News

We all know that reading scientific research can actually be a bit of a bore, long phrases and technical jargon litters the vast majority of studies. Heck, they even have their own terminology; as if doing that makes the research they produce not for us mere mortals.

You will of course remember two articles from Vox all those months ago which caused all sorts of twittery shenanigans (refresh your memory here, here and here) with the author of the original article coming under a lot of fire from us advocates. Quite rightly too, the first article was, in a word atrocious. Ill-balanced, poorly written and had some serious bias issues.

Not going to beat about the bush with this one, not going to play nice. After all the evidence presented to date along with all the upcoming evidence certain organisations still don’t get it.

We, as vapers know unequivocally that there are certain organisations along with certain individuals that seek to dehumanize smokers, and by extension vapers. Who is it I’m picking on today then?

The American Medical Association. Now if that sounds at all familiar, it should. It is effectively an American version of the BMA, and we know just how useless they are. What is worrying in this instance, is the seeming lack of math understanding. Bear with, and let’s take a look at the PR rubbish first.

In a break from the norm, it seems that the main news story being shared about today is actually a positive one. The story starts on the counterweight continent where some mad scientists came up with an idea to peer over the edge.

These mad scientists, taking their idea from the island of four ecks used a device way beyond its limits. As with anything like that, the demons inhabiting this device complained. Loudly. Some of them even tried to form a union to protest. Trouble is, the name didn’t really inspire confidence; Demons Against Mad Nutcases - D.A.M.N. The result of this union caused a lot of trouble with many inhabitants of the counterweight continent inadvertently using the name in everyday life.

Whilst sitting at my home office desk, transferring the hundreds of photographs taken from my best friends wedding yesterday I tried playing a little catch up with all the shenanigans that have been going on for the last two days. Needless to say, I failed miserably. But one or two items did catch my eye and they both have a commonality.

It would seem that our delightful friend, Frampton Blands has been up to his usual trickery. Or at least, he has been trying to. This article popped into my social feeds and it is pretty clear from the title alone that it is going to be pure and utter bunkem.

The constant flow of misinformation originating from various NGOs and charities makes a day in the life of a vaper feel a little like groundhog day. It is usually the same preposterous rubbish with some words jiggled about to make “new” headlines. Or in the case of this subject, tweets.

I do spend an incredible amount of time on social media, and although I may not see the tweets directly, other vaping advocates do so I get to see their responses. Social media. Great isn’t it?

Thought I’d have a stab at making a sensationalist headline for once. I’ll admit, it needs work. Some work. OK a lot of work, but it sure as hellfire beats the headline gracing the on-line Mirror today.

In a way, that headline can be seen as positive. In a bad light, if you squint. It isn’t the usual scaremongering headline that normally accompanies an article on personal vaporisers in the Mirror that’s for damn sure.

Last week, the Irish Cancer Society released an article under their ‘News’ section detailing some ‘alarming’ findings about who uses electronic cigarettes. After reading this article two or three times, I noted a few items that were a little odd. So I sent them a pretty lengthy e-mail and waited, not expecting a response.

Imagine my total surprise when I checked my inbox this morning to find that my email actually had a response from an ICS Advocacy Officer. I’ll say this now, I do appreciate it when my e-mails get a response however short. This one, was pretty detailed, if a little wishy-washy in places.

I recently posted about the possibility of two distinct stories that could arise from one source, it seems there has been a bit more action with one of the stories. Spurred on of course by new ’evidence'.

Armed with this stunning new evidence our resident chipmunk decides to put pen to paper and attempts to ‘dissect’ the information presented. Think we can all guess how this is going to pan out can’t we?

Today was meant to be the day when something erupted from California. There were two options on what it could be, either the classical “e-cigs don’t aid cessation” stories where some pseudo-scientist deep in the bowels of UU pokes a few buttons on Hex, sends the antz scurrying to come up with a catchy click worthy headline.

That one did pop up briefly. It is still being touted around but not as loudly as the other “story”.

Who is the biggest liar of them all?

Pithy intro, must work on that. But this is a blog it’s meant to entertain (somewhat) and inform (kind of). Not to mention I am a completely random individual so don’t judge. Anyway I digress, and that’s before I start.

In case you missed it on twitter today, our mutual frenemy has penned another e-cig article. He has written a few, here, here, here, here, here, and his most recent one here. Unfortunately, the term investigative journalism seems to have escaped his notice as the vast majority of what he writes, and how he writes it comes across as decidedly negative. That is of course complete at odds with his claims of ‘balance’.