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** 26 February 2020
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** UK
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** Vaping and heart disease: Setting the record straight (#1)
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** Wales: Mum who smoked 20 cigarettes a day has part of her tongue removed after developing cancer (#2)
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** Bertie the sniffer dog catches Bolton illegal tobacco seller (#3)
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** International
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** US: New Juul patent application hints at AI-powered vape to help users quit nicotine (#4)
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** UK
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**

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Senior Researcher in Health Behaviours at the University of Oxford, writes about the dangers of misinformation from research on e-cigarettes.

“In June 2019, a paper by prominent US academics found that people who used e-cigarettes were at greater risk of a heart attack. … Eight months later, the paper was retracted. When a paper is retracted it means we can’t trust its results. It’s like being unpublished. The problem is, the paper still exists — it’s in news stories, it’s on social media, it’s in documentaries. Smokers see these stories and increasingly think e-cigarettes are as harmful as smoking. That’s a problem because smoking is deadly. …

We can try to learn from this, and it takes several forms. For researchers and the people who fund and publish research, it means not just doing more research, but doing good research, subject to rigorous, critical review. It also means doing open research; it is possible that if the initial data was publicly available, the flawed analysis may not have made it to publication in the first place.

It means being aware of ‘hot stuff bias‘, where topics that get a lot of media attention attract more bad science than those that are less on the radar. As readers, it means thinking about what we read and looking to trusted sources for information on health topics. As responsible scientists, it also means sticking to the evidence we have and sharing that information whenever we can.

There’s so much we don’t know about e-cigarettes, but there are some things we do know:
• We need more research. E-cigarettes are relatively new to the market and the devices are changing all the time.
• Expert consensus is that regulated, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are considerably less risky than smoking traditional cigarettes.
• That said, e-cigarettes are not risk free. For people who don’t smoke, vaping will probably introduce health risks.
• Not all e-cigarettes are the same. The outbreaks of vaping-related illness in the US over the past year have been largely attributed to vaping cannabis. …
• Nicotine is not the harmful ingredient in cigarettes, or in e-cigarettes. … it’s the other ingredients in cigarettes that cause the increased risk of death and disease.

It is difficult to talk about retractions and their lasting impact without going back to the infamous — and since retracted — paper linking autism to MMR vaccines. Though withdrawn in 2010, the impact of this long-discredited article still looms large, with vaccine scepticism linked to recent outbreaks of diseases, such as measles.

We must all do better to make sure we don’t repeat history when it comes to e-cigarettes. That includes being open and critical about science and thinking twice when we read stories about hotly contested topics in healthcare. With topics that attract a lot of attention, journals may be more likely to publish research with inappropriate methods or conclusions, and investigators may take a less critical approach than they would have otherwise. Alarming headlines are catchy, but misinformation might actually kill us.”

Source: The Conversation, 24 February 2020
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When smoker Jayne Campbell went to her dentist for a routine appointment, a strange "discoloured patch" was spotted underneath her tongue. Jayne was immediately referred to a specialist dental hospital in Cardiff where doctors gave her the devastating diagnosis of mouth cancer. It led to the 57-year-old needing a section of her tongue and part of the floor of her mouth removed to stop the disease from spreading.

"Even though everyone knows smoking isn't good for you, you still don't think it's going to happen to you," admitted Jayne, from Brackla, Bridgend. "When I was told [I had cancer] I was just stunned, I couldn't believe it. My husband was with me and his face just went white."

Jayne, who described herself as a "life-long smoker", had previously smoked 20 cigarettes a day for 35 years. But as soon as the diagnosis was confirmed in 2016, she knew it was time to quit once and for all.

"I knew I had to quit smoking straight away. Even though I was really scared, I had to be brave for my husband and two daughters. The worst thing was I knew everyone I loved would worry and there was nothing that I could do to take that worry away. That was awful."

Within four weeks, Jayne had the tongue and mouth surgery which was successful and allowed her to recover quickly. She has not had a cigarette since her diagnosis thanks initially to the help of nicotine patches and an app which tells her how much money she has saved. Jayne added: "As of today the app says that I have not smoked over 23,000 cigarettes and have saved £7,682.00 which is brilliant. I would say to anyone looking to give up: it is hard at first, but it gets easier as time goes by.”

Source: Wales Online, 25 February 2020
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A man has been given a suspended prison sentence after a sniffer dog's diligent nose helped trading standards officers find more than 5,000 illegal cigarettes. At Manchester Magistrates' Court shop owner, Marcin Wenderski, from Bolton, was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for a year after pleading guilty to trademark and tobacco regulation offences. He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,245 in costs and charges.

On May 9 last year, acting on a tip off regarding the sale of illegal tobacco, Manchester City Council officers discovered a range of tobacco products being sold behind the counter. The officers were joined by a tobacco detection dog — Bertie — whose attention was drawn to an apparently empty back stock room. However, further examination of a cupboard revealed that it had a false back, with additional illegal tobacco found inside. In total, officers seized 750g of rolling tobacco, and 5,057 cigarettes.

Cllr Rabnawaz Akbar, from Manchester City Council said: "This prosecution shows is that it pays off for us to always be vigilant. Credit is due to our trading standards officers and legal team for securing this successful conviction."

Source: The Bolton News, 25 February 2020
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** International
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**

Juul has applied for a patent regarding a device, powered by artificial intelligence, that the company says could help users quit nicotine by restricting daily consumption and gradually weaning them off the product. The e-cigarette company applied for the patent last summer, and the application was recently made public, according to The Logic.

The patent application describes a device that would work “in communication” with a vaporiser and would alternate nicotine and a similar, non-nicotine product, such as citric acid, to gradually reduce the user’s nicotine intake. According to the application, a “controller may apply machine learning to adjust delivery of nicotine and/or non-nicotine vaporizable material” based on the users’ behaviour. That behaviour “may be learned through monitoring the vaporiser use and behaviour of the user,” the application states.

So by training your vaporiser to learn how often and how much you vape nicotine, Juul’s proposed device — which could be connected to a smartphone, according to the patent application — would determine how and when to substitute the non-nicotine product to taper off the nicotine.

This is an idea Juul has been floating for a while: James Monsees, Juul’s co-founder and chief product officer, told TechCrunch in 2018 that the company was planning a smartphone-connected device that would authenticate users and help them quit if they wanted to.

Source: The Verge, 25 February 2020
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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