The War Over Vaping’s Health Risks Is Getting Dirty

[Reefa]

For nicotine enthusiasts, 2015 will be remembered as part of a golden era. Less than 10 years after they were introduced in the United States, e-cigarettes have gone relatively unregulated by health agencies, with companies and users making their own rules in a nicotine-laced Wild West. E-cigarette companies have been advertising their products to adults and children alike, claiming to help smokers quit while simultaneously promoting lollipop-flavored liquids. But now health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and even city-based public health departments are starting to fight back—not in the form of regulations, but with their own media campaigns.

It’s a tough fight to pick. Nationwide, more than 20 million people—about one in 10 adults—have tried e-cigarettes, and plenty of those people have become vaping devotees. That’s due at least in part to the way e-cig companies have advertised their products, unhindered by the FDA’s ad regulations for tobacco products. “It’s totally out of control,” says Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco. “For the first time since 1972, we have recreational nicotine being advertised on television and radio.” Reminiscent of glamorous smoking ads of the last century, many of the ads feature celebrity endorsements; in a Blu ad, Jenny McCarthy flirts with the camera while rejoicing that she can now smoke without scaring guys away with her smell. And many of them seem shockingly child-centric. “The youth use is exploding in parallel to the marketing,” says Glantz.

What’s a concerned public health agency to do? Fight ads with ads.

Health advocates were relatively slow to react to the onslaught of e-cigarettes, but recently, national, state, and city-level public health organizations have launched their own campaigns against e-cigarettes and their promiscuous advertising. On March 30, the CDC began its first anti-smoking campaign featuring e-cigarette users. Last week, the California Department of Public Health launched a anti-vaping campaign called Still Blowing Smoke. And in January, the San Francisco Department of Health launched #CurbIt, pointing out the dangers of e-cigs and their brazen plays to hook kids while warning residents that vaping is only allowed in the same places as smoking.

There’s plenty of evidence behind the campaigns’ claims—studies that link e-cigs to asthma, lung inflammation, MRSA infection risk and exposure to harmful chemicals. But with scant data on the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes and their usefulness as a quitting tool, the ads use a number of classic psychological strategies to help beat back the ire of pro-vapers.

One CDC ad relies on anecdotal evidence to make its point. It features a story from an e-cigarette user, a 35-year-old wife and mother named Kristy from Tennessee who says she started smoking e-cigarettes hoping to quit combustible cigarettes. Instead, she began to smoke both, until her lung collapsed. The American Vaping Association reportedly called the ad “patently dishonest,” saying that it implies vaping led to lung disease, when in reality Kristy had gone back to smoking cigarettes alone in the months before her lung collapsed. California’s anti-vaping campaign lists toxins that humans once thought were safe—arsenic-laced powdered wigs, radium therapy, and of course cigarettes—and compares them to e-cigs, using a deceptive associative tactic that we’ve called out before.

The backlash against those campaigns has been swift. In the battle between public health and e-cigarettes, e-cigs have one major advantage: a massive population of users, many of whom credit the product with helping them to quit smoking, and who loudly defend their choice to vape. One thread on the American Vaping Association’s website collects anti-#CurbIt tweets. VaporVanity.com, a pro-vaping site, quickly posed the question: “Are The Members Of The San Francisco Health Department The Stupidest Human Beings On The Planet?” And pro-vapers launched a site nearly identical to California’s—called Not Blowing Smoke—that claimed that, well, basically everything the state said was a lie. The state’s Facebook post was quickly taken over by angry vaping fans. “There is this hyper-aggressive social media response to anyone who doesn’t think e-cigarettes are the greatest things ever,” says Glantz. “They’re trying to shut down any criticism.” Derek Smith of San Francisco’s Tobacco Free Project says his older colleagues saw similar reactions decades ago, when the city launched its first anti-smoking campaigns.

In a perfect world, the safety of a fun, potentially helpful smoking cessation method wouldn’t be left to nasty debates like this. The problem is, as in the early days of campaigns against cigarettes, there isn’t definitive evidence that e-cigarettes cause long-term harm—a point that pro-vapers will be quick to remind you of. But there also isn’t definitive evidence that they’re safe. And there are many good reasons to assume they’ll be found in time to increase cancer and heart and lung disease. “E-cig people would like you to believe that because the evidence that we have on them is limited, that we don’t know anything. And that’s just not true,” says Glantz. There’s a difference, he says, between not having evidence of an effect and having evidence of no effect.

What firm science there is to rest on is fairly obvious: E-cigarettes are almost certainly less toxic and carcinogenic than regular cigarettes. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not a health hazard. “We already know you’re breathing in a lot of toxic chemicals, which is bad,” says Glantz. “You’re breathing in a lot of toxic particles, which is bad. You’re taking in nicotine, which is bad. A cigarette is by far and away the most dangerous consumer product ever invented. So to say it’s not as bad as a cigarette is not saying very much.”

In the absence of incontrovertible evidence, then, public health agencies have to continue to play a little dirty themselves to get citizens to pay attention. In a couple of years, researchers will begin to do association studies to pull out long-term health effects. Until that science rolls in, the, prepare to sit back and enjoy the show. These two camps will be hashing it out for a while.

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/war-vapings-health-risks-getting-dirty/

[Crazycanuk]

Thanks to e-cigs, it will be 1 year in 2 days that i have stopped poisoning my family and myself with tobacco. Saving 25$/day hell even the cats are doing better. At least if the product that i am ingesting is harmful, well i will be hurting myself and no one else

[dMog]

gee...who would have ever thought delivering nicotine and assorted other chemical flavours directly into your lungs via vapor could have adverse health effects...i just do not understand how that can be true :rolleyes:

[avmad]

It all comes down to who's making money out of it. Only big pharma and tobacco giants can afford to conduct the massive tests needed to prove how safe they are. They're already losing money, alongside the government in taxes.

Once they start selling them vapers are screwed. Only certain strengths, flavours, devices regulated etc will be available from your doctor or pharmacy and they'll probably end up like NRT products which are virtually useless.

Now alot of the stores are calling them stop smoking devices, which they should never have done. They are just an alternative. Years ago that was what everyone called them until greedy sellers popped up everywhere. This forces it into big pharmas hands.

They do need testing, but I don't see how it will help the vapers unless the vape companies can do the testing themselves.

Some small tests, or horror stories have been done, but the people conducting the tests haven't got a clue how to use the ecig. They let the juice run out and keep going etc. That will cause burning of the filling material and probably produce harmful toxins which then get quoted in a test. If you were using the ecig you couldn't vape it like this, you'd have to add liquid. It would be obvious. But scientists don't know this unless they have real users there to teach them.

These are the sort of tests which could do the most damage to vape future.

I switched from smoking roll ups to ecigs over 6 years ago. It's more pleasurable to me. I never tried quitting smokes in my life.

A doctor who does know how to use ecigs properly

Dr. Farsalinos

http://www.ecigarette-research.com/web/index.php

[dMog]

@ avmad just a few few decades ago the big tobacco companies all swore on their others life that tobacco was absolutely completely harmless and that some unknown powers were out to ruin a family business and they were completely innocent of personal knowledge that tobacco was addictive and caused cancer.... all claims i might add were proven to be total lies...and you think vapeing nicotine or flavors will be safe... no problem if you know it is not bu lets not pretend otherwise...the science on the inherent and proven harm does not need to be re-proved here

[avmad]

What?

Should I go back to smoking then because I know the risks?

[dMog]

both are inherently risky is my point...i know several people that vape because they think it is healthier the intake nicotine with vapor as opposed to smoke...i also have a buddy who brags he has not smoked for 10 years but he chews a tin of chewing tobacco every two days...sort of similar to heroin addict saying he is not addicted anymore because he no longer injects but smokes it...does mot matter how your body gets the nicotine it still getting it

[smallhagrid]

Back when doctors recommended smoking as health-promoting I watched as it killed all my best family members including my mother and that entire side of the family.

I could never tolerate the stuff and have never done it myself as a result.

I've watched since then as other forms of addiction have taken other good people away from this life.

My point:

If one MUST have an addiction, then perhaps it could be an addiction to pure happiness or to personal freedom - but NOT to some chemical which poisons their body in any manner.