By Gilbert Ross, M.D.
Posted: Friday, February 23, 2007

LETTER
Publication Date: February 23, 2007

This letter first appeared in the February 23, 2007 Wall Street Journal:

While it was enlightening to learn of the nicotine-replacement industry's relationship with several oft-quoted experts in smoking cessation ("Behind Antismoking Policy, Influence of Drug Industry," page one, Feb. 8), pharmaceutical-industry support shouldn't automatically undercut those experts' policies regarding quitting methods. We at the American Council on Science and Health always evaluate the underlying science as the best basis for judging the reliability of studies of various therapies, rather than their funding sources.

Overlooked data from the recent large National Cancer Institute-sponsored study show that pharmaceutical quitting methods fail about as often as trying to go cold turkey, and it's understandable (but deplorable) if people pushing pharmaceutical solutions would rather downplay that fact. Although I help run a public health consumer-education organization, I was surprised that I hadn't seen these data until I read your article, even though the study hasn't been published yet.

I wonder if the similar public-information gap about the potential benefits of smokeless tobacco in helping addicted smokers quit derives from the same source: dogmatic adherence to pharmaceutical interventions, despite the impressive evidence these methods fail much more often than they succeed.


Gilbert Ross, M.D.
Executive and Medical
Director
The American Council on Science and Health
New York City

 

See also: ACSH's reports on Kicking Butts in the Twenty-First Century: What Modern Science Has Learned About Smoking Cessation and Helping Smokers Quit: A Role for Smokeless Tobacco?