Siegel is known for his work in the area of tobacco control and the harmful effects of passive smoking.[1] However, in 2007, he published a paper dismissing claims that brief exposure to secondhand smoke increased the risk of heart attacks or presented any other significant cardiovascular risk to nonsmokers.[3] He has been called out for going astray by his former mentor Stanton Glantz who called him "a tragic figure - he has completely lost it," and "his view is that everybody in the tobacco control movement is corrupt and misguided except for him".[3] He also published a study in 2013 that found that in the United States, "states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides."[4] He published a similar study the following year, which concluded that "state-level gun ownership...is significantly associated with firearm and total homicides but not with non-firearm homicides."[5][6] In 2016, he and Emily Rothman published another study that found a "substantial" association between gun ownership rates and the rate at which women died from firearm homicide.[7][8] In July 2016, he and Rothman published another study that found a strong positive association between gun ownership rates and gun-related suicide rates in the United States. The same study found a strong association between gun ownership rates and overall suicide rates, but only among men.[9] He has also published research about how the soda industry spends millions on health organizations, yet simultaneously lobbies against public health laws intended to reduce consumption of their products.[10]
Views on electronic cigarettes
Siegel has argued that electronic cigarettes could lead to conventional cigarettes becoming obsolete.[2]
^Siegel, M.; Ross, C. S.; King, C. (16 April 2014). "Examining the relationship between the prevalence of guns and homicide rates in the USA using a new and improved state-level gun ownership proxy". Injury Prevention. 20 (6): 424–426. doi:10.1136/injuryprev-2014-041187. PMID24740937. S2CID206980488.
^Siegel, Michael B.; Rothman, Emily F. (20 January 2016). "Firearm Ownership and the Murder of Women in the United States: Evidence That the State-Level Firearm Ownership Rate Is Associated with the Nonstranger Femicide Rate". Violence and Gender. 3: 20–26. doi:10.1089/vio.2015.0047.
^Aaron, DG; Siegel, MB (3 October 2016). "Sponsorship of National Health Organizations by Two Major Soda Companies". American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 52 (1): 20–30. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2016.08.010. PMID27745783.
