Former Associate Dean of Continuing Medical Education at Stanford Essentially Acknowledges Undisclosed Conflict of Interest in Recent Tobacco Control Paper

Yesterday, I discussed a paper published online ahead of print in the journal Tobacco Control which blasts electronic cigarette companies and a consumer vaping advocacy organization for creating "knock-off" advertisements that urge smokers to quit by switching to vaping instead. The senior author of the paper - Dr. Robert Jackler - is a professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.One of my main criticisms was that in the paper, Dr. Jackler states that he has no conflicts of interest, but his curriculum vita reports having received grant funding from the Pfizer Corporation between 2010 and 2013. Assuming this is true, it represents a substantial conflict of interest because Pfizer markets a smoking cessation drug - varenicline - and therefore stands to lose potentially millions of dollars in profits if electronic cigarettes are successful and partially replace varenicline as a smoking cessation treatment approach.In response to yesterday's blog post, Dr. Jackler argued (in the comments section of the blog) that I was categorically wrong, and that he had no conflict of interest based on the alleged association with Pfizer. He wrote the following:"This is Robert Jackler of Stanford University writing to clear up Dr Siegal's assertion that I have a non-disclosed conflict of interest. This is categorically untrue. Between 2007 and 2011 I served as the Dean over Postgraduate Medical Education at the Stanford School of Medicine...
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