04 March 2025
As a general internist, I am obsessed with smoking cessation. I can’t imagine how many times I have said to a patient, “The best thing I can do for your health is to get you to stop smoking.” The decrease in smoking has been an enormous public health success. This is not to say our efforts have been flawless. We have already featured a two-part series by Sally Satel on the topic. Today, I am happy to give space to Brad Rodu, a Professor of Medicine and an endowed chair in Tobacco Harm Reduction Research addressing our misunderstanding of the health effects of nicotine and cigarette substitutes.
There is a well-documented misunderstanding among American doctors about nicotine and cigarette substitutes. Recently, Dr. Bruce Scott, president of the American Medical Association, and Dr. Nicole Saphier, a breast cancer imaging specialist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, each published high-profile articles containing serious errors. Their mistakes, disseminated on the AMA website and in the New York Post, are the result of repetition of falsehoods about nicotine. This article takes a scientific look at the urban myths surrounding nicotine.