Vaping Digest August 28th
Wednesday’s News at a glance:
Vaping and Your Respiratory Health: Interview with Prof Polosa ~ Reviewed Work: “Initial e-cigarette flavoring and nicotine exposure and e-cigarette uptake among adolescents” ~ Harry’s Blog 92: You are wrong at the top of your voice ~ Lung Disease Outbreak Caused by Black Market, not Vaping ~ expert reaction to death in Illinois reported as being linked to vaping ~ E-Cigarettes: Smoke & Mirrors ~ Here’s How to Tell if Your Vape Cartridge is Safe and Not Counterfeit ~ CDC’s Bias Against E-Cigarettes Is Putting Kids’ Lives at Risk ~People are vaping THC. Lung injuries being reported nationwide. Why is the CDC staying quiet? ~ Don’t Panic over the Mystery Vaping Disease — but Maybe Lay Off the Counterfeit Products ~ Vapours is not the same as tobacco smoking ~ NZ Marked Safe ~ Scottish Prison Success ~ Vaping’s other problem: are e-cigarettes creating a recycling disaster? ~
Vaping and Your Respiratory Health: Interview with Prof Polosa
James Dunworth, Ashtray Blog
Professor Polosa has recently completed his latest study, a review of the effect of vaping on respiratory health. We got together with Riccardo Polosa to discuss how vaping can reverse harm, the potential to reduce infections, the latest controversy over vaping and respiratory diseases in the US and more.
Reviewed Work: “Initial e-cigarette flavoring and nicotine exposure and e-cigarette uptake among adolescents”
Carrie Wade, RStreet
In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking to gather information on the role that flavors play in tobacco products. Specifically, the notice sought comments about whether and to what degree flavors compel youth to initiate tobacco product use, as well as whether and how flavors may help adults who smoke combustible cigarettes reduce their cigarette use and switch to potentially less-harmful products.
Harry’s Blog 92: You are wrong at the top of your voice
Harry Shapiro, Nicotine Science and Policy
In the 1955 western Bad Day at Black Rock, Spencer Tracy tells Ernest Borgnine, “You’re not only wrong. You’re wrong at the top of your voice”. And so it is with the anti-vaping lobby (or the Faith Militant (FM) as I like to call them – for all you Game of Thrones aficionados) who bellow confusing and misleading information at the top of their lungs in so-called peer reviewed journals and across the global media landscape, adding-in vicious and vile ad hominem attacks on those trying to reduce the death and disease toll from smoking where all else has failed – and where the FM take-down of harm reduction evidence has also failed.
Lung Disease Outbreak Caused by Black Market, not Vaping
Michelle Minton, Competitive Enterprise Institute
During the past month, news stories around the world have reported on a sudden outbreak of lung illnesses supposedly linked to vaping. In the United States, federal and local authorities haven’t yet identified what is behind the illnesses, but the news media has already made its diagnosis. Headlines insinuate that vaping is to blame, fueling fears about the dangers of e-cigarettes. It’s fake news.
Expert reaction to death in Illinois reported as being linked to vaping
Prof Linda Bauld, Prof Robert West, Science Media Centre
A patient in the USA has died from a respiratory disease that has reportedly been linked to vaping.
Prof Linda Bauld, Professor of Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh, said:
“There have been a number of reports from the USA in recent weeks of serious respiratory illnesses in people using vaping products, and it is concerning to hear that one of these patients has died. However, we don’t know what has caused this death or the other cases. We have no evidence that they are linked to the types of e-cigarettes used by over 3 million people in the UK. Details from the USA are sketchy and clearly further investigation is needed, but these cases appear to be linked to contaminated or black market e-liquids. They may also be linked to vaping substances other than nicotine including cannabis oils that have been tampered with or modified.
Good video from @FedSocRTP & @FedSoc. Excellent stuff from @AGIowa & @slsatel.https://t.co/JBg9DTXk5O
— Phil (@phil_w888) August 27, 2019
E-Cigarettes: Smoke & Mirrors [Fourth Branch]
The Federalist Society
Here’s How to Tell if Your Vape Cartridge is Safe and Not Counterfeit
After dozens of people across the Midwest and California were sickened as a result of vaping cannabis or e-cigarettes, consumers, vape makers, and retailers alike have to be aware of how products are made and where they were made.
Vape pens have surged to new heights on the marijuana mountain by offering a portable and discreet way to consume THC or cannabidiol (CBD)-heavy concentrates.
CDC’s Bias Against E-Cigarettes Is Putting Kids’ Lives at Risk
Michael Siegel, National Review
The agency fails to single out the specific products that are causing harm.
In the wake of a teen death from vaping, health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are taking an anti-vaping posture. So far, the CDC’s advice to the public has been incredibly vague: The agency has warned against vaping in general, without admonishing the public to avoid any particular type of vaping product. Unfortunately, this unnecessarily vague warning threatens to undermine public health.
Don’t Panic over the Mystery Vaping Disease — but Maybe Lay Off the Counterfeit Products
Robert VerBruggen, National Review
A lot of us on the right — including yours truly — have been quite enthusiastic about the potential of vaping to reduce smoking deaths without infringing on smokers’ personal freedom. The U.K.’s Royal College of Physicians estimates that vaping is, at most, only 5 percent as dangerous as smoking. As I wrote back in 2016, “this implies we could maintain our current level of safety even if 19 nonsmokers took up vaping for every smoker who switched (or would-be smoker who vaped instead).” The potential is enormous.
On this Day…2018
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise….
Electronic Cigarette Use May Reverse the Harm
Resulting From Tobacco Smoking in COPD Patients, Even in the Long Term
Riccardo Polosa, University of Catania , PR Newswire
A new study that was recently published in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, led by Riccardo Polosa, MD, PhD (Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine of the University of Catania, Italy), suggests that electronic cigarette (EC) use may reverse some of the harm resulting from tobacco smoking in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Furthermore, EC use may ameliorate objective and subjective COPD outcomes, which may persist in the long term.
Vaping Cancer, Heart Disease Risk Overstated By Recent Research
CASAA, CASAA.ORG
Two recent study findings that were released to the media this month are just wild speculation, and possibly intentional misrepresentation, according to analysis by The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA).
In an as-yet-to-be-published (or peer reviewed) preliminary study, researchers looked at the saliva of just 5 vapers, testing for the presence of carcinogenic chemicals. Researchers found increased levels of formaldehyde, acrolein and methylglyoxal. They reportedly found “increased DNA damage” in the mouths of 4 of the participants.