Unsurprisingly there has been yet another study published making a big song and dance about the “gateway” theory, claiming that “teens that use e-cigarettes are three times more likely to smoke” (taken from a headline), or that teens that use e-cigarettes are more likely to smoke. A quick Google news search Continue Reading
Sweet or Sour? The Appeal of E-Cigarette Ads
Once again, another study citing “concerns” reaches the media. This time it is all about flavoured vs non-flavoured e-cigarettes, gateways and smoking all based on exposure to adverts. As David Dorn highlights on his blog post:
E-Cigarettes & Smoking Cessation, The Real World According to an Aeronautical Engineer
By now you’ve probably heard of, or seen the latest attempt from Stanton A. Glantz to discredit e-cigarettes as a viable method for cessation. He, and co-author Sara Kalkhoran performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of research published for a set period of time to try to identify if e-cigarettes Continue Reading
E-Cigarettes & Lung Health
Sometimes, I struggle to fathom the motives behind certain organisations. I truly do. Here we have a respectable organisation in the American Lung Association saying that e-cigarettes are a “new” tobacco product that have still largely unknown health effects. Then there’s a link to this page, which I wouldn’t click Continue Reading
Harm Reduction, Removing the Least Harmful Component
You’ll remember Shirley Cramer talking about “nicotine free” cigarettes at the E-Cigarette Summit and how, by some margin many of the general population (87% to be precise) think that nicotine is the harmful component of cigarettes. Well it turns out that there is a company out there trying to become the “world’s first Continue Reading
Credulous or Cynical? Calling out Poor Reporting
You will of course remember the slew of scary sounding headlines between Christmas and the New Year, each one blindly repeating the same headline and the contents of a press release of a terrible study without any regard whether or not the press release relates to the study in any way Continue Reading
Discussion: Attempt to Quit, or Quit by Accident
It doesn’t take much to spark some errant thinking and lengthy discussions. In this instance it was the release of the final quarter statistics of 2015 from the Smoking Toolkit Study which is of course performed by Professor Robert West. This survey is used, along with other evidence, to inform those Continue Reading