Study retracted

The Journal of the American Heart Association has retracted a study by Dharma Bhatta and Staton Glantz showing a link between e-cigarette usage among adults and heart attack.

The article, “Electronic Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction Among Adults in the U.S. Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health,” appears to be missing information regarding the link between when e-cigarettes are used and when heart attacks appear in individuals.

“Post publication, the editors requested Bhatta and Glantzto conduct the analysis based on when specific respondents started using e‐cigarettes,” the journal wrote.

“The authors agreed to comply with the editors’ request. The deadline set by the editors for completion of the revised analysis was not met because the authors are currently unable to access the PATH database. Given these issues, the editors are concerned that the study conclusion is unreliable.”

Representatives of the vaping industry welcomed the study, which they say had damaged the sector’s reputation and caused confusion among smokers looking to quit.

“We welcome the Journal of the American Heart Association’s decision to retract this study,” said John Dunne, spokesperson for the The U.K. Vaping Industry Association.

“ Quality, peer-reviewed science consistently demonstrates the public health potential of vaping, while studies that reach unreliable conclusions such as this one risk keeping people smoking cigarettes,” Dunne said. “The duty now falls to those in the media, who have given this research and its authors a platform, to make their own urgent retractions and corrections.”

Glantz said that in retracting his study, the Journal of American Heart Association had caved to pressure from e-cigarette interests. “The results in the paper are accurately analyzed and reported,” he said in a response to the incident on his blog.