As mentioned previously, I’ve found another study to have a look at. This time, it isn’t about vaping (shock!). Instead, it’s about that divisive product - Heat-not-burn.
Considering that whenever heat-not-burn gets mentioned by a vaper (such as myself) on social media the response is, sadly, predictable. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog (notably here, and here) heat-not-burn products are essential to give smokers (and the odd vaper) the widest array of choices possible.
With the recent announcement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb talking about the possibility of curtailing the marketing and selling of flavoured vapour products, it is timely that the Centre for Substance Use Research should have recently published a paper on the topic.
The CSUR came under fire when it published the Pleasure of Smoking report because, among other things, CSUR receives some funding from (you guessed it) the tobacco industry. Notably British American Tobacco and PMI.
In somewhat of a surprising move, the American Cancer Society has quietly updated its position statement on electronic cigarettes. I say quietly because there is no mention of this update on any of the social media channels, nor was there any special press release or blog post on their website.
Naturally, doing that makes me a tad suspicious.
Considering that, earlier this year they issued a press release in response to the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) report - which I still need to write about.
To borrow from Andrew Allison, once upon a time private property rights were highly valued. As long as it was legal, what consenting adults did was no-one else’s business. With the March of the Puritans, however, there are umpteen state-funded Quangos, sock-puppets and Government busybodies poking their noses in where it is decidedly unwelcome.
As reported by the Halifax Courier last week:
Calderdale taxi drivers and passengers face vaping ban in cabs
This week saw another release of the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) with more information on ‘Reasons for Electronic Cigarette Use Among Middle and High School Students’.
Given that Scott Gottlieb made a big thing in his speech about youth, it is hardly surprising the route that this is going to take.
https://twitter.com/SGottliebFDA/status/964236004549971969
Those figures are, in fact, accurate. At least as far as the survey data goes. Remember, this is from the National Youth Tobacco Survey.
It must be something about this time of year for all the idiotic anti-vaping, anti-nicotine or anti-anything, to crawl out from under whatever rock they’ve been hiding under and spout a tranche of utter bullshit before scuttling back to their safe space, complete with a shiny new grant to cook up more bullshit.
Today saw the on-line release of three, well two, actually - one of them was an opinion piece - papers in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
We all know that attitudes towards e-cigarettes are slowly being eroded in the UK by the near constant barrage of churnalism. That’s right The Sun I’m looking squarely at you, crass fuckwits that you are. I might even look towards The Telegraph too. Not for the usual reason of their “science” editor this time, though that could be considered one big reason.
Now we have an actual study, funded by the National Cancer Institute and the FDA CTP, and performed by some researchers deep in the bowels of Stanford.
“Teenagers smoke e-cigarettes because they deem them ‘cool and fun’, alarming report claims” - makes for an interesting, click bait type headline doesn’t it? So what is all the fuss about? Well as you would expect a new “study” from Canada has been released - with an accompanying op-ed from none other than Matthew Stanbrook, by far the most ideological and idiotic anti-vaper “researcher” there is, who claims that “e-cigarettes are a gateway that must be shut”.
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 manufacturer of cigarettes with the distinction ‘very low nicotine’”.
So, forget everything you’ve ever learned about the 4000+ other ingredients and chemicals contained within cigarettes it’s all about reducing exposure to nicotine.
Just for once, I’m going to be taking a break from my usual style of posts and am going to try and put my science type hat on.
Disclaimer: I am not a scientist of any type, so if there are any mistakes in my interpretations below, do feel free to correct me. Politely of course!
There have been a few studies published recently that are showing that the use of electronic cigarettes are far less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
