Nicotine - Retracted Studies, Papers, and Articles: Difference between revisions

===2022: [https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Rodu-Plurphanswat-CrossSec-Studies-IAEM-2022.pdf Cross‑sectional e‑cigarette studies are unreliable without timing of exposure and disease diagnosis]===

*"Studies based on cross-sectional data with no information on age of e-cigarette initiation and age of diagnosis invariably overestimate associations by including cases that were diagnosed before e-cigarette exposure. Although the authors of those studies did not make causal claims in the reports, university media releases and subsequent media articles invariably misled the public to believe that e-cigarette use increases risk for diseases."

*Commentary: [https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Polosa-Commentary-IAEM-2022.pdf A tale of fawed e‑cigarette research undetected by defective peer review process]

*Article: [https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Rodu-Plurphanswat-CrossSec-Studies-IAEM-2022.pdf Diseases That Studies Linked to E-Cigarettes Generally Were Diagnosed Before Subjects Began Vaping]

===2022: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018638/ Analysis of common methodological flaws in the highest cited e-cigarette epidemiology research]===

*Conclusion: "Our critical appraisal reveals common, preventable flaws, the identification of which may provide guidance to researchers, reviewers, scientific editor, journalists, and policy makers. One striking result of the review is that a large portion of the high-ranking papers came out of US-dominated research institutions whose funders are unsupportive of a tobacco harm reduction agenda..."

*Article: [https://filtermag.org/vaping-research-quality/ Researchers Expose the Pitiful Quality of Highly Cited Vaping Studies]

===2022: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9506048/ A Critical Review of Recent Literature on Metal Contents in E-Cigarette Aerosol]===

*Abstract: "The inhalation of metallic compounds in e-cigarette (EC) aerosol emissions presents legitimate concerns of potential harms for users. We provide a critical review of laboratory studies published after 2017 on metal contents in EC aerosol, focusing on the consistency between their experimental design, real life device usage and appropriate evaluation of exposure risks. All experiments reporting levels above toxicological markers for some metals (e.g., nickel, lead, copper, manganese) exhibited the following experimental flaws: (i) high powered sub-ohm tank devices tested by means of puffing protocols whose airflows and puff volumes are conceived and appropriate for low powered devices; this testing necessarily involves overheating conditions that favor the production of toxicants and generate aerosols that are likely repellent to human users; (ii) miscalculation of exposure levels from experimental outcomes; (iii) pods and tank devices acquired months and years before the experiments, so that corrosion effects cannot be ruled out; (iv) failure to disclose important information on the characteristics of pods and tank devices, on the experimental methodology and on the resulting outcomes, thus hindering the interpretation of results and the possibility of replication"

===2022: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9787926/ Critical Review of the Recent Literature on Organic Byproducts in E-Cigarette Aerosol Emissions]===

*Abstract: "We review the literature on laboratory studies quantifying the production of potentially toxic organic byproducts (carbonyls, carbon monoxide, free radicals and some nontargeted compounds) in e-cigarette (EC) aerosol emissions, focusing on the consistency between their experimental design and a realistic usage of the devices, as determined by the power ranges of an optimal regime fulfilling a thermodynamically efficient process of aerosol generation that avoids overheating and “dry puffs”. The majority of the reviewed studies failed in various degrees to comply with this consistency criterion or supplied insufficient information to verify it. Consequently, most of the experimental outcomes and risk assessments are either partially or totally unreliable and/or of various degrees of questionable relevance to end users. Studies testing the devices under reasonable approximation to realistic conditions detected levels of all organic byproducts that are either negligible or orders of magnitude lower than in tobacco smoke. Our review reinforces the pressing need to update and improve current laboratory standards by an appropriate selection of testing parameters and the logistical incorporation of end users in the experimental design."

===2017: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769337/ Carbonyl Emissions in E-cigarette Aerosol: A Systematic Review and Methodological Considerations]===

*Importantly, control for the generation of dry puffs was not performed in the vast majority of studies, particularly in studies using variable power devices, which could result in testing conditions and reported carbonyl levels that have no clinical relevance or context.  

===2017: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28864295/ E-cigarettes emit very high formaldehyde levels only in conditions that are aversive to users: A replication study under verified realistic use conditions]===

*The high levels of formaldehyde emissions that were reported in a previous study were caused by unrealistic use conditions that create the unpleasant taste of dry puffs to e-cigarette users and are thus avoided.

===2015: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25996087/ E-cigarettes generate high levels of aldehydes only in 'dry puff' conditions]===

*Electronic cigarettes produce high levels of aldehyde only in dry puff conditions, in which the liquid overheats, causing a strong unpleasant taste that e-cigarette users detect and avoid.

=Science Hygiene, the efforts to correct mistakes or seek retractions by experts=

===2024: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/E128EE4F19CD39411FAFDDB6A88FED Trends in Current Electronic Cigarette Use Among Youths by Age, Sex, and Race and Ethnicity]===

*Despite the authors correcting recognizing that “no trends… should be inferred” between 2020 and 2021, they infer trends between 2021 and 2022, thus making the very same error, as the artifact relates to NYTS 2021 alone, not 2021 and every year thereafter. (Selya)

===2024: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/DEF986999C6287FCD8FD4048A0B8EE Dual and poly-nicotine and tobacco use among adolescents in the United States from 2011 to 2022]===

*"Overall, Zhang et al. improperly conclude that there is a true uptick in dual- and poly-use of nicotine and tobacco in NYTS, but did not attribute any of their findings to a well-documented methodological artifact in NYTS 2021 which renders the findings inconclusive, as (in the words of official NYTS publications) 'differences between estimates might be due to changes in methodology, actual behavior, or both.' ” (Selya)

===2023: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/3BF65B1CBECA15D0EC1068CF8628BC#2 Biochemical Validation of Dependence on JUUL and Other E-Cigarettes Among Youth]===

*"Readers may be interested to know that there is now a comment to the Pierce et al paper from Shiffman and Hannon. The commenters raise questions about the conclusions drawn by the original authors and report alternative analyses of the same dataset." (Gitchell)

*"To this last point, Pierce and Strong’s response now reports a relevant analysis, and it directly contradicts their assertion in the original paper: they demonstrate that dependence among JUUL users in each age cohort was not different from dependence in users of other ENDS brands (though the trend is evidently for lower dependence among JUUL users)." (Shiffman)

===2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/1FF8B75DFC81492DEBC8E214F63098 Consumption of JUUL vs. Other E-Cigarette Brands among U.S. E-Cigarette Users: Evidence from Wave 5 of the PATH Study]===

*A re-analysis of the data by Foxon & Shiffman (2) revealed that those analyses did not include replicate weights as specified in guidance from the PATH study team. Foxon & Shiffman (2) show that when the above analyses are performed with the replicate weights included, the associations above are statistically non-significant. (Foxon, Shiffman)

===2021: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/57A74561DC4B1B43B91E18A95A24A5 Use frequency and symptoms of nicotine dependence among adolescent E-cigarette users: Comparison of JUUL and Non-JUUL users]===

*In summary, by imputing respondents who reported that they “don’t know” which ENDS brand they used to the non-JUUL group even if they may have used JUUL, and by relying on ‘any’ JUUL use definitions which defined as JUUL users those who “usually” used a different ENDS brand, the original analysis systematically biases against the focal brand (JUUL) being studied. (Foxon, Shiffman)

*In summary, the results of Mantey et al. are invalid, because they were based on a definition of JUUL use that is not justified by the brand information in the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey.(Rodu)

===2019: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/1F7BA5A2DEC4EF71CA4E7F34C69806 Prevalence of vaping and smoking among adolescents in Canada, England, and the United States: repeat national cross sectional surveys]===

*These (improbable) increases conflict with official data from Statistics Canada that were released shortly after the publication of the paper drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey, with a representative sample of 65,000. (Bates)

===2018: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/58B4D5D27C6A7C45EE3A094D324368 Prevalence and correlates of JUUL use among a national sample of youth and young adults]===

*The results from this article are uninformative, because the authors did not include simple crosstabs of the raw numbers showing the overlap in current use of ENDS, JUUL and combustible products. They failed to denote current ENDS use in the model for Table two. (Rodu)

===2014: Comments RE: [https://sci-hub.wf/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.733 Electronic Cigarettes and Conventional Cigarette Use Among US Adolescents]===

*"In a cross-sectional study, the observed relationship between e-cigarette use and higher and more sustained levels of smoking does not imply causation. Moreover, such studies do not take into account other population characteristics, which may play a crucial role when determining potential causation.2,3 Although the authors acknowledged this limitation in the text, they ended up drawing a conclusion that misleads the public into thinking e-cigarettes are leading to smoking initiation and addiction among adolescents." (Farsalinos, Polosa)

*"Although Dutra and Glantz highlighted an important trend in e-cigarette use among our nation’s youth, failing to consider e-cigarette use in the context of other tobacco products may place undue emphasis on e-cigarettes, overshadowing the importance of the current use of multiple tobacco products as well as experimentation with cigars, smokeless tobacco, and hookah in this population." (Delnevo, Bover Manderski,Giovino)

==Cardiovascular==

*"The more they looked at the article, the more problems they saw. The work was based on data from an annual survey on health and nutrition by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the reported number of survey respondents was inexplicably off by an order of magnitude—the survey is completed by about 5000 people a year, but the paper cited 266,058 respondents from 2015 to 2018. The authors also failed to report whether the difference in age of stroke onset between vapers and traditional smokers could simply be due to vapers being younger overall. And those were just a few of the obvious issues, according to Cohen and Foxon, who alerted both the authors and the journal to their concerns." (Joelving)

*See Also: [https://twitter.com/FloeFoxon/status/1786522387338465755 Tweetorial] (Foxon) and [https://pubpeer.com/publications/1F118DC9A92A4FC13507BB5448462D PubPeer] (Richardson)

===2024: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/CD0E2CD6E82EB2F69173F5A1193331#1 Electronic Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction]===

*See also: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11055619/ Questionable Effects of Electronic Cigarette Use on Cardiovascular Diseases From the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS, 2014-2021)]

**The study by Alzahrani made erroneous claims and overstated the association between e-cigarettes and myocardial infarction. Our replication shows that the association is driven by age and there were no statistically significant associations with other cardiovascular diseases, coronary heart diseases, and stroke.

===2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/B1574611ED725601C17C3766DB164E Association Between E-Cigarette Use and Cardiovascular Disease Among Never and Current Combustible-Cigarette Smokers]===

*"The study by Osei et al. used the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, which contains no information about when participants started to smoke or vape, or when they were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. A recent analysis by my research group of data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health, which contains this essential temporal information, provides definitive evidence that the results from Osei et al. are deficient and unreliable." (Rodu)

===2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/D075EB2EED18CA0311BAC77C783777 Cardiovascular Outcomes Associated With Adult Electronic Cigarette Use]===

*"The study by Vindhyal et al. used the National Health Interview Survey, which contains no information about when participants started to smoke or vape, or when they were diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases." (Rodu)

===2020: Comments RE: [https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-on-smoking-vaping-and-stroke-risk/ Risk of Stroke With E-Cigarette and Combustible Cigarette Use in Young Adults]===

*“While the paper itself is careful in interpreting the finding, the press release is grossly misleading. The study provides no justification for the claim that vaping increases the risk of stroke.” (Hajek)

*"While this paper highlights the need to continue studying the potential health effects of e-cigarette use, the results should be interpreted with caution as the observed associations may be simply due to unmeasured confounding and reverse causality.” (Shahab)

===2020-2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/E4180AE40B2A0F076D7D07CE0B7961 Association Between Electronic Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction]===

*See also: [https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.amepre.2018.11.013 2018]  

**"Our findings show the well-established limitations of cross-sectional studies, which cannot justify any claims about causal inference, as mentioned in the conclusion by Alzahrani and colleagues.1 Therefore, the conclusion of their study is incorrect and should be revised." (Farsalinos, Niaura)

==Cessation==

**C. Analyses focus on an inappropriately narrow time window that does not fully capture the relevant dynamics. Together these flaws substantially underestimate the degree to which e-cigarettes may have displaced or offset cigarette smoking among youth and young adults.

**Moreover, the conclusion that e-cigarette uptake is independent of the declines in cigarette smoking runs counter to a large and varied body of evidence that e-cigarettes substitute for or displace cigarettes. The authors only discuss two such papers, attempting to undermine their conclusions using some of the same flaws that underlie their own analyses, and neglect to mention the larger body of evidence. Together, this yields an article that could cause readers to hold a distorted view of the available evidence on these important issues." (Selya, Gitchell, Foxon, Sembower, Niaura)

===2016-2020: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/E2628F04937D0DBD870E115CB41C8B E-cigarettes and smoking cessation in real-world and clinical settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis]===

*[https://antithrlies.com/2016/01/17/sunday-science-lesson-what-is-meta-analysis-and-why-was-glantzs-inherently-junk/ Sunday Science Lesson: What is “meta-analysis”? (and why was Glantz’s inherently junk?)]

**"Glantz’s meta-analysis is not just junk science because of details about the studies, though those are problems in themselves. It is junk science because there are probably not even two of the studies in his collection that are similar enough to average together, let alone all of them." (Phillips)

==COVID==

*"It is important to state that there is no empiric evidence of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus or any other pathogen through vaping expirations. None of the sources cited by the authors on this issue (references cited in the first paragraph above) provide such evidence, they merely speculate about it in very vague general terms.

*Given the lack of experimental detection, the potential plausibility and scope of this pathogen transmission should be discussed through well structured models based on the theory and data of pathogen transmission mechanisms. Unfortunately, the authors missed three extensive articles in which we undertook this task (links to the articles). (Sussman)

===2020: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/CEB008BBD48F89272321EB50092793 Association Between Youth Smoking, Electronic Cigarette Use, and COVID-19]===

*[https://www.qeios.com/read/TCEJ7G Qeios 2]

**"In a recent study, Gaiha et al. examined the association between e-cigarette use and COVID-19 in an online cross-sectional study of people aged 13-24 years conducted from May 6 to May 14, 2020. We have noticed serious issues in population weighting, response bias and biological implausibility. The suggested conclusions and interpretation of the study findings cannot be considered reliable. These issues raise the question of retracting the study." (Farsalinos, Niaura)

==Diabetes and Prediabetes==

===2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/D3C8E2035BE5C164E9BC19D8D50571 E-cigarette use is associated with a self-reported diagnosis of prediabetes in never cigarette smokers: Results from the behavioral risk factor surveillance system survey]===

*"The results by Atuegwu et al. are deficient and unreliable, because the authors used the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, which contains no information about when participants started to smoke or vape, or when they were diagnosed with any disease." (Rodu)

===2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/3638F392BE76DCA7CA57ABC8E554BF#1 The Association Between E-Cigarette Use and Prediabetes: Results From the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2016-2018]===

**Limitations of this study include self-report of tobacco use and lack of medical confirmation of prediabetes and other diet information

**BRFSS is a cross-sectional survey, so a causal relationship between E-cigarette use and prediabetes cannot be inferred.

==EVALI==

===2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/053A4DD87764E36C0B9FF00B260480 Discussions of Flavored ENDS Sales Restrictions: Themes Related to Circumventing Policies on Reddit]===

*This article incorrectly states, “In the wake of the e-cigarette or vaping use-related lung injury (EVALI) outbreak in September 2019, electronic cigarette manufacturer JUUL voluntarily removed flavored pods aside from tobacco and menthol from the U.S. market” That sentence is false and creates a factually inaccurate and damaging link in a reader’s mind between JUUL products and the 2019 lung injuries (EVALI) when none exists. In fact, Juul Labs reduced its flavor portfolio to tobacco and menthol to combat underage use and the ingredients of JUUL products do not include vitamin E compounds or THC that were primarily linked to EVALI. (Murillo)

==Flavors==

*A recent study in Tobacco Control relating to an analysis of “JUUL-related” Instagram posts contains serious factual errors and mischaracterizations of JUUL Labs’ historical social-media activity, falsely tying the company to the activities of manufacturers of “JUUL compatible” products that we believe are illegally on the market. (JUUL)

* [https://pubpeer.com/publications/B1DD80F0C868A59D609F0B9699E5F9 Additional comments]: In fact, a completely different story emerges from the data as qualified by Juul's statement. This is that FDA's failure to control newly-introduced Juul look-a-likes (which are illegal if introduced after 8 August 2016) is spawning a lawless industry driven by social media and in conflict with Juul's efforts to control sales of its products to youth. The study does not interrogate the underlying reality and I think Juul is right to react strongly. (Bates)

==Multiple Outcomes==

*"The study provides zero evidence on any risk associated with e-cigarette use, whether absolute risk or in comparison with smoking. The question that was supposed to be addressed in this metanalysis CANNOT be examined with the studies included in their analysis." (Farsalinos)

*[https://pubpeer.com/publications/9E38A75C420D1F19DA0D48C37FA8D8 See Also]: "The methods look impressive, but the devil is in the dirty details buried in the nearly 100 pages supplemental material. The authors have done an admirable job collecting studies and organizing them, but the conclusions reached are untenable, and unsupportable at least for now." (Cummings)

===2022: Comments RE: [https://colinmendelsohn.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Mendelsohn-Wodak-Hall-Borland.-A-critical-analysis-of-Ecigs-and-health-outcomes-systematic-review-of-global-evidence.-DAR-2022.pdf Electronic cigarettes and health outcomes: systematic review of global evidence]===

*Contrary to the conclusions of the Banks review, the evidence suggests that vaping nicotine is an effective smoking cessation aid; that vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking tobacco; that vaping is diverting young people away from smoking; and that vaping by smokers is likely to have a major net public health benefit if widely available to adult Australian smokers. (Mendelsohn)

===2022: Comments RE: [https://pubpeer.com/publications/727EA7B64FB27270F20717729D7629 Effects of mango and mint pod-based e-cigarette aerosol inhalation on inflammatory states of the brain, lung, heart, and colon in mice]===

*Although this new research from Moshensky et al., does add to the scientific literature about previously marketed JUUL products, we believe the conclusions presented in the manuscript are not adequately supported by the study data. In addition, the lack of quantitative data on actual dosing limits the ability to establish relevance to potential human exposures from product use. Furthermore, the lack of a comparison against the effects of tobacco smoke limits the ability to evaluate these study findings in the context of the tobacco product risk continuum, and risk relative to use of combusted cigarettes. (Weil)

==Respiratory==