: “People should share this with JAHA editors. In over 40 years of publishing, I've never seen a journal get railroaded by an industry campaign the was JAHA was.”

Fortunately, Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos set him straight: “In fact, it is similar to every other irresponsible and careless study that needs, should and will be challenged. In that case, knowingly presenting e-cigs as a risk factor for disease that happened before e-cig use initiation.”

Elux

Related:

  • Second Sexual Harassment Case For Glantz, POTV – [link]
  • Glantz Settles Claim, POTV – [link]
  • Glantz Discipline Letter Leak, POTV – [link]
  • Glantz Debunked, POTV – [link]
  • Glantz Study Retracted, POTV – [link]
  • On the Glantz Retraction and Phillip Morris Tactics, Kentucky Centre for Smoke-free Policy – [link]

Image by Darko Djurin from Pixabay


 Dave Cross
Article by Dave Cross
Freelance writer, salad destroyer and live culture convert.
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