Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Vape

by | Jul 29, 2019 | Bureaucratic quixotic, e-waste, exploitation, Extended Producer Responsibility, Fake Freedoms, folly, Industrial Epidemics, Perverse Incentives, pollution, Syndemics, Tobacco Industry

About a decade ago, the “American Vaping Association” railed against RJReynolds (later RAI, now part of British American Tobacco (BAT)) for attempting to persuade the FDA to “ban the sale of open-system e-cigarettes, including all component...

New Publication: Financial Conflicts of Interest and Stance on Tobacco Harm Reduction: A Systematic Review

by | May 22, 2019 | Harm Reduction, Industrial Epidemics, Perverse Incentives, Publications, Syndemics, Tobacco Industry, Wolves in sheep's clothing

My colleagues Manali Vora, Jesse Elias, and Pam Ling and I at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco just Financial Conflicts of Interest and Stance on Tobacco Harm Reduction: A Systematic Review. (Also...

E-cigarette e-waste litter is an environmental health harm that can be stopped before it metastasizes

by | Oct 15, 2018 | beyond idealism, e-waste, Extended Producer Responsibility, Industrial Epidemics, Publications, Side-effects, Syndemics, Systems thinking, Tobacco Industry, Uncategorized

My op-ed in the American Journal of Public Health that appeared this week discusses the new tobacco waste stream of electronic cigarette waste. Electronic waste is already the fastest growing waste stream globally. Creating a new product that has no current...

Euphemisms and Dysphemisms

by | Apr 30, 2018 | agroecology, Climate Change, Discursive Gap, Industrial Epidemics, parasitism, philosophy of science, pollution, Syndemics, Tobacco Industry, Uncategorized, Wolves in sheep's clothing

Here I will attempt to gather and decode euphemisms (saccharine words covering up the dismal reality, e.g., climate change for global warming) and dysphemisms (derogatory terms for neutral ones, e.g., warmist for people who acknowledge the facts of global warming) of...