A scientific paper on vaping’s alleged links to heart complaints has been retracted by its publishers.
‘Electronic Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction Among Adults in the US Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health’ by Dharma Bhatta and Stanton Glantz had fuelled widespread fears in the international media since its publication in June 2019.
Vaping commentator and university professor Brad Rodu asked for a retraction on the grounds that the study didn’t say if its subjects had heart attacks before or after they started vaping.
Subsequent analysis showed that – of the 38 patients in the study who’d suffered a heart attack – most had one an average of 10 years before they’d picked up an e-cigarette.
The study’s publisher, Journal of the American Heart Association, is now concerned that its conclusion is ‘unreliable’. As a deadline for the authors to provide additional information was missed, the journal has formally retracted the study, effective immediately.
John Dunne, spokesperson for the UKVIA, welcomed the news: “Quality, peer-reviewed science consistently demonstrates the public health potential of vaping, while studies that reach unreliable conclusions such as this one risk keeping people smoking cigarettes.
“The duty now falls to those in the media, who have given this research and its authors a platform, to make their own urgent retractions and corrections.”
