Study linking vaping to heart attacks muddied amid spat between two tobacco researchers

Article from USA Today
Vaping, heart attack links disputed as 2 tobacco researchers face off

Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAYPublished 10:59 a.m. ET July 17, 2019 | Updated 9:01 a.m. ET July 18, 2019

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Two prominent vaping researchers are facing off over claims that electronic cigarettes double the risk of heart attacks in adults, muddying the science over how best to stop smoking.

Brad Rodu, a University of Louisville professor, asked the Journal of the American Heart Association to retract a study out last month by University of California, San Francisco professor Stanton Glantz.

The study, co-authored by Dharma Bhatta, claimed adult vaping was "associated with" a doubled risk of heart attack, but Glantz went farther in a blog post, saying the study represented "more evidence that e-cigs cause heart attacks."

However, when Rodu obtained the federal data, he found the majority of the 38 patients in the study who had heart attacks had them before they started vaping — by an average of 10 years earlier. In his letter to the editors, Rodu called Glantz's findings "false and invalid."

"Their analysis was an indefensible breach of any reasonable standard for research on association or causation," wrote Rodu and Nantaporn Plurphanswat, a research economist at University of Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center. "We urge you to take appropriate action on this article, including retraction."

Glantz insists vaping leads to heart attacks even if he first called his secondary analysis that included the timing of heart attacks "not statistically significant." He now says it is simply "underpowered" due to the small number of cases. It was his second study in 10 months to focus on heart attacks and vaping, using battery-powered devices to heat liquid-based nicotine into inhalable vapor.

Both of the academics have been published extensively in medical journals and are well respected in the field — even if not by each other.

Glantz highlighted his achievements: two statistics textbooks, the research behind the dangers of secondhand smoke and much of what's been learned about the tobacco industry's historical misstatements on the addictive nature of tobacco. He also noted he is "a for-real rocket scientist," having worked for NASA.

In addition, Glantz was the principal investigator on a five-year 2013 $20 million federal grant to research tobacco and e-cigarettes and serves the same role on another $20 million grant National Institutes of Health grant that runs until 2023. Glantz's two recent reports on vaping and heart attacks were funded through the first and second federal grants. He and Bhatta said in the reports that they had no financial disclosures to report.

Rodu, who New York University public health professor Ray Niaura calls a "fastidious scientist," has thousands of entries in UCSF's tobacco library, which both Glantz and Rodu cite to prove their points about the Kentucky researcher.

Glantz calls Rodu a "tobacco industry apologist" and points to documents UCSF has collected that show Rodu's connections to the tobacco industry.

according to a 2018 report in the journal BMJ. Companies are also rushing to introduce new versions of smokeless tobacco, also known as snuff.

The competition to prove or disprove the best way to quit smoking is also big business. It includes the fight for the $40 million in federal grants Glantz and UCSF were awarded