Conflicts of interest in vaping studies. (Yes, researchers will risk their professional reputations out of some combination of political motivations, irritation, and money.)

Paul Alper points us to this news report that states:

Two New York University (NYU) professors were recently found to have collaborated directly with executives from the vaping company Juul without disclosing these relationships to academic journals or Congress. This revelation came to light during a STAT investigation. At a time when the youth vaping crisis was at its peak, these professors, David Abrams and Ray Niaura, emerged as authoritative voices defending vaping as an effective public health strategy for adults to cut back or quit smoking, despite its growing popularity among youth.

David Abrams, a frequent commentator on vaping in the news media, coordinated extensively with Juul on public messaging in 2017 and 2018. He asked Juul officials for talking points, allowed company executives to review an academic article before publishing, and attended Juul scientific advisory board meetings—all without disclosing these connections to journal publishers or the public.

Ray Niaura was also involved in collaborating with Juul executives but did not disclose these relationships.

Alper asks:

Do some people have a secret death wish? Do Abrams and Niaura not realize that their public utterances will be scrutinized? Yet once again, all that fuss over Francesca Gino’s supposed manipulations do not compare with what harm is being done in other fields involving cancer and cancer causing products.

I have two responses.

1. Researchers have seriously damaged their reputation by working for cigarette companies, even without any suggestion of research misconduct or hidden conflicts or interest. Two prominent examples are R. A. Fisher and Donald Rubin, both of whom have been hugely influential in statistics and many applied fields, and remain very respected, but still come off looking pretty foolish for their notorious edgelord positions on smoking and health (for example, here’s Fisher referring to anti-smoking campaigns as “terrorist propaganda,” and I personally heard Rubin argue that smoking is not addictive). For some reason, prominent statistician Ingram Olkin isn’t so notorious in this regard, perhaps because he just took cigarette money and kept quiet about it, without than taking any strong stances on the issue.

In regard to Alper’s questions, I don’t think Fisher, Rubin, or Olkin had any professional “death wishes”; I’m guessing they were motivated by some combination of political views, irritation at the statistical weaknesses of some anti-smoking arguments, and money. And, hey, these are strong motivations for me too! Not regarding smoking, but on other statistical and policy issues I’ve written about.

2. Regarding the specifics of the case, this news is not surprising. The names David Abrams and Ray Niaura rang a bell. From my post in Feb 2020 on the topic:

I looked up David Abrams, the first author of the letter sent to the journal. He’s a professor of public health at New York University, his academic training is in clinical psychology, and he’s an expert on cigarette use. For example, one of his recent papers is, “How do we determine the impact of e-cigarettes on cigarette smoking cessation or reduction? Review and recommendations for answering the research question with scientific rigor,” and another is “Managing nicotine without smoke to save lives now: Evidence for harm minimization.” A web search brought me to this article, “Don’t Block Smokers From Becoming Smoke-Free by Banning Flavored Vapes,” on a website called Filter, which states, “Our mission is to advocate through journalism for rational and compassionate approaches to drug use, drug policy and human rights.” Filter is owned and operated by The Influence Foundation, which has received support from several organizations, including Juul Labs, Philip Morris International, and Reynolds American, Inc. . . .

So, several of the people involved in this controversy have conflicts. In their letter to the journal, Abrams et al. write, “The signatories write in a personal capacity and declare no competing interests with respect to tobacco or e-cigarette industries.” I assume this implies that Abrams is not directly funded by Juul Labs, Philip Morris International, etc.; he just writes for an organization that has this funding, so it’s not a direct competing interest. But in any case these researchers all have strong pre-existing pro- or anti-vaping commitments.

Hmmm . . . so maybe this was a competing interest! If Abrams and Niaura were asking Juul officials for talking points, allowed company executives to review an academic article before publishing, and attended Juul scientific advisory board meetings . . . it does sound like they were expecting compensation from Juul in some form or another, right? I can’t really say. The linked news article is paywalled so I don’t know what is in these documents that they cite.

In any case, if the researchers really “attended Juul scientific advisory board meetings,” then, yeah, that sounds like a conflict of interest to me. Much more of a conflict than simply publishing an article on a website funded by Juul.