ATS - helping people breathe ... and keeping their sponsors' cash-flow alive

ATS - helping people breathe ...
and keeping their sponsors' cash-flow alive

Yesterday, forskning.no (forskning is Norwegian for research), a Norwegian online newspaper focusing on international research published an article about a press release by American Thoracic Society (ATS). Several big Norwegian newspapers also followed up and published pretty much the same message: It's not easier to quit using e-cigarettes. It was probably published widely all over the world as well. Who started it and who's just copy-pasting I don't know, and to be honest I don't really care cause it's all just a huge pile of crappy "journalism" and they're all equally guilty of totally neglecting their responsibility to check their sources.

Because what did ATS actually do to produce this press release? Well, this post pretty much sums it up: They picked 4 out of 4569 studies on the subject, only those who enrolled current smokers and compared e-cigarettes to placebo were included as studies of efficacy. When it comes to studies of safety they simply included any study that found something bad about e-cigarettes. In other words, they just cherry-picked whatever supported their agenda: To stop as many smokers as possible from trying to quit using e-cigarettes. But why on earth would the ATS want to do that? I took a quick look at their annual report to see if it might give me some pointers. I guess all the pointers you need is on page 14, where you get a list of their "Corporate Members". Does Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKlein and Novartis sound familiar? Take a look at the press release again:

"Until such data are available, there are a number of other smoking cessation aids available that have a more robust evidence base supporting their efficacy and safety."

Do you see the connection? I'm sure you do, but I'll spell it out anyway for all the "journalists" that are apparently to stupid to see it or to lazy to look for it: This is just propaganda to protect Big Pharma's NRT market! And I'd like to add, just for the so called "journalists" that published stories on this: The sources I've linked to in this post took me 1 google search and about 10 minutes to find and read. It should have taken you about 5, you lazy %&#%&! I suggest you start doing your job, check your sources and stop copy pasting whatever click-bait you come across! Is this really why you became a journalist?

 
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