Vaping/flavour bans: let's marshal our arguments

General Health and advocacy
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NB, the article in the Economist above, is marred by the fact that it comes out in support of a flavour ban! I’m sure I’ve read some very good arguments against flavour bans, incuding some sound economic arguments. Would like to post links and quotes , Need help tracking them down.

Besides, I really don’t like hogging this thread to myself. Now that I’ve come up with this plan of using likes as informal "upvotes’ I feel like I ought to to subject my selections to the same test * groan* , Knew i’d regret that idea.

Anyway, just found one such quote (plus link to complete statement)

Banning flavors would be a public health travesty… If a federal flavor ban is enacted, more than 10 million adults will be forced to choose between smoking again (something the FDA has said will happen if vapor products are pulled from the market) or finding what they want and need on the black market… This type of government overreach,… will surely shut down more than 10,000 American small businesses… We urge this administration to change course before millions of Americans are forced to switch back to deadly cigarettes, small businesses around the country are forced to close their doors, and tens of thousands of people are laid off.
Vapor Technology Association Responds to Trump Administration

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Did not get that picture in the brief section of the “abstract” visible above pay-wall. (That article) was referred to by the author of a recent ACSH article as supportive of their article. It occurred to me that some refer to the profession of Economist as a “dismal profession”. I take it that you have/acquired article-text-access ?

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http://www.ecigarette-research.org/research/index.php/whats-new/2019/274-us-lung

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Damn. No, I didn’t even know about the paywall. It’s not a publication that intersts me much, as a rule, so I’ve probably never used up my little bit of free acess that most of those sites give you. I ran into NY Times paywall for the first time, yesterday. :rage:
So there;s a problem. How the heck are are folk supposed to go about lifting quotes and checking citations? Nobody wants to pay a shedload of subscriptions just for that.

The bit I referred to was right at the end of the article, and I’m happy for it to stay hidden TBH :wink: So what does the abstract say? (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours :grinning:)

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Jay, here is all of the text that is visible (without paying economical treasures). It’s from the beginning:

“It’s time to stop vaping,” says Lee Norman, a health official in Kansas. Six people are dead in America, apparently from smoking e-cigarettes. More than 450 have contracted a serious lung disease. So Mr Norman’s advice sounds reasonable. The Centres for Disease Control and the American Medical Association agree: the country’s 11m vapers should quit. A new idea is circulating, that vaping is worse than smoking. On September 11th the Trump administration said it intends to ban non-tobacco flavoured vaping fluid (see article). Some politicians want a broader ban on all e-cigarettes.

The facts have gone up in smoke, as so often happens during health scares. Although more research is needed, the evidence so far suggests that the recent vaping deaths in America did not come from products bought in a shop but from badly made items sold on the street. In five out of six cases, the tainted vaping products were bought illicitly; the other involved liquid bought in a legal cannabis shop in Oregon. One theory is that the vape fluid was mixed with vitamin E. This is an oil - something that should not enter the lungs. If inhaled, oil causes the type of symptoms that the stricken vapers display.

Source (as you linked it):

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/09/12/dont-panic-about-e-cigarettes

The (visible free) text does not imply opposition to flavored e-juices (as you perceived):

The best kinds of problems are the ones that do not upon scrutiny seem to exist in the first place. Poof !

Having perused the “full monty” of “The Economist” piece, I still do not see what you personally perceived.
Is see the following general gist:

Prohibition usually causes more harm than good. Forbidding e-cigarettes will lead vapers to buy illicit products - the type that are far more likely to poison them. It will also deter many law-abiding smokers from switching to something less deadly.

The worst it gets is near the end (perhaps, your Lemon Tarts from your “cold, dead hands” ?):

Governments should also regulate how e-cigarettes are advertised. Marketing aimed at children is obviously unacceptable. So, perhaps, are fruity flavours that appeal especially to young palates. Government health warnings should be clear and measured. Vaping may be a dangerous habit, but it is vastly less deadly than lighting up.

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Thanks :slight_smile: well, then, I suppose it’s OK for me to quote a similar-sized chunk that comes next? (still good)

America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is investigating the products involved, rightly refuses to panic. It says vapers should not buy products containing cannabis extract, or those sold on the street. This is sensible. When you buy an unlicensed liquid from an unregulated supplier, you have no idea what you are puffing. This is why governments also discourage people from drinking moonshine spirits, which are sometimes deadly. In Costa Rica, for example, 25 people recently died from imbibing hooch contaminated with methanol. However, just as with alcohol, regulators should draw a distinction between illicit products and the legal, unadulterated sort.

E-cigarettes are not good for you. The vapour that vapers inhale is laced with nicotine, which is addictive. Some of the other chemicals in it may be harmful. But vaping is far less dangerous than smoking tobacco—a uniquely deadly product. If people turn to e-cigarettes as a substitute for the conventional sort, the health benefits are potentially huge. Smoking kills 450,000 Americans every year, and a staggering 7m people worldwide. Anything that weans people off tobacco is likely to save lives.

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FDA fun fact
In the last five years, 544 suicides and 1,869 attempted suicides have been reported to the FDA as “adverse events” in connection with Chantix, according to documents obtained by America Tonight under the Freedom of Information Act.

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It’s a shame of that was the only thing for smokers to use…
They want to repeat the vicious cycle smoking families have…

over and over… mom and dad smoke… kids smoke… they grow up, mom and dad die from smoking related illness and the kids have yet more kids that smoke… rinse and repeat…

guaranteed money maker.

Break the cycle now! While there is still time.

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Very fun fact. That really helps put the vaping hoo-hah into context, doesn’t it? Can you give us a link for that?
@Raven-Knightly that ASCH ( American Council on Science and Health) article is a jewel ! Thanks!

I just lifted this very clear advice from ithe bottom :.

ACSH’s Recommendation on Vaping

Here’s the bottom line:

  1. If you are a smoker, switching to vaping may save your life. (While nicotine is an addictive substance, it is the combustion products of tobacco that cause the most serious harmful effects of smoking. Vaping has fewer of these substances.)
  2. If you are a non-smoker, do not begin smoking or vaping.
  3. Vaping devices like e-cigarettes should be thought of as medical devices meant to help smokers quit.
  4. Never add anything to a vaping device other than the liquid provided by the manufacturer.

I think possibly I can file that official statements?

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Lots of them out there

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Yes, those folks (occasionally) write something somewhat interesting. Also see this companion article:

https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/09/10/can-chemistry-explain-vaping-lung-14277

My goodness, that ACSH commenter who goes by the name of “Lightning” sure piles on the verbiage ! One can find a legacy of CDC/FDA exposure and criticism on their Disqus Profile page. Must be an “insurgent” !

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Another two quotes from an ACSH article:

After the U.S. FDA delayed what we termed a rather Draconian halt to vaping devices (despite our testimony at the White House) and shortly after the FDA met to consider a non-combustion tobacco alternative called iQOS, quit-or-die smoking groups began to attack a little-known product called Juul.

Authoritarian groups seeking bans on devices like Juul… isn’t going to prevent smoking. It will encourage it. And it is causing young people to ridicule AAP, odd bans based on ‘youth are patsies duped by a tiny company’ patronization makes them think pediatricians are out of touch. They are making videos strapping Juul devices to balloons floating into the sky with sad music in the background. They are not really getting rid of Juul, they are getting rid of trust that the AAP is about protecting kids.

by Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS , Senior Medical Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health.

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This is brilliant.
Thank you Jay210.

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Surprising (to me, at this point) to see The Washinton Post give voice to a healthy “insurgent” view:

(September 16, 2019; Opinion): “A vaping ban would be hysteria masquerading as prudence”

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Censored by the Snively Seattle Times

I read this asinine candy-ass load of abstruse and pernicious garbage from the “editorial board” of the main local paper rag (perhaps ~2 Million readers), and a handful of idiotic comments. So I couldn’t help but assume that they might accept being called-out for their moral leprosy:

Really disappointing how factually lame and disingenuous this purposely blinded (to the dominant causations well known and discussed), speciously reactionary, and on balance morally negligent screed has been crafted and foisted upon the public.

For readers seeking the actual known facts as well as considering the public policy dangers surrounding ham-fisted, knee-jerk, breathless, brainless throttlings and prohibitions, instead read Dr Michael Siegel, Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health. He has 32 years of experience in the field of tobacco control. He previously spent two years working at the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC, where he conducted research on secondhand smoke and cigarette advertising. He has published nearly 70 papers related to tobacco. Skip this evidently useless Durkinville Rag’s agitprop, and instead read Dr Siegel’s highly informative blog posts for accurate and relevant information surrounding recent events, as well as the government’s absurdly intellectually and morally dishonest behaviors.

(Linked-to below in chronological order):

https://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/08/in-my-view-cdc-and-health-groups-bias.html

https://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/09/

.

~2 hours later, it’s looking very likely that my curmudgeonly ravings are just not “getting with the program”.

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They deleted your comment? I couldn’t find your comment there.

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Nice try, Raven. But we do know, don’t we, that a calm , respectful, fact-based approach itends to be a whole lot more effective than an hyperlexic stream of abuse? :wink: I know, I know, that requires an unhealthy level of teeth-gritting , but I would have stripped down your comment thus:

*For readers seeking the actual known facts as well as considering the public policy dangers surrounding ham-fisted… prohibitions …read Dr Michael Siegel, Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health. He has 32 years of experience in the field of tobacco control. He previously spent two years working at the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC, where he conducted research on secondhand smoke and cigarette advertising. He has published nearly 70 papers related to tobacco… read Dr Siegel’s highly informative blog posts for accurate and relevant information surrounding recent events, as well as the government’s absurdly intellectually and morally dishonest behaviors.
(Linked-to below in chronological order):

https://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/08/in-my-view-cdc-and-health-groups-bias.html

https://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/09/ *

(i figure you can possibly get away with abuse aimed at the Government, but probably not aimed at the publication; might be wise to tone that bit down, though. If people actually read Siegel’s blog, they they can easily form their own conclusions to that effect )

Annoyingly,you have to create an account with The Seattle Times to read the comments. Am not prepared to do that. Have created “free” accounts with some other online rags, only to find all but the headines (and first few tantalising lines of the articles) hidden behind a paywall immediately thereafter. Looks like those free accounts are all-too-often used as a means of policing you and spamming your mailbox, with zero advantage to the reader. . sigh

Would be interested to see if anyone made it through with a similar post.
Thanks for those great Siegel links :+1: I’ll add them to the list a bit later

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Any further info on this pair? Like, has it been established how far their shoddy operation contributed to the latest vaping scare? In any case, that bust really needs to be kept in the public eye, IMO

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Speaking of annoying.

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Before jumping to conclusions. Just maybe they should look into FlavourArt and all the testing they already have done and available.

START HERE
https://www.clearstreamonward.com/en/about-us/

Since 2015 we have developed an innovative method to faithfully reproduce vape and its effects on human lungs

To evaluate the safety of vaping products, the parameters related to cell viability , functional damage and inflammatory response are measured and evaluated.

From Method – ClearStream Onward>

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