Keynote and closing address: Prof Steven A. Schroeder

The stunning success of tobacco control rests on two pillars:  unimpeachable scientific evidence about the harm caused by inhaling (either directly or passively) combustible tobacco smoke, and damning evidence of the duplicity of the tobacco industry.   Today, the controversy over the use of tobacco harm reduction devices threatens those pillars.   In their zeal to protect youth from the hazards of vaping, too many well-meaning researchers and advocates have gone beyond the evidence to overstate the dangers of harm reduction.    In so doing, and at a time when authorities are suspected of disseminating “fake news,” we risk undermining our scientific and moral credibility, thereby damaging our prospects of further curbing the still devastating tobacco epidemic.

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