Anti-e-cigarette rhetoric misleads the public, says an expert from the American Council on Science and Health

E-cigarettes can help smokers, to give up the deadly habit. Unfortunately, this information is overshadowed by the wealth of anti-e-cigarette information, that are disseminated by tobacco researchers and journalists.

The evidence is clear: Smoking e-cigarettes is less dangerous than smoking and helps many people, to give up the deadly habit of smoking. No amount of published data can refute either conclusion, but tobacco control researchers, Activists and federal authorities routinely deny or downplay both observations, which affects public understanding of e-cigarettes and discourages smokers from using them, Try alternatives, that could save their lives.

I successfully quit smoking with the help of e-cigarettes, and the conclusion in the previous paragraph comes from a recent publication in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. medscape (medscape.com) reported on 20. June: “Adults in the U.S. increasingly believe, that e-cigarettes are more harmful than traditional cigarettes.”

Why is the public afraid of e-cigarettes??

The authors analyzed data, as part of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) were collected, a nationally representative survey, which surveyed adults in the US about their perceptions of cancer and other health-related information. The data was collected in five cycles between January 2018 and May 2020 raised. The answers from more than 3.000 respondents per year (2018: 3.360; 2019: 3.217; 2020: 3.677) were included in the final analysis.

The authors report, that the relative perceived harmfulness of E-cigarettes compared to cigarettes was assessed using the following question, where six answers were available to choose from: Would you say, that e-cigarettes compared to smoking …… The respondents were found to be relatively less harmful compared to cigarettes (less harmful or much less harmful), harmful (equally harmful) or more harmful (more harmful or more harmful) classified.

The authors suspect, that the negative shift in perception caused by the media coverage of the so-called “EVALI-Epidemie” could be conditional. Von 2019 bis 2020 were more than 2.000 People hospitalized due to lung injuries related to e-cigarette use and 68 died.

That's why, that these cases were not caused by the e-cigarettes themselves, as the CDC falsely claimed for months, but through illegally purchased devices, that were used to smoke e-cigarettes containing THC or CBD. These chemicals, which are found in cannabis and not in tobacco, are mixed with vitamin E acetate, which can lead to the reported lung damage. Dr. Josh Bloom usefully explains the chemistry behind this phenomenon in this story; later studies have confirmed his analysis.

During the EVALI outbreak, journalists did this, what they usually do, if you don't know all the facts: They increased the risk again – with tacit approval of the CDC -, but were not interested, to report on the resolution of the controversy. According to the authors of the study.

“The high relative perception of major damage in March 2020 and April 2020 suggests that, that misperceptions continued long after the link to vitamin E acetate was first identified in September 2019 stopped, possibly because media coverage did not remain at the original level after the source of the outbreak was identified.”

The trend continues

EVALI is no longer an important public health issue, but controversial ideological radicalism and sloppy reporting continue to undermine e-cigarettes as a harm reduction tool today. ACSH and other science-oriented media corrected the propaganda; Unfortunately, the good news didn't get as much attention as the sexy one, scary headlines.

Experts recognize the problem and know, that it needs to be addressed. We're good at it, to convey the message, that cigarettes are bad and tobacco is widely harmful in terms of public health, says Dr. Ashley Brooks-Russell, an associate professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, sagte Medscape Medical News. We're really bad at it, to talk about less harmful options, z. B. that e-cigarettes are less harmful, if you want to smoke.

Dr. Russell is right, but I want to go one step further. Even though they documented the damage, caused by the common anti-e-cigarette analogy, Tobacco researchers cannot give up their skepticism about e-cigarettes. As the authors of the study themselves write.

“E-cigarettes …… contain high nicotine content and appealing flavors for young people, which can lead to addiction and consumption of combustible tobacco products in adolescents and young adults”. Every word of this statement is at least partially false. Many e-cigarettes contain little or no nicotine. Flavored e-cigarettes do not promote tobacco product use among youth; there is no solid evidence, which would justify this assumption. The authors also repeat the anti-e-cigarette claim, which has become a faithful article for tobacco researchers: “The risks associated with long-term use are not yet known”. This is inevitably true, but public health researchers often use this claim, to suggest, that we will see some serious risks associated with e-cigarettes in the future.

The American Cancer Society claims: “The long-term risks of e-cigarette use are not fully known, but there is increasing evidence of this, that the consumption of e-cigarettes has negative effects on the cardiovascular system and the lungs. If action is not taken immediately, to stop the widespread use of these products, the long-term negative health effects will increase.

Can you imagine, that a major medical institution makes a similar statement about the new vaccine against crown pneumonia or the puberty blocker to treat gender anxiety? After all, we don't know, what long-term effects these powerful drugs can have on people, that they take. Surely we have to “popular use” stop using these products, until we know more about them, or?

If these questions bother you, then perhaps you will begin to understand, why the popular rhetoric about E-cigarettes is so ridiculous. In order to be able to properly evaluate a product, we must carefully weigh the risks and benefits of its use. Nobody claims, that e-cigarettes are risk-free; it is an effective measure to reduce smoking – and smoking kills people around the world.

Given this criterion, it is a foolish thought experiment, to speculate about the damage, that we might find one day. Tell the public, what we know today: E-cigarettes are a relatively low-risk option for adult smokers, who want to stop smoking.