Challenge - challenge and show the data!

How do we challenge science that is used against electronic cigarettes? We ask for the data.

I follow Retraction Watch via e mail. You would be astonished at how many retractions come into my mailbox in any week.

This is today's - Fraud fells Alzheimer’s “made to order” neurons paper in Cell

"But the paper — which has been cited 110 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge — has now been retracted. Per the notice:

In this paper, we described the directed conversion of skin fibroblasts from unaffected individuals or familial Alzheimer’s disease patients into human induced neuronal cells. We also presented molecular analyses of Alzheimer’s-associated markers in these cells. Dr. Ryousuke Fujita, who was specifically and only responsible for the molecular analyses of Alzheimer’s-associated pathology, has acknowledged inappropriately manipulating image panels and data points, as well as misrepresenting the number of repeats performed, in the experiments presented in Figures 6 and 7 of the paper (and corresponding Figures S5 and S6). We are in the process of repeating these analyses. Given these issues, we believe that the most appropriate course of action is to retract the paper. We deeply regret this circumstance and apologize to the community."

 I am sad about this - I remember when the news of this broke. It seemed a wondrous assistance or even solution for Altzheimers sufferers. I hope they find it is true.

This is how real science should work - challenge, challenge, question, question, reproduce and share the data.

Climate scientist Michael Mann could not produce the data used for the Climate Science Hockey Stick Graph  and so, recently, his Supreme Court-case in the USA was thrown out because of this inability to show the data for the claim under challenge from another scientist.

Science is admirably vicious in its drive for TRUTH. 

Bad News: E-Cigs Alter Cells a Lot Like Tobacco Does 

was a sensational headline posted somewhere on twitter or face book that caught my attention and that I re posted. 

"A new cancer study brings more bad news to the e-cigarette industry. Scientists exposed human bronchial cells to e-cig vapor and found that it altered the cells in a way not dissimilar to tobacco. In other words, that delicious, seemingly risk-free nicotine vapor might not be so benign, after all.

Don't worry too much, though, vaping enthusiasts. Science is complicated, and it will take some time before we know exactly how these cells are being altered. To get a little more technical about it, the cells exposed to e-cig vapor "showed a similar pattern of gene expression" to those exposed to tobacco smoke, explains Nature."

If you click on the link  A new cancer study you go through to the abstract. This was presented at a recent conference in USA. There is no actual data. A scientist could understand the data.

Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos has done some testing on vapour and cells. I thought it was not significantly frightening. And I know he has new information on flavours due out soon. Science and vaping is really important, but we don't need, or want scary results. We just want the truth. If it's scary, we will just have to face up to it. But mostly we need science that we TRUST.

I hope that someone scientific in the vaping community requests the data from the scientists involved for the new cancer study offered to readers in the press report above. I hope to see notification that it has been retracted in my inbox soon!