“Vaping’s benefits being hyped by smoking lobby, academics claim” (News, last week, page 21) discussed comments by Public Health England that electronic cigarettes were “95% less harmful to your health than normal cigarettes”. The article said two academics claimed that a study by PHE was sponsored by two groups with links to tobacco companies and e-cigarette manufacturers. We should clarify that PHE did not carry out the study: it commissioned a review from Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addiction at King’s College London and Professor Peter Hajek of Queen Mary University of London, who make it clear that they have not accepted any funds from the tobacco or electronic cigarette industry.
Speedy crossword (last week, page 55), 1 across: “Split personality”. Answer – schizophrenia. Observer style guide: “Schizophrenia should be used only in a medical context, never to mean in two minds, contradictory, or erratic, which is wrong, as well as offensive to people diagnosed with this illness.” Apologies.
Drug dealer Mickey Mooney was shot dead in a Belfast pub in April 1995, not 2005. (“Death of an assassin: the killing that reawakened Belfast’s political strife” (In Focus, 13 September, page 41).
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