25
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The e-cigarette company Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal, with all the articles written by authors on its payroll, to ‘prove’ that its product has a public benefit
Link information
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- Title
- Juul: Taking Academic Corruption to a New Level
- Authors
- David Dayen
- Published
- Jul 7 2021
- Word count
- 1490 words
Well, thank fuck someone didn't like the smell but holy fuck this is a depressing read.
You can feel the hopelessness in this last paragraph. Even if this scheme is blatantly obvious deception and lies the authors of this article is still unsure if this is going to pay off for the company. How sad is that? It's the arrogance that gets me because it underlines how little can be done about it right now.
It's almost hilarious because of how obvious it is. Then again, anyone ruthless enough to pull this off probably also did the research on how it can benefit them. They might be doing this to get the fine-print for ads about the "scientifially proven benefits of JUUL" so they can't be sued, meanwhile no one is reading the fucking fine print. Also $51,000 seems like a bargain for a stunt like this.
But who is approving this fine-print? That must surely be the place where this bullshit meets at least some resistance?
I agree that the price seems like one hell of a bargain but then again I wouldn't wanna put a price tag on this dirty work because that would validate it.
The point is to be able to point at journal articles and say "look, we wanted to know, so we did the research and it's peer reviewed so it must be legit. You really can't fault us for not knowing our research would turn out to be wrong in the end". Which, ya know, if it wasn't so obviously corrupt, is an argument that is at least structurally sound. How else is a company supposed to make sure their product is as good as they believe it to be, if not by commissioning peer-reviewed studies?
Direct link to the issue: https://ajhb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AJHB_JUUL_Special_Issue.pdf
And absolutely nobody was surprised.
Juul is just the evolution of big tobbacco, Altria (The company formerly known as Philip Morris) has a 35% stake in the company. Is it really any surprise that they're continuing with big tobacco's playbook?
Problem for them is that it's harder to get away unnoticed with blatantly bad science thse days. Problem for us is they keep doing it because despite how blatantly obvious and bad it is, these tactics still work.
We need massive reforms to education in this country. A 6th grader (if not earlier) should be able to discern just how bad this is and act accordingly.
I try to avoid labeling things as blatantly evil, but producing blatantly bad self-serving, self-funded research that just so happens to be advantagous to your bottom line earns it.
It shouldn't be hard to argue that vaping nicotine is, on the whole, less unhealthy than smoking cigarettes.
At least this sort of blatant corruption is obvious. I'm sure there's a lot more subtle influencing on the supposedly free and independent pursuit of science done by corporations going on.
Seems like the UK NHS has taken that approach, which I just find fascinating how different of a tack they have taken versus here in the US re: vaping. Do we know if they've been using these Juul-funded studies as a basis for it, or have they done their own?