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Trustworthy Information About Vaping (E-Cigarettes)
In August 2019, there was talk in the USA of a “mysterious lung disease” caused by e-cigarettes! In several states of the USA, people have fallen ill who have in common the consumption of e-cigarettes. Young men in the states of Illinois and Wisconsin fell ill most frequently. A young man actually died as a result of his lung disease.
However, the original report by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) also clearly describes that the health officials of the individual states could NOT be sure that the damage can actually be attributed to the consequences of e-cigarette consumption. There was talk of punched e-liquids and contaminated THC, which users were probably vaping. This information was simply swept under the carpet by the USA press. There is the original report of the American health authority CDC.
Let’s be honest, as soon as something new comes into our lives and we don’t know exactly what to think of it – especially when the matter is also being discussed controversially, like our e-cigarette – what do we do? Some might start by asking friends or family what they think of “these new things.” Others of you question Dr. Google.
Now it is of course the case that we are very much influenced by the opinion of trustworthy people or websites. What we ourselves often neglect is simply to question certain statements. Check the accuracy of the answers we receive. And so it happens very quickly that we are completely misguided and – what is even worse – mislead others as well by passing on wrong information.
Many of you will know it. If you tell people that you are now vaping or that you have bought an e-cigarette, you will be confronted with the following statements: “It’s all just as harmful as normal cigarettes!”, “Basically much more harmful, because you does not know of any long-term studies!”, “Nobody knows what is in e-cigarettes!” “E-cigarettes tempt young people to reach for tobacco!” Well, where do people get this “knowledge” from? Of course: just enter “e-cigarette harmful” on Google. The first 5 articles displayed differ so much in their statements that it is difficult for a layperson to filter out the right information.
In the following CAK would like to give you a few tips to help you find the right information in the future:
Check out the imprint
Who are responsible for these articles and what are the motives behind them?
The “Health Center” page is the best example of false or one-sided reporting. Neosmart Consulting AG is specified in the imprint, which is viewed as extremely controversial by consumer protection. Various reports by different people from the medical and pharmaceutical field are published on the website of “The Center for Health”. The criticism here is that often no authors of such articles are given. Furthermore, although studies are mentioned, the sources are also missing here. Since the site advertises various products, the suspicion is raised that the supposedly medical education is purely for advertising purposes.
The e-cigarette market is now a serious competitor for the large tobacco industry. Corporations like Altria with brands like Marlboro and Chesterfield are therefore jumping on the bandwagon and launching their own products on the market. The best-known examples are the typical e-cigarette “myBlu” from the Reemtsma group (“John Player”, “Gauloises” or “West”). The tobacco heater “Iqos” is launched by the German market leader Philip Morris. Technically, however, this has nothing to do with the classic e-cigarette.
It is questionable whether tobacco companies, the pharmaceutical industry or politicians will gain advantages if they question the consumption of e-cigarettes. Nevertheless, you should always check how carefully the individual research was carried out.
Checks statements for correctness
For the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick with the content of the “Health Center”. It offers you all the prerequisites to uncover false reporting. Sometimes certain statements are simply too simple to be doubted immediately. But here too, in my opinion, the author is in demand. If I want to report about something truthfully, seriously and objectively, then I should think carefully about my wording.
You will find two incorrect formulations in the title of the article: “E-cigarettes are harmful – and also carcinogenic“.
First of all, the e-cigarette is not carcinogenic, because after all you do not consume the battery mod. If anything, the liquids vaporized for e-cigarettes would be carcinogenic. Here we come to the second false statement. No studies have proven that our e-liquids are carcinogenic. Especially since all ingredients are EU-approved food flavorings. In addition, there have not yet been any concrete cases in which people have died exclusively and as a result of the sole consequences of consuming liquids in e-cigarettes.
If information is given, then these are isolated cases. Make yourself aware of the numbers of the steamers. To this day there are around 4 million vapers in Germany. Individual cases are not considered in statistics. The only thing that matters is that for 15 years now the number of deaths or seriously ill people as a result of the consumption of e-cigarettes has been 0 – while between 110,000 and 140,000 people in Germany still die every year as a result of smoking. There are over 6 million people worldwide.
Pay attention to references and further links
In the example of the article on the “Health Center” page, assertions are corroborated with their own assertions. There are no further links that lead you to external websites. There are only internal links to topic contributions that were written specifically and cast doubt on their credibility.
The source information below the article only shows a series of technical terms. If you google the paragraphs, you will end up with each of these paragraphs on the page of the US National Library Of Medicine National Institutes Of Health. No case studies or doctors who specialize in e-cigarettes are mentioned here.
The best-known e-cigarette long-term study by Dr. Riccardo Polosa Director of the Institute of Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology at the University of Catania, Italy.
“It’s a well-known fact that bad news dominates the headlines and vaping stories are no exception. So I am not very surprised that, despite the important public health implications, this study has received very little media coverage. The irony is that if our data showed signs of lung damage, the news would have been all over the place (and we probably have a better chance of securing funding for a larger study!). Riccardo Polosa interviewed by Ashtray, UK
Since 2013, the team of Dr. Riccardo Polosa Study participants who only vape. It has been proven that consuming tobacco cigarettes can cause vascular or lung damage. In order to be able to rule out these risks from the outset, it is important that the participants take part in this study completely unencumbered. It is therefore a prerequisite that the participants have never consumed tobacco before. Another requirement is that participants have been vaping daily for at least 3 months. Incidentally, all participants come from surveys of their steamer shops. A group of potential study participants was obtained after surveys on their own consumption behavior through e-cigarettes and previous experiences with tobacco.
In the first step, the participating vapers were observed for 3.5 years accompanied by a control group.
