Government goes the wrong way on e-cigarettes

Last week we talked about how the British Royal Society for Public Health is calling for greater use of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. But the U.S. government seems to be taking a different tact. The goal they seek is to extinguish tobacco use for good. And e-cigarettes do not play a role.

Dailycaller.com calls our attention to the way the U.S. National Institutes of Health uses grants to influence the outcome of the research they fund, and in particular, research into tobacco use. See Government Grant Funding Corrupts Tobacco Research, Holds Back Scientific Inquiry. The point of the article is that the government wants a particular outcome of the research projects it funds, and with so much money at stake, the universities seeking the grants are too willing to comply.

The author, Jesse Hathaway, says this:

Every year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) doles out $623 million to more than 1,000 university researchers interested in advancing its stated goal of “a world free of tobacco use.” In one such solicitation for researchers willing to fit facts to dogma, NIH set aside $10 million for eight to 10 studies, provided those studies proved useful in helping the government “develop effective ways to limit the spread and promote cessation of smokeless tobacco use.”

Studies show smokeless tobacco is much less harmful than smoking, and hence it should be part of any harm-reduction strategy governments would pursue. That is the very opposite of what the NIH is doing.

Emphasis added.

It's a shame that the U.S. government has to be such a corrupting influence on science. The Brits got this one right.

Comments

[Rob O.]

Odd that we don't put as much emphasis on alcohol-use cessation efforts. It is socially-acceptable to treat tobacco user like pariahs, but don't lift a brow at beer-drinkers.

And it's hard to believe that the government is truly interested in extinguishing tobacco use for good given how they profit handsomely off of the taxation of that vice. In some states, less than 5% of the millions brought in annually are applied to anti-smoking programs. (Albeit, some of the tax ends up covering some of the healthcare expenses of smokers.)

[Geo]

Once publicly branded as the boogeyman, that status isn't easily shed.