{"id":33784,"date":"2026-02-02T14:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=33784"},"modified":"2026-02-02T14:14:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:14:29","slug":"opinion-does-tobacco-control-understand-how-science-even-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/opinion-does-tobacco-control-understand-how-science-even-works\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: does tobacco control understand how science even works?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The author is Associate Professor at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Autonomous University of Mexico.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politico\u2019s coverage of an event held by the European Respiratory Society reminds me just how \u201ctobacco control\u201d has become a toxic ocean full of \u201cexperts\u201d indulging in abject ignorance, dogma and stubborn denial.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such expert, Frank Borm – supposedly a pulmonologist at the Amsterdam Cancer Institute – called harm reduction \u201ccomplete bullshit\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another – Thomas Muenzel of the European Society of Cardiology – did at least grudgingly tell part of the truth, saying that\u00a0 \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say e-cigarettes are as toxic as tobacco cigarettes\u201d. But he added that there was no evidence that e-cigarettes were less harmful in the long term.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: Muenzel is not a supporter of the \u201charm reduction\u201d narrative used to promote vapes. \u201cI hate it\u201d he told the webinar. \u201cIt\u2019s not harm reduction, it\u2019s harm production\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cHate\u201d is an interesting word for him to have used here, because it\u2019s totally subjective. But at least Muenzel and Born show us what their \u201cscience\u201d is driven by: irrational hatred.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But what about his statement that there is no evidence that vaping is less harmful than smoking in the long term? Well, to believe that, you have to upend the very nature of scientific study.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is at least five decades worth of epidemiology and direct observation on smoking. There are two decades of observation on vaping. Therefore, there is no \u201cdirect\u201d comparison for the remaining 30 years. But Borm and Muenzel also lack \u201cdirect\u201d observation to back up their claims of \u201charm production\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Borm and Muenzel (and many of their fellow travelers) ignore that science does not operate only with direct observation. In fact, often \u201cdirect\u201d information is impossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is impossible to \u201cobserve\u201d an elementary particle like the Higgs Boson deep in the very early Universe. It was found indirectly through the CERN accelerator by very complicated inference based on the elementary particles that should have been formed as byproducts of its decay according to the Standard Model (which has predicted all visible matter we know). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Folks like Borm and Muenzel (following their reasoning on smoking and vaping) would claim that the Higgs Boson was not \u201cobserved\u201d, only inferred, therefore it does not exist. Yes, there are folks claiming this, but the physics community regards them as crackpots.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does this apply to vaping and smoking? As far as I know, there is still not a comprehensive inference process as with the Higgs boson. However, there are what we can say are partial attempts in comparing emissions and biomarkers, and modeling complex biological processes is probably more difficult than modeling elementary particles in the early Universe. In other words, there is sufficient mid-term evidence and solid arguments that make sense, at least as a qualitative starting point, that let us determine relative risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes the very complex and toxic chemistry of tobacco smoke at least two decades (on average) to produce serious disease. This is not up for debate, there is solid epidemiology on this. Even if we assume a non-linear dose-response and obsessive vaping, it would take far more than 2 decades to produce the same level of serious illness based on what we know about the toxicity of them through the mid-term evidence we have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, this is not a factual statement because we lack decades of observation, but it is based on solid and consistent inference and modeling. This inference and modeling is common in many scientific disciplines: I mentioned the search for the Higgs boson, but parallels exist across all scientific disciplines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without decades of observation, any quantitative comparison of risk reduction from vaping compared to smoking cannot be precisely factual: we have to infer from the information we do have.<\/strong> The same can be said on the number of degrees atmospheric temperatures will rise in 50 years depending on global CO2 emissions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in both cases we have sufficient certainty<\/strong>, from solid and consistent inference and modeling based on what we know now, to trust the overall trend taking place<\/strong> (vaping is considerably safer than smoking, temperatures in the atmosphere will increase more unless CO2 emissions are reduced).\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This inference and modeling process is central to scientific discipline. It is only tobacco control where \u201cexperts\u201d dismiss this valid approach as an \u201cindustry narrative” .<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author is Associate Professor at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Autonomous University of Mexico. Politico\u2019s coverage of an event held by the European Respiratory Society reminds me just how \u201ctobacco control\u201d has become a toxic ocean full of \u201cexperts\u201d indulging…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990012,"featured_media":33854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,259],"tags":[334],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-33784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-science","tag-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990012"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33833,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33784\/revisions\/33833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33784"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=33784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}