Yesterday demonstrated the effects of a coordinated effort to discredit one of the most disruptive technologies that has several groups within “public health” worried. Not only for their funding source, which is neither here nor there, but also for the steadily decreasing relevance.
Naturally, the media headlines don"t really get to the bottom of the issue:
FDA puts e-cig makers on notice: Fix “epidemic” teen use or products may be pulled from market
As both Snowdon and Puddlecote reported today, the EU - along with 167 other signatories to the WHO FCTC - are set to travel to Geneva for the Conference Of the Parties session 8 (COP8), whereby they’ll completely ignore the founding principles of the Protocol - as I discussed recently.
As with any gathering of the soulless anti-smoking extremists, there’s always going to be something that is a step too far. In this case, it is all about the “depiction of tobacco use in the arts”. The proposal for this is here, whereupon the ‘Expert Group’ grandly report thus:
I noticed this piece in The Conversation yesterday (it also popped up on another, unrelated news site), and unlike the usual vaping related articles, it wasn’t penned by the illustrious Simon Chapman.
Of course, just because it wasn’t written by Chapman doesn’t mean it’s going to be a positive article. After all, The Conversation is his own playground.
I’ve written about regulations and standards before, and my views haven’t changed. The BSI PAS was in response to the TPD and thus had to operate within the confines of that Directive, which as we know is very limiting in what can and can’t be done. From regulation flows bad standards. From good standards flows good regulation. The downside is good standards can (and do) take years to put in place.
The next few days are going to be more than a little interesting. In case you weren’t aware, the BMA are holding their annual representatives meeting (ARM) at the BT Convention Centre in Liverpool. Should we be worried? Of course we should, the BMA aren’t exactly known for their openness or positivity to e-cigarettes.
There are six motions in the ARM agenda, five of which according to the full agenda document are unlikely to be reached. That then excludes motions 233-235, 239 and 240. That leaves motion 289, proposed by Waltham Forest. But, in all likelihood at least one of the shaded motions will be debated; after all the topic of e-cigarettes is such a contentious issue and we know full well the stance of some of the upper echelons of the BMA when it comes to e-cigarettes and vaping.