Vaping

Once again, there is a headline sweeping the UK media channels - both print and radio - that is not only misleading, but is also downright dangerous. Many of the UK papers have led with the headline “Vaping is as bad as SMOKING”, which regular readers of this blog will know is simply not true. Vaping may indeed not be entirely risk free, but there are very few things (if any) in this world that are risk free. I suppose you could say, the greater the pleasure the greater the risk - but that doesn’t apply to vaping, it’s always been the odd one out really.

I mentioned in a previous post that a certain Canadian MD - 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” - has had an opinion piece published, alongside a certain study, which is now getting some media attention. Hardly surprising really. Most notably (so far) is his mention in a Medscape article.

I’ve touched on this briefly a few times before (here, here and most recently here) and it’s all about smoking/vaping in the workplace in particular, and anywhere else in public in general. As many readers will know Public Health England recently released some guidance on the “Use of e-cigarettes in public places and workplaces”.

Before I go much further, let me remind you of a comment that had been left on one of my posts about this particularly thorny subject:

We had some forewarning of this dropping in the Medical Journal of Australia and frankly I wasn’t at all surprised by the authors of the opinion piece. Rest assured it is an opinion piece there is zero new evidence being bought forward. You could almost call it a review, if you are feeling incredibly generous. But I’m long past feeling generous to the three authors. We all know who they are. The three biggest dunderheaded buffoons that claim to be “experts” in the field.

As we know, the revised tobacco products directive enters into force this month, and while many held out hope that it would be overturned by the Article 20 Legal Challenge (among other challenges) there has been a distinct lack of impact analysis of the Directive.

Thanks to Lorien Jollye for bringing this to my attention from ASH. The trouble with the ASH analysis is there is so much wrong with it.

It isn’t particularly uncommon for government agencies to bend the truth. What is thoroughly disingenuous is how they decide to bend the truth. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed a bit of a trend. Wherever the use of e-cigarettes is prevalent, the overall combustible use declines. It is kind of hard to see how one equals the other, but that is exactly what the CDC have done.

Overall tobacco use by middle and high school students has not changed since 2011, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

So there’s a new quack in town that has decided to jump on the anti-vaping bandwagon. Is this quack a respiratory physician? A specialist in the deep, dark and mysterious ways of the lung and airway? A specialist in the effects of cancer or other diseases that have been linked with smoking?

No. Margaret Cuomo (MD) is a radiologist. She specialises in diagnostic radiology. She has published a book - “A World without Cancer” - which (according to Amazon) is fairly popular. I haven’t read it, based on her latest stunt for Huff Post Wise it’s likely to be filled with inane, non-evidence based drivel. But what do you expect? The eldest daughter of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo and former NY First Lady Matilda. The sister of Governor Andrew Cuomo and CNN’s Chris Cuomo seems to give her the idea that she can say anything she damn well likes.

In a seemingly all too familiar refrain there’s another DoH Director, this time in Rhode Island, making grandiose and thoroughly misleading claims on vapour products. Last May, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott became the new director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, where she stated quite categorically that “some” of her priorities included: “addressing disparities in the health-care system and providing high-quality health care to more people”.

Frankly, that’s an admirable goal. As is building a “statewide, strategic plan” to address overdoses and a prescription monitoring system. So I guess in less than a year she’s figured all that out so she can turn her attentions to nannying the crap out of her state residents.

When it comes to anti-smoking campaigns and organisations one of the key mantras is “protecting the kids”, the ever-present “think of the children”. Trouble is, whenever an organisation says to policy makers “thinking of the children” it inevitably tugs on said policy makers heart-strings. Everyone wants their kids to grow up and lead good, healthy, normal lives don’t they? Let’s face it, I grew up to lead a relatively normal healthy life. I made choices along the way, some good and some not so good, it’s all part of this little thing called “growing up”.

Advocacy. Such an interesting concept isn’t it? You have one group of folks saying one thing, and another group saying the opposite. Before social media there were unending group meetings, PR, debates and all that jazz. True it was much slower to get the points across, but that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things as it gave each side a lot of time to come up with something ‘better’. Not to mention getting the face time to get the point across.