What is the data on vaping that Mr. Bloomberg keeps ignoring?
Mr. Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman turned politician turned philanthropist, is giving away tens of billions of dollars to causes he believes in. He supports liveable cities, gun control, climate change and global public health. He wants to use data to drive his philanthropy in a way that will make the world a better place and save lives.
The vast majority of this money is well spent, but he has a blind spot for the data on vaping. He wants vaping banned because he only sees it as something harmful to non-smoking youth, not something that can benefit adult smokers.
In May 2021, 24 of the world’s top experts on tobacco control (with 13 PhDs, 3 MDs and 4 JDs) wrote a letter to Mr. Bloomberg asking him to review the data on vaping. It was entitled “Tobacco control: the danger of doing more harm than good“. One of the opening paragraphs was:
Your famous injunction “In God we trust. Everyone else, bring data” is a good one, and should be a universal maxim in philanthropy. But it implies a reciprocal obligation to be open to challenging data and to pursue philanthropic aims with a restless curiosity about what works, what does not work, and the plausible perverse consequences of well-intentioned interventions.
https://clivebates.com/documents/BloombergLetterMay2021.pdf
To this end, we would welcome an opportunity to present data to you that could prompt some strategic reflection on Bloomberg Philanthropies’ approach to tobacco control, specifically its opposition to tobacco harm reduction.
They asked for a meeting:
Our proposal is to send a small expert delegation to meet you privately and in person if possible, to make a short data-orientated presentation, and to discuss the issues that arise. This would be a private meeting for you to engage with and test data and ideas that suggest a different approach to tobacco control may now yield great benefits.
https://clivebates.com/documents/BloombergLetterMay2021.pdf
Bloomberg Philanthropies has made an enormously positive contribution to global public health. Our purpose in suggesting a meeting is to put data, analysis, and ideas to you that could be transformational in tobacco control, if adopted globally
In a reply, Bloomberg Philanthropies stated that “The efforts we support are not focused on e-cigarettes as a category“. Bloomberg is only interested in the possible adverse effects of vaping on youth and not at all interested in the role that vaping could have in reducing tobacco smoking.
The experts did not give up and proceeded to write a 24-page document outlining what they would have said if they were allowed to speak to Mr. Bloomberg.
They pleaded:
Given the experience in our group, we hope Mr. Bloomberg will welcome a discussion of evidence, even if that may be challenging to some of the assumptions that underpin hundreds of millions of dollars of his philanthropic expenditure. Some reflection on policy in this area could have the potential to alter the trajectory of preventable death and disease around the world.
https://clivebates.com/documents/BloombergReplyJune2021.pdf
It is carefully laid out with 17 subheadings. For example, Section 5 on the “Gateway” theory:
“The Bloomberg Philanthropies letter asserts that “youth who use these products are at greater risk of trying cigarettes and becoming smokers.” However, that statement is too easily misinterpreted: correlation is not causation.”
Section 6 “Ensuring accurate communications about product risks”, says that Bloomberg is wrong to call e-cigarettes “uniquely dangerous“.
It also tries to correct the record on supposed lung injuries from vaping:
When announcing its campaign to ban e-cigarette flavors, Bloomberg Philanthropies stated: ‘New initiative launches on heels of 33 states investigating more than 450 cases of lung illnesses associated with vaping, many of which involve teens and young adults.”
https://clivebates.com/documents/BloombergReplyJune2021.pdf
This refers to what CDC termed “e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI)”. EVALI has nothing to do with nicotine vaping .
It also makes it clear that Mr. Bloomberg over-estimates the risk of vaping:
Mr. Bloomberg stated on national television that vaping causes a lifelong loss of intelligence.
https://clivebates.com/documents/BloombergReplyJune2021.pdf
Michael Bloomberg: Just think if your kid was doing this and ends up with an IQ ten or fifteen points lower for the rest of his or her life.
Interviewer: Is that demonstrated?
Matthew Myers (Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids): science shows it has a negative impact on brain development. It’s hard to measure those kinds of things.
Mr. Myers corrected Mr. Bloomberg on air because there is no basis for the claim about loss of IQ. The claims made about impaired brain development are contested and, at best, have a weak scientific basis.
Section 10 discusses the prohibition of vaping products:
The Bloomberg Philanthropies response letter claims: “we are not calling for policies to prohibit the marketing of all e-cigarettes.” However, when interviewed by the New York Times as part of his Presidential primary campaign, Mr. Bloomberg explicitly called for the prohibition of vaping:
New York Times: Would you ban vaping products entirely?
Michael Bloomberg: I think you can make a very good case to do so. It would be great if the President did that.
Section12 talks about the lack of accountability of the Bloomberg Foundation, For example:
“How does the foundation reassess its $160m campaign to ban flavored e-liquids if evidence emerges that an e-liquid flavor ban has been harmful to public health, as discussed above in the case of San Francisco?“
The Bloomberg Foundation seems to be a law unto itself, acting without transparency, control or supervision. Is it reasonable that a single billionaire can persuade the WHO to support India banning e-cigarettes and depriving 120 million Indian smokers of the right to choose a less harmful substitute for combustible tobacco?
Mr.Bloomberg is spending 160 million dollars on an anti-vaping campaign, but he really knows nothing about the subject and should be listening to the experts.
For a man who calls himself a “data nerd” he is ignoring a lot of data. Please email communications@bloomberg.org and ask him to review the benefits of vaping for reducing deaths from tobacco use.
