Vapers Digest March 9th

Friday’s News at a glance:

A Terrified Industry – The mob behaviour of tobacco control – How Low Will They Go? – Sorting The Lies And The Truth At #WCTOH2018 – E-cigarette flavors and aldehyde emissions – Trace Toxins, Present in All Teens, Improperly Blamed on E-Cigarettes – Just Who Is Actually Marketing Vapes To Children? – Glantz Attacks UK Quit Claims – New FDA Study on Battery-Related Injuries – IQOS: Good Thing, or Bad? – A Billion Lives & The Winston Man – American Cancer Society Issues New E-Cigarette Policy Statement – Vape Lies in Lions Bay – UK report finds there is no harm in passive vaping – Has ‘JUULing’ Caused Cancer – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest

A Terrified Industry

Dick Puddlecote

In September last year Derek Yach, former World Health Organization cabinet director and developer of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) – so basically a tobacco control hero – announced the formation of the Foundation for a Smoke-free World (FSFW). As I wrote at the time, the massed ranks of state and pharma-funded tobacco controllers were outraged at this because it is funded by a tobacco company which has stated that it will have absolutely no input into how the money is spent.

Foundation for a Smoke-Free World – 

The mob behaviour of tobacco control

Clive Bates, The Counterfactual

The bloodlust of the critics of the Foundation on display here is vile – an unethical and mindless reflex response to innovation.  The tobacco warriors are now explicitly defining their mission as a war on Big Tobacco, and not a war on disease.  While these may have been one and the same some years ago (it was never the case for smokeless tobacco), now is exactly the wrong time to double down on a war with Big Tobacco (see David Sweanor’s post: Tobacco control and the tobacco industry – a failure of understanding and imagination).

How Low Will They Go?

The Irony From The World Conference On Tobacco Or Health

Carl V. Phillips, Daily Vaper

This week, tobacco controllers from all over the world gathered in Cape Town, South Africa for the largest of their hate-filled pep rallies. You can check out the Twitter tag #WCTOH2018 for a view into the unfettered id of tobacco control, because in these echo chambers any modest restraint ultimately dissolves. The tag also offers a collection of responses to what is being presented there — cogent criticisms, hilarious quips and damning accusations.

Sorting The Lies And The Truth

At #WCTOH2018 – Dick Puddlecote

Following on from Wednesday’s article here about happenings at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) in Cape Town, I see that proceedings have now wrapped up. The congenital liars delegates are packing their bags as I write and heading to the airport for their state-funded flights back home, filled to the brim with military-style fighting rhetoric against industry but having achieved the grand sum of fuck all for the benefit of public health.

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E-cigarette flavors and aldehyde emissions:

Another failure to verify findings from a previous study

Dr Farsalinos

More than 1 year ago, a study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology reporting that aldehyde emissions from e-cigarettes are derived from thermal degradation of flavoring compounds rather than the main liquid ingredients (propylene glycol and glycerol). The study found non-detectable levels of aldehydes in unflavored liquids, but up to 10,000-fold higher levels of aldehydes in flavored samples….

Beyond the Headlines:

Trace Toxins, Present in All Teens, Improperly Blamed on E-Cigarettes

Brad Rodu, Tobacco Truth

The University of California San Francisco publicized a study on March 5, asserting that “Adolescents who smoke e-cigarettes are exposed to significant levels of potentially cancer-causing chemicals.” (here)  The study’s lead author, Mark Rubinstein, M.D., said, “Teenagers need to be warned that the vapor produced by e-cigarettes…actually contains some of the same toxic chemicals found in smoke from traditional cigarettes.”

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Who Is Actually Marketing To Children?

Carl V. Phillips, Daily Vaper

Tobacco controllers falsely accuse merchants of marketing to “children” anytime their messages might be seen by someone under 19 or even 25. Since teenagers are not sealed inside an information bubble, this means that almost any communications will draw this accusation. If a merchant was to put out the message “hey, high-schoolers, all the other kids are vaping” they would genuinely be marketing to children. This, of course, does not happen. It is the tobacco controllers themselves who are engaged in marketing to children, with messages like that and many others.

Glantz Attacks UK Quit Claims

Mawsley, Planet of the Vapes

Thanks to independent experts, vaping is strongly associated with smoking cessation in the United Kingdom. Such evidence directly opposes the fiction being produced at the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education, at the University of California in San Francisco. It is no surprise that this presents a challenge to Stanton Glantz.

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New FDA Study on Battery-Related Injuries

Jim McDonald, Vaping 360

When vaping fires and burns make the news, the image of vaping as a safer alternative to smoking is damaged. Sure, we know that most battery events are caused by user error, but it’s tough to explain that to people who already believe vaping is a risky practice.

Now a study from the FDA Center for Tobacco Products offers some insight into the number and causes of vaping burn injuries. The research was conducted by CTP employees, and published in the journal Injury Epidemiology.

IQOS: Good Thing, or Bad?

Paul Barnes, Facts Do Matter

Ever since I tried an early heat-not-burn device when I attended the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN) I have tried to keep an eye on the developing technology. At the end of the day, it’s really a simplistic concept. Instead of setting fire to loose-leaf tobacco wrapped in a slow-burning paper, it’s simply heated in a not too dissimilar way that an e-cig heats e-liquid.

A Billion Lives & The Winston Man

Bard Malmin

It has now been a year since I interviewed Aaron Biebert from A Billion Lives, Norwegian professor on tobacco research Karl E. Lund, and ‘The Winston Man’ David Goerlitz.

The video of this interview was supposed to be aired, but as we all know, the media is having a hard time swallowing the truth. Especially when politicians, the FDA, and the pharmaceutical companies keep lying about the positive effects that vaping has had on the smokers who’ve managed to quit with the use of vape

Cancer society’s evolving position

Carrie Wade, R Street

Activists around the country will again march for science in April as part of a budding movement promoting the importance of making public-policy decisions based on evidence and the scientific method.

A key part of the scientific method is adjusting one’s position upon the discovery of new information. If you’re going to tout science, you’ve got to go where the evidence takes you, even if that means changing your mind.

American Cancer Society

Issues New E-Cigarette Policy Statement

The American Cancer Society’s (ACS) board of directors issued a new position statement on e-cigarettes, stating the products are “less harmful than smoking cigarettes” and recommending “clinicians support all attempts to quit the use of combustible tobacco and work with smokers to eventually stop using any tobacco product, including e-cigarettes.”

Vape Lies in Lions Bay

Mawsley, Planet of the Vapes

Vapers are accustomed to reading or hearing distortions and untruths about vaping, we have an article on the site about myth busting yesterday, but a Canadian mayor has stooped to a new low: the politician blamed vaping for a child’s death in an inexcusable lie.

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There is no harm in passive vaping

Matt Young

WHETHER you’re a smoker or not, you’ve no doubt heard the rumours. Some might call it science.

Over the decades it has been no secret that passive smoking is one of the biggest risks associated with cancer. It has been one of the most compelling debates around the recent issues plaguing cigarette smokers and their right to smoke in public; should unsuspecting members of the public be at risk as well?

Has ‘JUULing’ Caused Cancer

Snopes

Although plenty of news reports warned parents that JUULing was the newest dangerous teen trend, we have been unable to find any that reported diagnoses or death from cancer associated with use of e-cigarettes. This rumor appeared to originate with viral screenshots from an Instagram post of indeterminate origin:

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On this Day…2017

A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise….

The Mouse That Squeaked … Nearly

Dick Puddlecote

It is a little known fact that when Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) was formed in the early 1970s, it wasn’t a result of a groundswell of popular anti-smoking opinion, quite the opposite. It wasn’t even set up by ordinary citizens giving their time and energy for a cause they believed in.

Nope, ASH was created by the government’s Chief Medical Officer of the time, George Godber, and was staffed at its launch by full time government employees. In fact, the only reason ASH was set up at all was because the voluntary anti-smoking lobby was negligible to the point of being almost invisible at the time (it still is)….

E-Cigarette Toxic Chemical Exposure 

Is Same as for Nonsmokers – Brad Rodu, Tobacco Truth

The new finding from British and U.S. e-cigarette researchers understated the good news for vapers.

“Long-term NRT-only and e-cigarette-only use…is associated with substantially reduced levels of measured carcinogens and toxins relative to smoking only combustible cigarettes,” reported scientists at the University College London…

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