NNA Condemns False Information

The New Nicotine Alliance (NNA) developed from a group of individuals who have contributed since 2016 to improving individual, organisational and public understanding of what is known as tobacco harm reduction - reducing harm from cigarette smoking without necessarily giving up the use of nicotine. 

It says: “The Board of NNA, and our Associates include ex-smokers, most of whom have succeeded in giving up smoking through the use of other nicotine delivery systems, public health analysts and scientists.

“We wish to see a mature public and organisational understanding of the potential of safer nicotine products for reducing cigarette smoking, including their safety and efficacy, and hence contribute to the reduction in cigarette smoking.”

The NNA says it has contacted the publishing journal on several occasions. Despite this contact, Sage Journals has failed to address the serious error.

The charity adds “that the claims by the study’s authors are fundamentally untrue, and that the process to correct them has been unduly slow.”

The NNA says it contacted Sage Journals, the Editor-in-Chief and the Deputy Editor-in-Chief on 21 February, then again on two separate occasions. It believes that the uncorrected errors have “the potential to cause further reputational damage to our charity.” 

The published paper currently states: “In addition to PR campaigns, tobacco companies have leveraged a vast network of non-profit organizations to interfere with scientific and policy processes (Torjesen, 2021; Vassey, Hendlin, et al., 2022) and advocate for the proliferation of e-cigarettes (Jackler, 2022). For example, the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations (INNCO), and its member organizations including The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA), and the New Nicotine Alliance (NNA), are funded by Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), a 501c(3) established in full by tobacco giant Phillip Morris International (International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO)—TobaccoTactics, n.d.).”

The NNA is not funded by Foundation for a Smoke-Free World or Phillip Morris International.

The authors claim to have received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of their article. They ignore the fact that Bloomberg Philanthropies funds The Truth Initiative.

The NNA states: “We find it unacceptable that entirely inaccurate and unfounded material should remain in a published study for over three months and would question whether this matter is being ‘actively investigated.’ We are also curious as to why an organisation calling itself The Truth Initiative should be content with totally untrue information being promoted under its name, more than two months after we alerted the journal of the errors.”

It continues: “We are heartened that our efforts seem to be such a threat to those opposed to harm reduction that they resort to such underhand tactics, but there can be no excuse for the delay in correcting demonstrably fictitious assertions. Therefore, we wish to make it clear, once again, that there are no grounds whatsoever for these claims and that the authors and their chosen journal are abrogating their responsibilities to present accurate information.”

References:

• The New Nicotine Alliance - https://nnalliance.org/index.php

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

View Articles

Dave 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.