Index of my Daily Vaper articles (2)

by Carl V Phillips

In my last post, I noted that most of my writing is currently at The Daily Vaper. I also promised that I would keep an index of those publications here for those who following this and not those, highlighting the ones that fans of this blog might be particularly interested in. This also provides an option for commenting on them, which DV does not have, and a chance for me to add a bit more about some of them.

[Update: Indexing is hard and unrewarding. I stopped after this one. Maybe someday I will circle back.]

Here is my belated second entry in the series. I will try to do this more frequently so the list is not so long (sorry — maybe keep this tab open and take a few days to get to all of them you want to see).

In rough descending order of what I think regular readers of this blog would find most interesting (I expect you will want to read at least the first seven):

1. I wrote a science lesson about anchoring bias and why it means that we should really stop describing the risks from low-risk tobacco products in relation to smoking (e.g., “99% less harmful”). I have hinted at some of this here, but I have never really nailed it before. This is new analysis. Anyone interested in my evolving thinking about accurate messaging — based on more years of experience and thought than anyone else involved in this realm — should definitely read this.

2. I reported on a court ruling that is fairly obscure, but truly delightful: The usual gang of anti-tobacco groups petitioned to be co-defendants, alongside FDA, in a suit against FDA by cigar manufacturers over aspects of the deeming regulation. The judge denied it. Why should we care? Because the ruling basically said that they are not stakeholders. For those of us constantly frustrated by the bullshit suggestion that they are (let alone that the primary stakeholders, tobacco product consumers, are not), this is just too good. Unfortunately I suspect I am the only one who will try to make anything of this. I strongly encourage those of you who are involved in advocacy (and especially those involved in lawsuits) to run with it. It really is a huge potential lever.

3. This piece is about the unethical scientific practices of tobacco controllers, specifically their flouting of human subjects protection rules. These are bright-line violations of codified rules, unlike the usual unethical behavior of tobacco control which is evil but not unlawful. I mention a couple of the reports about that which I have written here along with some new material. I suggest that perhaps a blanket boycott campaign would make sense. If I have time, I will write a piece about that specifically for this blog.

4. My personal favorite is this one, where I catch FDA chief Scott Gottlieb, in congressional testimony, offering basically the NIDA definition of “addiction”, a definition that clearly excludes tobacco products (including cigarettes). As my readers know, I have made a study of what people mean when they say “addiction”, and how there is apparently no viable definition that anyone wants to defend that actually includes tobacco/nicotine. In this case, Gottlieb was stuck because he had to talk about opioid addiction, and so was forced effectively undercut all the CTP rhetoric on the subject. Well, undercut it if anyone decides to challenge them based on this, which probably will not happen. The industry is not exactly known for being that clever.

(Foreshadowing note: I actually think I have figured out how to characterize what people mean when they say smoking etc. are addictive. One of these days I hope to write a major piece on this.)

5. In what could basically be an uncharacteristically terse version of a post here, I wrote about a recent “what parents need to know” statement about vaping in JAMA Pediatrics. It was all the terrible you might expect. I shredded it. If your appreciation for shredding exceeds your inclination to be annoyed by the terrible, you should find it a satisfying little read.

6. I reported how, after Senator Chuck Schumer launched an amazingly stupid attack on vaping in a press conference, Gottlieb practically fellated him on Twitter. (No, I did not put it quite that way.) This suggests that despite all the overly-optimistic talk of regime change at FDA, nothing has really changed in terms of who they consider their political patrons. (*cough* *told you so* *cough*)

5. My most recent piece was about the FDA’s Orwellian-named “Real Cost” campaign. I noted that they are about to aim this anti-scientific propaganda campaign, currently focused on smokeless tobacco and smoking, at vaping. I recount some of the campaign’s content and assess what they will do regarding vaping. I will write more about this shortly.

6. I did some original data analysis in this article, based on a recent CDC report of vaping rates across demographics and occupations. The authors could not see past the raw vaping rates. This is merely an uninteresting echo of the smoking rates; whoever smokes most is going to vape most. I looked at the ratio of vapers to smokers, which is actually useful. I found that across almost every group, the ratio is very close to the overall average. This effectively shows that the rate of switching from smoking to vaping is about the same across the different groups. The one big exception was African-Americans, where the ratio is much lower. That is, few smokers in that population are switching to vaping. I suppose this is worth a journal article, but I do not have time. (Free easy publication for any student or academic who wants to take the lead and write that with me! Seriously, let me know if you are interested.)

7. In this brief piece, I review the results of a recent paper that shows the anti-vaping bias in mainstream media reporting. It just confirms what we all know, but does a nice job of it. Most notably, it observes that anti-vaping statements tend to be attributed to people with supposedly expert credentials (though obviously they are really either clueless or liars), while the truth is attributed to advocates who the average reader will (mistakenly) consider less credible.

8. Here I analyzed a research paper out of FDA which is part of their assessment of how MRTP labeling might affect consumers. Unsurprisingly, it seems designed to make the case that allowing manufactures should not be allowed to tell the truth about their products. The study was bad, and they clearly intend to spin it worse.

9. I reported on FDA’s release of “adverse event” type records that they collect for tobacco products, which are really mostly about vapor products. I noted it is pretty much meaningless, but that it might be used in anti-vaping advocacy. I indicated my suspicion that FDA released it for just that purpose, not because of some belief it should be available because it is genuinely informative (it is not).

10. In this science lesson, I summarized my analysis that shows that the optimal tax rate for low-risk tobacco products is zero if the goal is to promote population health, or any other defensible stated goal. Not “lower than the tax on cigarettes” or “proportional to the risk”, but zero. My readers will already be familiar with these arguments, though if you are looking for a short summary, this is it.

11. I tried to assess the recent FDA “guidance” about the ban on free samples of vapor products (e.g., sampling e-liquid flavors), now that they are deemed as tobacco products, with all the rules that apply to them. I say “tried” because the guidance sort of says that it does not apply to adults-only venues (e.g., most vape shops). But how exactly this will play out — i.e., will flavor sampling be banned? — is not clear.

12. I analyzed a recent survey by BAT about beliefs about the risks from vaping. It is pretty straightforward “latest study” reporting, though I got some additional data from the researchers that allowed me to offer a better assessment than those who were just working from the press release. The main takeaway is that even in the UK, a ridiculously large portion of the population does not understand that vaping is much less harmful than smoking.

13. I introduced readers to the CASAA Testimonials collection that I created in 2013. Long-time readers of this blog will be familiar with it. I plan to publish more little articles that are excerpts from that collection.

14. Finally, I reported on the fight over vapor product taxes in Pennsylvania. The upshot is that tax structure, not just tax rates, matter a lot. A rather more interesting aspect of that story — and of another story that got spiked — does not appear there. I hope to get time to report it here sometime (ooh, more foreshadowing).

(Damn, that is a lot of material. Comments welcome. I suggest using the serial numbers if you are commenting on one in particular.)