The trivialization of the pandemic and health threats in general is done with the most perfidious means.

Even from the scientific trenches there is always backing for the most absurd theses, as research by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on the “nicotine hypothesis” shows once again.

In April a year ago, two much-noticed preprints - not yet reviewed prior publications - appeared in quick succession, which were suitable for giving every cigarette smoker the pleasure of smoking again. A medical group from Paris counted that only five percent of the Covid-19 victims of the first wave were smokers. Not so wild, that's how it could be interpreted who regularly protects his lungs with tobacco smoke. A double downplaying, so to speak.

The study by a Greek cardiologist, Konstantinos Farsalinos, wanted to have found the cause of the protective effect shortly afterwards: Nicotine could influence the ACE2 receptor that the new coronavirus uses to enter human cells. He was soon allowed to publish his nicotine thesis as a co-author in an editorial in the specialist journal Toxicology Reports, the editor-in-chief of which obviously has one thing in common with other co-authors and Farsalinos himself: firmly established connections to the tobacco and e-cigarette industries worth hundreds of thousands of euros . Stéphane Horel and Ties Keyzer have documented them in the medical journal BMJ - including the denials of tobacco friends known from earlier scientific activities.

The nicotine hypothesis has of course long been refuted, in reality smokers have a significantly increased risk of severe Covid courses.

But because the preprints with the desired headlines quickly made the rounds in the media, further, unchecked specialist articles penned by Farsalinos appeared.

Like these propaganda offensives, the article withdrawals recently printed in the European Respiratory Journal - due to unrecognized links to the tobacco industry - only give an idea of ​​the extent of the conflicts of interest.

It is true that the cross-shots of the scientific cardsharps are likely to be drowned in the noise of almost 140,000 publications on the pandemic in the end.

But the moral damage remains.