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===2021, Apr 30 - [https://www.frankfurt-university.de/fileadmin/standard/2021-30-04_Prof._Dr._Sto__ver_Stellungnahme_SC_HEER_Report.pdf Statement addressing the Scheer Report by Professor Heino Stöver]=== | ===2021, Apr 30 - [https://www.frankfurt-university.de/fileadmin/standard/2021-30-04_Prof._Dr._Sto__ver_Stellungnahme_SC_HEER_Report.pdf Statement addressing the Scheer Report by Professor Heino Stöver]=== | ||
*Via Google Translate: "We can only achieve our ideal of a smoke-free continent if we finally include the harm reduction approach on an equal footing in anti-smoking policy. An open-ended debate | *Via Google Translate: "We can only achieve our ideal of a smoke-free continent if we finally include the harm reduction approach on an equal footing in anti-smoking policy. An open-ended debate would be a first step in the right direction on the EU side and could enable many smokers to switch to less harmful products." | ||
would be a first step in the right direction on the EU side and could enable many smokers to switch to less harmful products." | |||
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*Divisive, dominant perspectives on e-cigarettes move the field of nicotine and tobacco science away from scientifically rigorous discourse on this important public health topic, which involves millions of lives at stake. If norms do not change, the polarized climate may pressure trainees to choose or inherit an allegiance towards an uncompromising, one-sided stance. That allegiance can then restrict career development, undermine the credibility of research, and hinder public health progress. There is an urgent need to act to avoid negatively affecting the next generation of nicotine and tobacco research scientists. Though we have suggested some solution-oriented ideas, we are calling for reflection among everyone in the field and particularly among those with influence and power. | *Divisive, dominant perspectives on e-cigarettes move the field of nicotine and tobacco science away from scientifically rigorous discourse on this important public health topic, which involves millions of lives at stake. If norms do not change, the polarized climate may pressure trainees to choose or inherit an allegiance towards an uncompromising, one-sided stance. That allegiance can then restrict career development, undermine the credibility of research, and hinder public health progress. There is an urgent need to act to avoid negatively affecting the next generation of nicotine and tobacco research scientists. Though we have suggested some solution-oriented ideas, we are calling for reflection among everyone in the field and particularly among those with influence and power. | ||
*There are important questions that must be addressed, including: (1) as the field continues to conquer a range of research questions on e-cigarettes across a range of disciplines and career levels, how can we work better together toward the shared end goal of eliminating tobacco-related disease and death?; (2) how can scientists who perpetuate polarized viewpoints be incentivized and supported to improve?; (3) to whom can junior scientists turn for help with navigating the polarization in the field?; and (4) how can the academic community avoid contributing to the polarization that seems to pervade the field? | *There are important questions that must be addressed, including: (1) as the field continues to conquer a range of research questions on e-cigarettes across a range of disciplines and career levels, how can we work better together toward the shared end goal of eliminating tobacco-related disease and death?; (2) how can scientists who perpetuate polarized viewpoints be incentivized and supported to improve?; (3) to whom can junior scientists turn for help with navigating the polarization in the field?; and (4) how can the academic community avoid contributing to the polarization that seems to pervade the field? | ||
===2020, Apr 23 - [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32335031/ Tobacco harm reduction: Past history, current controversies and a proposed approach for the future]=== | |||
*To date, more attention has been paid on the virtues or vices of potential harm reduction products such as e-cigarettes with less focus on cigarettes, which prematurely kills half of its long-term consumers. Most in the tobacco control community would agree that an immediate main goal is to rapidly eliminate tobacco-related death and disease. To effectively achieve this goal, a more cohesive and unified approach is urgently needed before million more lives are lost to tobacco use. | |||
*Perhaps this approach could be achieved by convening yet another strategic dialogue on harm reduction that is led by one of the governmental agencies, a scientific organization and/or by respected scientists who are not strongly associated with one particular ideology. At this meeting, the current and evolving science, modeling that projects population health effects under different scenarios, identification of research gaps and consensus on a potential path towards a sensible and agreeable harm minimization approach can be developed. Keeping focus on how best to regulate combusted tobacco products and ANDS and allowing tobacco harm reduction as a component of a comprehensive tobacco control program would be one such approach. | |||
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*In this short report, I discuss how public health research, its assessment, and its dissemination outside the academy are produced, in part, through emotional circumstances. Using current debates on e-cigarettes as an example, I show that researchers find themselves uncomfortably positioned in complicated moral and affective landscapes, often making it difficult to represent the nuance of their research. | *In this short report, I discuss how public health research, its assessment, and its dissemination outside the academy are produced, in part, through emotional circumstances. Using current debates on e-cigarettes as an example, I show that researchers find themselves uncomfortably positioned in complicated moral and affective landscapes, often making it difficult to represent the nuance of their research. | ||
*Mair and Kierans (2007, p. 109) warned us some time ago that: ‘adopting any normative stance towards tobacco, whether pro- or anti-, would actually interfere with our capacity to document and interpret the significance of tobacco in the lives of those we study’. This statement transfers to the contemporary e-cigarette situation. | *Mair and Kierans (2007, p. 109) warned us some time ago that: ‘adopting any normative stance towards tobacco, whether pro- or anti-, would actually interfere with our capacity to document and interpret the significance of tobacco in the lives of those we study’. This statement transfers to the contemporary e-cigarette situation. | ||
='''Lawmakers / Public Officials'''= | ='''Lawmakers / Public Officials'''= | ||
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