--- title: "Paper Claiming Cigarettes Protect Against COVID Retracted for Ties to Tobacco Industry" description: "A medical journal retracted a paper that claimed \"current smoking was not associated with adverse outcome\" in COVID-19 patients due to conflict of interest." date: "2021-04-22" modified: "2021-04-22" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/tobacco-industry-research-covid" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "Pathogens" - "Viruses" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "nicotine" - "smoking" --- # Paper Claiming Cigarettes Protect Against COVID Retracted for Ties to Tobacco Industry ![A medical journal retracted a paper that claimed "current smoking was not associated with adverse outcome" in COVID-19 patients due to conflict of interest.]() *\Image: Image via Pixabay/Futurism\* A [controversial study]() published last year in the *European Respiratory Journal* claimed that "current smoking was not associated with adverse outcome" in COVID-19 patients. It was a highly unusual conclusion, as COVID-19 primarily attacks the lungs, and — as the World Health Organization [has pointed out]() — smoking impairs lung function, increasing the risk of respiratory infections, including coronaviruses. But over half a year later, the medical journal has retract the paper, as [*The Guardian* reports](). The reasoning: some of the authors had financial ties to the tobacco industry. A [retraction]() issued by the European Respiratory Journal stated that "it was brought to the editors’ attention that two of the authors had failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest at the time of the manuscript’s submission." Among the international team that penned the paper are several researchers who have direct ties to the tobacco industry. "That is, one of the authors (José M. Mier) at the time had a current and ongoing role in providing consultancy to the tobacco industry on tobacco harm reduction," reads the retraction, "and another (Konstantinos Poulas) at the time was a principal investigator for the Greek NGO NOSMOKE... a science and innovation hub that has received funding from the Foundation for a Smoke Free World (an organization funded by the tobacco industry)." NOSMOKE promotes pro e-cigarette research from the tobacco industry, as *The Guardian* points out. The authors fired back, saying that a conflict of interest wasn't grounds for a full retraction. The *Respiratory* *Journal,* however, wrote in its retraction notice that "the editors felt the decision was justified based on the nature of the undisclosed relationship, in the context of the sensitive subject matter presented, and on the need to align the published journal content with the bylaws of the publishing society." One senior author, Konstantinos Farsalinos, [told *Retraction Watch*]() that he found the retraction "unfair and unsubstantiated," after he proposed to "publicly release the full dataset" to be independently verified, but was reportedly turned down by the editors. It's not the only paper of its kind. In fact, an [April 2020 preprint]() also concluded that tobacco may help prevent smokers from catching COVID-19. Researchers found that a far smaller proportion of smokers, as compared to the average number of smokers in France, experienced serious symptoms of COVID-19. A major neurobiologist [told *The Guardian*]() at the time that nicotine may be stopping the coronavirus from entering cells. But evidence of smoking actually protecting people from infection is dubious at best, according to experts. "As of now, the data supporting smoker’s paradox claims are limited and questionable," read a [review]() in the journal *BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine*. "The claims of a protective effect must be viewed with extreme caution by both the general population as well as clinicians," the review read. "In the context of smoking and COVID-19, poor data collection can lead to several erroneous conclusions," the journal writes. "If patients with missing smoking data are not eliminated from the total pool, smokers may be wrongly underrepresented." The findings highlight just how difficult it can be to make sense of the flood of data about COVID. But without disclosing a conflict of interest — particularly when it's undisclosed ties to the tobacco industry during a pandemic involving a respiratory illness — it's crucial to make sure the data isn't taken out of context. ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()