🔥💪🙏

If you're comparing, not contrasting, the regulation and health impacts of tanning beds and nicotine vaping, I urge you to get more curious and make sure your information diet is not coming from one bubble. #StayCurious #DiscomfortOfThought required to #RethinkNicotine.

How to Get Less Wrong, Nicotine Edition Includes mentions of @drsarahejackson.bsky.social @lionshahab.bsky.social @jamiebrown.bsky.social @profglantz.com @pamlingucsf.bsky.social @cailinmeister.bsky.social @jamesowenweatherall.com open.substack.com/pub/joegitch...

Some of what has come through our inbox this week, more or less verbatim: “Why are you not saying this is airborne?!” “Why aren’t you telling people to stop all travel and to mask 24/7?!” “YOU ARE CALMMONGERING.” Calmmongering. We hadn’t encountered that one before.

Anyone who thinks that ultra high dose naloxone is just fine, and we shouldn’t really care about precipitated withdrawal isn’t afraid enough of ARDS. If you don’t care about compassion, please leave healthcare. While you’re working on that, care about the patient inhaling their barf and dying.

Who else likes to get less wrong? substack.com/@joegitchell...

Gotta love @mbsiegel.bsky.social sharing insight, wisdom, and hope in this interview by @wilk-deratethehate.bsky.social. Here Mike is not talking about vaping but another polarizing issue, gun violence.

Morality? Regulation? Sex Work? #StayCurious substack.com/@joegitchell...

Have you watched our latest episode? Jess and Sarah explore the science of sleep and melatonin with Dr. Beth Malow, a renowned sleep specialist. Watch the conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mXT_4GNBOLY

In case you missed it we recently sat down with Dr. Beth Malow on our podcast to discuss the safety, effectiveness, and proper use of melatonin. You can watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXT_4GNBOLY

Ring the bell! School's in session! And Dr Malow knows about more than sleep. She knows about bridging divides. 🙏 open.substack.com/pub/together...

No specific mentions of nicotine and tobacco research, but goodness does @musaalgharbi.bsky.social ring some bells with this engaging and #BrutalTruths -laden talk at @heterodoxacademy.bsky.social West. How Researcher Homogeneity Distorts Knowledge Production | Musa al-Gharbi 1/2

This is an excellent analysis. While reading, keep in mind that “science communication” writ broadly isn’t just abstract promotion: it’s the front line of the information war, which determines the path of diseases, the global climate, and the wealth, wars, crops, and political fate of nations

Hey, @clairezagorski.bsky.social - Texas History! And you two should follow each other if you don't already. @dreadships.bsky.social is funny AF and his ALT text game is magnificent.

#ShapingVaping, now with timestamps!

For the podcast lovers out there...tomorrow it will be time to Shape the Vape! 😶‍🌫️#ShapingVaping Econ Special😶‍🌫️ Thursday, 4/30 - 11:00AM Eastern - Tax effects on smoking/vaping - Perverse incentives of TC NGOs - Black market wishcasting - Public choice theory & FDA www.youtube.com/live/9nMpK6b...

✅Booming illegal trade cigarettes & vapes ✅Violent black market ✅Smoking may be increasing ✅Plummeting cig excise revenue ✅Illegal cigs 1/3 price vs legal cigs If this is success what would failure look like? @chancethegardener.bsky.social @jgitchell.bsky.social @algore09algor.bsky.social

Food for thought in this post!

Just finished listening to this podcast episode on candidate genes. If you haven’t heard about the rise and fall of candidate gene studies, I can recommend this one! It is one wild story about science taking a wrong turn. sciencefictionspod.substack.com/p/episode-99...

TIL.

Here is my latest column. Thanks for reading! www.stormlake.com/stories/iowa...?

Big #MakeNewMistakes Energy.

#BrutalTruths, coming in 🔥🔥🔥.

Learning a lot from this great article about Japanese railways. For example, TIL Japan has privatized parking: “Before someone buys a car, they must prove that they have a reserved night-time space on private land, either owned or leased.” worksinprogress.co/issue/why-ja...

Good all around plus it includes about 6 minutes of discussion of vaping at around minute 15. #StayCurious

In case you missed it, Dr. Jess Steier joined the latest American Council on Science and Health podcast to talk about how viral pseudoscience spreads online and what it really takes to cut through fear-based health misinformation. More here: https://ow.ly/FwqU50YLpZ6

#HealthComm #SciComm Nerds!! Please, please, do not read this if you're concerned that your instinct to help people may collide with some uncomfortable implications and you prefer binary, uncomplicated situations.

Nicotine Nerds who also eat (a tight Venn Diagram!) may find today's #ShapingVaping at noon ET of interest. Jim McCarthy and I will be joined by @conscienhealth.bsky.social and we're going to low-key lock-in* on getting less wrong on the following: 1/2

#StayCurious #StaySkeptical Measured, careful, take from @gidmk.bsky.social. Includes input via @sciencemediacentre.bsky.social from @lionshahab.bsky.social. #nicotine #vaping #cancer #evidence

In public health, we know what happens when people stop believing change is possible: they stop trying to make it so. Learned helplessness isn't just psychological; it's a public health risk. So holding onto the door isn’t naivete. It’s what keeps us in the fight.

But mostly, I’m thinking about the people sitting in the middle of the spectrum; not entrenched, just uncertain, trying to sort through years of confusing and often contradictory information. Those conversations are worth having. I hope this article helps in some small way to help you navigate them.

No one: Literally no one: Me: Let me share my thoughts about reliable knowledge generation in the field of nicotine and tobacco research!! open.substack.com/pub/joegitch...

We all have to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable.

"Eliminate the tobacco industry", they said. @clivebates.bsky.social has additional perspectives for you to consider. substack.com/@joegitchell...

Throwback Sunday. Please see this @washumedicine.bsky.social summary of a 2003 @bmjtobacco-control.bsky.social paper by Dr Walton Sumner (link in ALT) Twenty. Three. Years.

Oof does this hit. @dkthomp.bsky.social @ezraklein.bsky.social @mattyglesias.bsky.social @jerusalem.bsky.social @jeffmightbwrong.bsky.social Follow reco for @dingdingpeng.the100.ci. Chef's kiss on so many levels.

This just HITS. #Trust @brindabee.bsky.social

Why does transparency about our mistakes matter for maintaining trust? youtube.com/shorts/E1aHE...

#nicotine #tobacco #harmreduction

Something notable has shifted in Washington, DC. Heading into the midterms (officially now six months away), Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine skepticism is becoming a political liability, and the administration appears to be quietly stepping back from it.

New paper suggests the UK disposable vape ban may have unintentionally made vaping more affordable for young people. The ban prompted vape manufacturers to introduce disposable-like reusable vapes with lower ongoing costs than disposable equivalents. tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/earl...

#StayCurious fo shizzzle!

Who's up for a big, messy food fight? This administration figures it might be more popular than it was to burn down the CDC and rip up vaccine policies. Now, if only we can agree on the righteous way to eat, we might get somewhere. HT: @emilystewart.bsky.social conscienhealth.org/2026/03/29/s...

For at least one reason why people who smoke are not aware of the relative risks across the products, see this @nypost.com story (nypost.com/2026/03/26/h...) based, loosely (😜), on the scientific article pitched in this #EurekaAlert: www.eurekalert.org/news-release...? @cochranetag.bsky.social

Benadryl blocks acetylcholine, a chemical that plays an important role in memory/thinking. In fact, Alzheimer’s disease involves changes in acetylcholine signaling. Because certain anticholinergics like Benadryl can cross into the brain, it’s biologically plausible that this could affect cognition.

Big props to @unbiasedscipod.bsky.social for inviting @mbsiegel.bsky.social on the pod to talk about smoking, nicotine, vaping, and how the tobacco control community may not be helping as much as they might. If you're vulnerable to #DiscomfortOfThought, consider prophylactic analgesia!

In case you missed it we recently sat down with Dr. Michael Siegel on our podcast to discuss complex landscape of e-cigarettes and harm reduction strategies. You can watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/eyZoIY14KUY

Flavored vapes could help more adult smokers quit, saving lives. If only we could stop obsessing about teenagers, writes Joe Nocera.

Don't be too put off by the NSFW poster warning about measles but click through for the knowledge nuggets from @drjenndowd.bsky.social. substack.com/@joegitchell...