World Vape Day 2020
Thoughts on World Vape Day 2020
Is Vaping Safer Than Smoking?
Is vaping less harmful than smoking traditional cigarettes? “It depends on who you talk to” seems to be the typical response given by reporters as evidenced by this most recent example: Here’s the basic problem with that question. It has been answered. Public Health England (PHE) [and the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the guys that told the world in 1960 that smoking caused cancer] reviewed all the evidence EVERY year. That’s ALL the evidence – good & bad. After…
10 Steps to Spotting Junk Health Science
This post was inspired by the following tweet by my friend Jeff Stier. A good start, but woefully insufficient https://t.co/hKWLzPLc8q — Jeff Stier (@JeffaStier)February 9, 2017 After reading the article I came up with 10 much more relevant keys and tweeted them to Jeff. Thinking about it a bit more (I only spent 30 minutes writing the 10 tweets) I realized that expanding on these points might be useful to those wanting some concrete information behind those 10 tweets. It…
2017 – A Banner Year for Stupid
British scientists “inserted” food flavorings into sperm. Wacky hijinks ensued.https://t.co/XjgISTF2Fa — Jim McDonald (@whycherrywhy) January 6, 2017 So a group of half-witted pseudo intellectuals decided that it would be an equivalent exposure to mix e-liquid directly with sperm. This following the previous group who decided that directly injecting e-liquid into the peritoneum of rats would validly test testicular exposure. How do these people pass as real scientists? The exposure route is through inhalation. There are attenuative factors that limit the…
For ’tis the sport to have the FDA Hoist with its own petard…
Sometimes advocating for smoke-free alternatives provides some interesting opportunities. Recently Clive Bates penned a rather damning post on the FDA’s deeming “FDA shoots itself in the foot, cigarette trade celebrates, public health loses – a summary in two quotes” wherein he ends with the notion: “… that the big players behind the FDA’s intervention, such as Mitch Zeller and Matt Myers, do not have the faintest idea what they are actually doing. Carl Phillips replied to this notion with “FDA…
An Open Response to Heralds of the FDA’s Deeming Regulations
What those heralding the newly announced FDA deeming regulations ignore is the fact that while subjecting e-cigarettes and other reduced harm products to draconian measures, cigarettes continue unabated. By the very law ostensibly designed to curb smoking’s harms – cigarettes continue unchanged. To be sure, oversight would be welcome. Indeed, the vapor products industry argued for reasonable regulations, measurable standards, and effective controls. They were ignored. Instead FDA has chosen to impose requirements on reduced harm products that cigarettes were…
Can Vapers move Public opinion?
A recent discussion posed a question regarding the likelihood that the current movement among vapers to influence politics could actually have the intended effect. This straightforward question has a rather layered answer. The first layer, generating enthusiasm, is the intent behind motivating people with the notion that they can make a difference. The analysis is correct in that influencing the election of a presidential or even a federal senatorial vote is a far reach. However, influencing a house of representative,…
We Didn’t Ban Automobiles…
Harm reduction is a range of public policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with human behaviors. In 1968 53,000 people a year died in auto accidents as the first seat-belt laws were passed. Fifty-three years later we have reduced the death rate by 62%. We didn’t ban automobiles; we reduced the harm from using them by getting professional help from credible source. Just as seat-belts, airbags, and anti-lock brakes all work to reduce the causes of harm in…
Advocacy, Opposition, and the Vaping Truth
While I understand the concern that certain members of Public Health, Tobacco Control, and the Media are expressing; they are, like so many members of the legislature and the public, jumping to conclusions based on flawed data points. The studies exhibited are often notably presenting information that takes no account of the risk reduction between e-cigarettes and the smoking they replace. Several studies have designs that have no relationship to real world application, often exaggerating the exposure so significantly that…
How to Argue FOR Vaping
One of the most difficult things about this disruptive technology is how to defend it against the naysayers who are, like the Luddites of old, trying to destroy what they do not understand. It is frustrating beyond tolerance at times, to hear our lifesaving technology reduced to being perceptually more harmful than smoking itself. Those of us who have been on the front lines face endless repetition of the same pseudo-scientific lies and misrepresentations at every turn. We are besieged…