Some much needed exposure of Stanton Glantz

Despite being one of the worst cranks to have worked in academia in the past half-century, Stanton Glantz  has largely escaped the attention of professional sceptics and debunkers, presumably because he has mostly focused on tobacco control. (Not exclusively, however. He has also spread fear about mobile phones and created baseless conspiracy theories around sugar.)

It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see this excellent article which has since been republished by Mother Jones (of all places). 

“Stan has always been an advocate and ideologue willing to twist the science,” says David Abrams, a New York University professor and veteran tobacco researcher. He says that some scientists ignored flaws in his work when Glantz focused on combustible tobacco because they, too, strongly opposed smoking. “Frankly, none of us cared if he was a little bit sloppy with his research because the ends justified the means,” Abrams says.

He would have got away with it if he hadn’t used his dark arts to propagandise against vaping (and been #metooed). In fact, let’s face it, he has got away with it. I suspect it will not be until after he dies that we hear the full truth.

If you haven’t read it yet, be sure to do so.