Juul Under Fire After Buying Its Way Into an Academic Journal

Last month, the e-cigarette big Juul purchased out an entire issue of a significant scientific journal, which devoted a month’s protection to pro-vaping research that have been funded solely by the corporate. And now, two senators need two of the most important federal companies to analyze.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal have cosigned separate memos to each the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to analyze Juul’s determination to purchase out a full version of The American Journal of Health Behavior for $51,000. The full unfold included 11 research throughout the journal’s May-June difficulty that each one appeared to be written with one purpose in thoughts: make Juul appear to be the healthiest smoking different potential.

Juul is understandably on the offensive proper now. As Warren and Blumenthal notice of their letters, the corporate is in an all out battle to win favor with the FDA earlier than Sept. 9, which is when the company will formally decide whether or not e-cigs must be licensed for client use. And should you learn the Juul-sponsored version of the Journal, you’d seemingly come out saying “yes.” Each research was designed to show that e-cigs are a great tool to transform people who smoke away from the harms of smoking conventional cigarettes.

But the papers unnoticed a couple of issues. First, none of Juul’s promo materials point out that every of the 26 authors throughout these research have been both employed or contracting for Juul on the time of the journal’s publication. These promos additionally miss Juul’s many scandals round advertising and marketing vaping merchandise towards teens and tweens, which in some cases resulted in these children being hooked on cigarettes additional down the road. There’s additionally the truth that most of the journal’s editors have been utterly unaware that Juul was sponsoring that month’s difficulty till after it was published, resulting in a number of staffers resigning within the aftermath.

In their letter to the FDA, each Blumenthal and Warren plead with the company to “not allow itself to be swayed” by the longstanding tobacco trade tactic of passing off self-interested pseudo-educational fluff as unbiased educational analysis.

“This is an egregious example of the industry ‘taking academic corruption to a new level,’” they wrote. “It also underscores the need for close FDA scrutiny of Juul and its effort to shape the public discussion and scientific review of its products through unfair and deceptive practices.”

The senators’ letter to the FTC addressed one other thorny difficulty: whether or not these Juul-funded research may very well be thought-about a type of promoting.

“As you have likely seen in your investigation, Juul has a well-earned reputation for deceptive marketing tactics towards youth and adults, particularly adult smokers,” they wrote.

In an try and get the company to analyze Juul’s “baseless claims” about its merchandise’ security, each senators urged the FTC to comb via the corporate’s advertising and marketing materials through the years, each in print and on-line. In reality, that is information that the FTC’s been after for months, ever because the company issued investigative orders into the advertising and marketing practices of 5 separate e-cig corporations—together with Juul—this past March.

The new letter from Blumenthal and Warren additionally asks the FTC whether or not any of the analysis that’s been collected up to now has been shared with the FDA forward of the Sept. 9 deadline.