Dr. Mark Tyndall
What Canadian Smokers Think About Vaping
By Mark Tyndall MD ScD FRCPC Expert Advisor on Harm Reduction to the Vaping Industry Trade Association (VITA) It would be difficult to...
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Vaping as Harm Reduction
Welcome to VapingCanada
Vaping as Harm Reduction
A public health expert in harm reduction, Dr. Mark Tyndall discusses
the major issues that inform and influence the promotion of vaping
as a safer alternative to cigarette smoking in Canada.
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Biography
Mark Tyndall MD ScD FRCPC
Professor of Medicine, School of Population and Public Health,
University of British Columbia
Dr. Mark Tyndall is a Professor of Medicine at the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia. He has served as the Executive Director of the BC Center for Disease Control (2014-2018), deputy Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia (2014-2018), Head of Infectious Diseases at St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver (2004-2010) and the University of Ottawa (2010-2014), and Program Director for Epidemiology at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (1999-2010). His career awards include the Medical Research Council Research Fellowship, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Senior Scholar Award, and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network Applied Research Chair. He has authored over 250 peer-reviewed academic publications, with a focus on HIV care and prevention, harm reduction, and public health intervention research.
Dr. Tyndall received his medical degree and Internal Medicine training at McMaster University and his Infectious Diseases fellowship training at the University of Manitoba. He received a Doctoral Degree in Epidemiology from The School of Public Health at Harvard University with a focus on health and human rights. He was a research scientist at the WHO Collaborative HIV Program in Nairobi, Kenya from 1990 to 1995. He has conducted numerous community-based research projects and was the co-lead investigator on the evaluation of Insite, North America’s first supervised injection site. Other major research interests include the epidemiology of HIV and Hepatitis C, the impact of harm reduction interventions, and antiretroviral access and barriers to health care among people who use drugs, and the drug overdose epidemic.
Dr. Tyndall is a strong advocate and leader for public health in Canada and has fostered a number of community-based collaborations that have led to health policy changes including the scale of harm reduction programs, health care access for refugees, decriminalization of HIV transmission, and vaping regulations.
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Dr. Mark Tyndall
The Power of Scientific Misinformation – Retracting a Scientific Paper
This week the Journal of the American Heart Association retracted a widely cited study by Stanton Glantz that found vaping to be...
Dr. Mark Tyndall
Cigarette Smoking is the Public Health Crisis. Not Vaping.
In response to an “epidemic” of vaping amongst youth, the province of British Columbia has released a new set of regulations designed to...
Dr. Mark Tyndall
Why Publish A Blog About Vaping?
The first time that I heard about vaping as a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes was in 2012. At the time I was Head of the...
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Getting Regulations Right on Vapour Products
Contributed by Dr. Mark Tyndall to The Vancouver Sun
Published August 30, 2016
The rapid increase in the use of e-cigarettes,
along with the proliferation of vape shops in the province,
has occurred without any clear federal or provincial guidelines.
British Columbia enacted the Tobacco and Vapour
Products Control Act to provide a regulatory framework.
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Demonized: Cannabis vs. Nicotine Paradox
April 4, 2019
Public health has a penchant for demonizing the use of particular products that it considers to be unhealthy. And while the practice is recognized as an effective method to modify behavior, there are unintended consequences. In this RegWatch Special Series Snippet hear what Dr. Mark Tyndall, Professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health and former Executive Director of the BC Centre for Disease Control thinks about the way cannabis is treated Vs. nicotine in Canada: Is there a paradox?
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Moral Panic: Diagnosing the Youth Vaping Epidemic
April 6, 2019
Stoked by public health special interest groups a litany of frightening headlines has splashed across Canadian newspapers and TV news screens: Vaping Addicts Youth to Nicotine; Youth Vaping Leads to Youth Smoking; Vaping Is an Urgent Threat to Public Health. For many Canadians, the news is shocking and worrisome, yet also confusing. Considering the fact that less than one-year-ago the Federal Liberal government made vaping products with nicotine legal in Canada—with the full acknowledgment that vaping is a much safer alternative to smoking. In this RegWatch feature interview, hear what Dr. Mark Tyndall, Professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health and former Executive Director of the BC Centre for Disease Control thinks about the pressure campaign to rollback vaping regulations and why he says it's based on a contrived “moral panic.”
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Dr. Tyndall Responds to Vaping-Related Lung Scare
Oct 1, 2019
Hysteria over vaping-related lung illness appeared out of nowhere and in a flash consumed the entire North American vaping industry. It began on August 16 with a short media statement issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and by September 11, it had metastasized into a Presidential vaping ban. Canada was not immune. The following week Dr. Christopher Mackie, medical officer for the Middlesex-London region in Ontario, held a gripping news conference to announce the first confirmed case of vaping-related lung illness in Canada. As was the case in the U.S., although, with more bravo, Dr. Mackie slow-walked the release of critical information regarding the suspect substance i.e. THC or nicotine and then refused to disclose the brand name of the product involved. Did U.S. and Canadian health officials withhold information that could have protected the public from further exposure, illness or even death? Find out, in this RegWatch exclusive interview with Dr. Mark Tyndall, North American expert on infectious disease and Professor of Medicine, UBC School of Population and Public Health.
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Vaping: what people are getting wrong
The Economist
Feb 7, 2020
A youth vaping “epidemic” and a mysterious outbreak of lung disease in America has led to curbs on e-cigarette flavours. A backlash against vaping is perpetuating myths about nicotine-based e-cigarette products that are not backed up by scientific research.
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The Harm Reduction Model of Drug Addiction Treatment
Why do we still think that drug use is a law-enforcement issue? Making drugs illegal does nothing to stop people from using them, says public health expert Mark Tyndall. So, what might work? Tyndall shares community-based research that shows how harm-reduction strategies, like safe-injection sites, are working to address the drug overdose crisis.
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