Professor of Public Health Sciences at Penn State University, College of Medicine. President-Elect, Society for Research on Nicotine & Tobacco (views mine only)
Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA
Joined March 2011
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Mean reaction time on a Logical Reasoning task before and after SubC injections of nicotine or placebo. (obviously not suggesting anyone start using, but the effects are not entirely withdrawal relief). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8880…
Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition. The problem with it is we see it in other people, and we don't see it in ourselves. The first rule of the Dunning–Kruger club is you don't know you're a member of the Dunning–Kruger club.
— David Dunning
This paper answers why confident idiots run the world.
Cornell University published a psychological paper that explains every terrible boss, every loud influencer, and every broken corporate hierarchy.
It’s called “Unskilled and Unaware of It.”
they tested participants across logic, grammar, and humor to measure the gap between actual performance and self-perception.
And the results are wild.
participants scoring in the bottom 12th percentile consistently believed they were operating in the 62nd percentile.
they were not lying. they were literally incapable of recognizing their own incompetence.
the paper revealed a brutal paradox:
the exact skills required to master a domain are the exact same skills required to accurately evaluate your own competence in that domain.
if you lack the skill, you inherently lack the cognitive capacity to realize you are failing.
this creates a dangerous systemic loop.
the incompetent are blessed with absolute, blinding certainty. their brain protects them from their own ignorance, allowing them to speak first, demand authority, and never second-guess their decisions.
meanwhile, the actual experts suffer the exact inverse.
top performers in the study consistently underestimated their rank. because a task was easy for them, they falsely assumed it was easy for everyone else.
they hesitate. they obsess over nuance. they assume they have nothing unique to add.
we are biologically wired to confuse confidence with competence.
the loudest person in the room gets promoted, gets funded, and gets the microphone, not because they know what they are doing, but because they are physically incapable of seeing what they don't.
the only defense mechanism is building systems that stop rewarding absolute certainty and start demanding proof of work.
Note that this review is very cautious in estimating the toxicant exposure reductions when switching from cigarettes to e-cigs. e.g. E-cigs emit no CO. Never smokers often have an exhaled CO=2ppm. Smokers often have a CO level of 16ppm. So a reduction to 2ppm should be 100%. But here it is estimated as only 87.5% reduction, not accounting for background/endogenous levels. Despite this cautious approach, the study demonstrates large reductions in a wide range of toxicants when switching from cigarettes to e-cigs.
A new systematic review and meta-analysis published in Archives of Toxicology, covering 60 studies, found substantial reductions in exposure to #harmful #chemicals among #smokers who switched completely to e-cigarettes.
link.springer.com/article/10…
Interesting report on e-cig sales 2019 to 2026 by CDC Foundation. tobaccomonitoring.org/nation…
"In this cross-sectional study, directory laws in early-adopter states did not produce lasting declines in flavored e-cigarette sales." doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.33874
Jonathan Foulds PhD retweeted
Devastating critique by four experts of a small vaping/smoking study by Maxime Boidin et al.
Prof. Hajek: "The authors correctly acknowledge that the study cannot establish causality, but the press release hints at harms of vaping, something the study did not show."
expert reaction to study of vascular function and cardiorespiratory fitness in young adults.
sciencemediacentre.org/exper…
Jonathan Foulds PhD retweeted
expert reaction to study of vascular function and cardiorespiratory fitness in young adults.
sciencemediacentre.org/exper…
2 studies found no real effect of flavor on nicotine absorption from nicotine pouches, but there were effects of flavor on "liking". Surprisingly, the 6mg dry pouches (Zyn?) delivered similar (or higher) blood nicotine levels versus 9mg moist pouches. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4157…
Rates of established combustible tobacco use declined over time (2014-24) to less than 0.5% for older adolescents (age 15-17). Meanwhile regular nicotine vaping increased to over 6%.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4289…
Only thing missing was the intro Q&A. "What do you fancy for dinner?" "Oh I don't mind, you choose"..... (apparently the movie "You Can See Everything" is very odd but good. I havn't seen it yet).
Jonathan Foulds PhD retweeted
One of those rare photos that makes you stop in your tracks and whisper, "Wow..."
"Lochaber at Night" - wintery scene of Loch Linnhe, Caol Shore and Ben Nevis, taken from Corpach Pier by Mark Gillies.
At 6 weeks follow-up, 19 of 52 participants (36.5%) of those randomized to the 5% nicotine ecig group were abstinent from cigarettes (validated by CO<6ppm) compared with 6 of 52 (11.5%) in the 0% nicotine ecig (placebo) group (P = .005). jamanetwork.com/journals/jam…
"This is the first randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial, to our knowledge, to be conducted in the US to measure the effects of switching completely from cigarettes to a pod-based salt-nicotine SREC device. This study adds to growing evidence that nicotine ECs promote cigarette smoking cessation and contribute to a reduction in toxicant exposure.7,21 The tripling of biochemically verified cigarette abstinence rates with a 5% SREC (36.5%) vs a 0% SREC (11.5%) is a relatively large effect size compared with other smoking cessation interventions."
"There are concerns from some in the public health and scientific community that many smokers who try ECIGs continue to smoke cigarettes at the same time, referred to as dual use. One of the main concerns is that dual use might result in greater exposure to nicotine and other harmful toxicants found in cigarette smoke and ENDS aerosol. Our results are somewhat reassuring on this point, as we found no evidence of greater nicotine, NNAL, exhaled CO exposure, or serious adverse events among participants practicing dual use while trying to reduce their cigarette consumption." pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/article…
Jonathan Foulds PhD retweeted
Panel Offers First Guidelines For Using E-Cigarettes To Help Smokers Quit usnews.com/news/health-news/…
As of October 19, 2026, stores on PA will not be allowed to sell ecigs or their components that have not been included in the PA E-Cigarette Directory (ecigs that have FDA PMTA authorization, or a PMT application or legal case pending). attorneygeneral.gov/taking-a…
