High levels of disbelief in public health

In a break from the norm, it seems that the main news story being shared about today is actually a _positive _one. The story starts on the counterweight continent where some mad scientists came up with an idea to peer over the edge.

These mad scientists, taking their idea from the island of four ecks used a device way beyond its limits. As with anything like that, the demons inhabiting this device complained. Loudly. Some of them even tried to form a union to protest. Trouble is, the name didn’t really inspire confidence; Demons Against Mad Nutcases – D.A.M.N. The result of this union caused a lot of trouble with many inhabitants of the counterweight continent inadvertently using the name in everyday life.

You’ll of course remember all the scary headlines being touted at the time. It was all we could do to respond with actual facts let alone put out any kind of actual official response from any of the organisations.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time Mr DeWorde got something wrong but no matter, the news spread quickly. Many letters were sent via express clacks to Genua, The Ramtops, and some enterprising souls (wizards were suspected) tried to message the Gods themselves on Cori Celesti. Everyone was saying how bad these things were. CMOT Dibbler, the enterprising soul he is tried all kinds of things but ended up shelving his enterprising line of vaping goods. The Watch were called and the Patrician was said to be mildly annoyed.

As with any and all bad news, it rumbled on and on for almost weeks. It prompted some very gloating messages from those in tobacco control and public health all saying that “e-cigs are bad, we told you so”.

Well, in a few short months since that debacle an actual scientist rearranged his scheduled research plans to have a much closer look at this issue. The results were published in Addiction late last night and are available free (for one month) for us to look at. Of course the media were notified of the impending publication so that they could report on it to the general public.

The highlights

• Minimal levels of aldehydes were detected at 6.5W and 7.5W with both atomizers. At 9W and 10W
• the double-wick atomizer (which could be normally vaped at those power levels) again emitted minimal levels of aldehydes to the vapor
• the single-wick atomizer (which generated dry puffs at those conditions) emitted large levels of aldehydes to the vapor at 9W and 10W

As far as anyone knows, the study is the first of its kind to report on the awful dry puff phenomenon and how it is experienced. So how did this story do in the press?

Uh, not well. Not well at all. At this point in time, a press release on this study can be found in only three places:

• medicalxpress.com/news/2015-05-aldehyde-content-e-cigarettes.html
• wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/21/e-cigarette-formaldehyde
• eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/w-nsc051815.php

Of course it is mentioned on Dr F’s research blog as well as being covered by ECITA. But that’s it. Shockingly, Bloomberg Business have another article on the Japanese study with some kind of meeting with the health ministry being mentioned. Absolutely no other mainstream media published anything related to Dr F’s study.

It seems that when we want to stand up and yell “We told you so!” at the top of our vapor repaired lungs, we are not able to. It’s incredibly disappointing to know that all the major media outlets are quick to report on a letter sent to a journal dressed up as science with scary sounding headlines which have no doubt directly contributed to the slow-down in the fall of smoking rates, whilst a study that takes a closer look and finds out that they were wrong is completely ignored.

It has had the effect of temporarily shutting up those nasty anti’s, at least for now until they find something to complain about. In the meantime…