Tobacco Substitutes: Harm Reduction or Smokescreen?    • The
PLoS Medicine Editors  Tobacco Substitutes: Harm Reduction or
Smokescreen?    • The PLoS Medicine Editors   • Published: July
31, 2007   • DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040244   Don't journals
have a duty to give all sides of a debate? That was certainly
the argument that the BMJ put forward when it published a paper
that concluded that harm caused by passive smoking had been
overestimated [2]. Unfortunately, that paper turned out not to
be free of bias and may in fact have been part of the tobacco
industry's ongoing attempt to discredit evidence of the harms
caused by passive smoking [3]. In trying to be fair, the BMJ may
have been the victim itself of cynical maneuvering by an
industry not known for its interest in playing by the rules in
promotion of its products. By publishing papers such as the one
on snus, could we be legitimizing a debate that at best can only
shift tobacco dependence from one product to another? Should we
only publish papers th