E-Cigarettes Under Fire--WebMD Article

[Hangar]

You are simply speculating, based on no medical training or expertise, and apparently little research of your own, that vapor composed of PG, nicotine and flavors could cause throat cancer,

I seriously suggest you read and educate yourself some more on these topics.

I never said it causes throat cancer...i was asking WHAT IF IT DOES? I dont see why you would want to manipulate my point and take it completely out of context like that...or maybe thats because you dont want anyone to notice YOU might be the one "speculating" when you say how sure you are that ecigs should be classified as a valid harm reduction device/therapy...because such a speculation as THAT would NOT be based on legit scientific study..simply because there ARENT any such studies...and please dont point me to the laughable New Zealand study...ive seen it and its moot quite frankly, for obvious reasons.

...oh and about that nic inhaler?...if youre referring to the one available in the U.S. under Rx, it is absorbed into the throat area and not the lungs as with an ecig...and it is not heated, and theres no chance of inhaling harmful metalic vapors, fillings, etc....again...the point is YOU cant make ANY claims abour safety just yet...NOBODY can...and if you refuse to accept that you're just being unreasonable and making the road a longer and more painful one for yourself than it should be im afraid.

But what do i know?, im just an educated drug addict afterall :-)

[yvilla]

No, I'm not speculating, Hangar, I'm taking the word of doctors and public health experts like Dr. Joel Nitzkin, Dr. Michael Siegel, David Sweanor, Dr. Carl Phillips, the cancer specialists at Sloan Kettering as discussed by Red in the thread I just pointed you too, my own doctors, the doctors of many other forum members, and on and on.

Like I said, educate yourself. Here's some links supporting what I'm saying:

Electronic Cigarette Letter

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary: FDA Suggests that Electronic Cigarettes are No Safer than Conventional Ones

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary: Absurdity Gone Wild: Health Canada Asks Smokers Not to Use E-Cigarettes Because of Safety Concerns, But Not to Refrain from the Known Toxic Ones

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary: IN MY VIEW: FDA Should Not Exert Jurisdiction over Electronic Cigarettes; Instead, FTC Should Ensure that Advertising Claims are Supported

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary: Senator and Anti-Smoking Groups Want to Ban Less Harmful E-Cigarettes and Protect the Most Toxic Ones

Electronic cigarettes. (tobaccoharmreduction.org)

E Cigarette Interview with David Sweanor

Great News from a "Powerhouse”, for e-cigs (and me too!)

What have you got?

[Hangar]

. Why may I ask did you start using Ecigs? Don't you believe in it?

actually thats a very good question (do i believe in them?)...and to be honest its a question i cant answer completely yet because i dont have enough information.

I started using them for the obvious reason that most will start using them...smoking too many years and feeling the effects...so im scared to continue using real cigs because i KNOW they cause horrible sickness and i was hoping one day thered be a way to have my cake and eat it too!...just like everyone else here.

I began using them after the initial excitement of reading this forum and all the positive posts about how easy they made it to get off analogs and how safe they were, etc...but now that everything has sunk in and ive seen how it interacts with my body and doing alot more reading, etc., i realize there may be dangers associated with this product, and im concerned that some of those may even be as lethal as the ones cause by real cigs...im NOT saying THERE ARE DANGERS...im saying i understand there COULD BE DANGERS.

So as far as believing in them...all i can say for certain is this:

I believe they make it alot easier to give up analog smokes, and i believe i enjoy using them.

I WANT to believe they are truly safer than real smokes but i dont know this one way or the other yet.

I WANT to believe they will help me get away from nicotine and ecigs themselves at some point in the near future, but again i do not know this yet.

I am in the same boat as all of you...wishing, hoping, praying...and yes...angry at all the political corruption...its just that as a businessman my entire life ive always found more success for myself when taking both sides of an issue into consideration rather than letting my frustration get the best of me. I understnad how difficult that can be to do when theres an issue as this which hits so close to home but i guess im just used to having to be that way my whole life...i think its just been bred into me or something, lol.

[fenez]

All hangar is saying is that all the claims are unsubstantiated. So everyone here is pretty much just making claims as to what they think, and I am afraid that what we think doesn't matter so much as what we can prove. Even if they were to just let it become another type of cigarette on the shelves, we would then be paying for 10ml of liquid what a carton of cigarettes cost at least possibly more.

[Hangar]

Like I said, educate yourself. Here's some links supporting what I'm saying:

What have you got?

better common sense and reading comprehension skills apparently, yvilla.

No seriously...ive read them...and even though some of them DO make me feel good and even hopeful at times,...i still realize they are only opinions which are not based on any long term effective scientific testing and for right NOW as it stands they are better used for political pressure than any long term personal health decisions. At least thats they way itll be for now in MY family. Afterall, even if its eventually proven to really be safer than analogs...its still very unhealthy and can make you sick, so why continue forever if i can help it, ya know?

It is my intention (and possibly within my best interest even) to get off of ecigs within 90 days of quiting analogs (i am now down to only 2 analogs per day!!...and only 3 weeks in..thats a miracle for me)

By the way...dont always go by what you might hear from nurses...one told me once that if you had more than 7 cat scans in a lifetime you will get cancer...my radiologist still laughs his ass of about that one :-)

[klum]

I have to say, I'm feeling Hangar's position here. There is no studies that say long term Vaping is better for you than smoking, period. There are a lot of Dr.s and researchers that have favorable opinions towards the position that vaping over cigarettes is better for you, but they can not say 100% that they are correct about it without any studies. I personally believe that they are safer, for all the reasons the Yvilla put out in her links. Intuitively, we all seem to feel that way. We just need the hard data to back it up. It's the FDA's job of getting the industry to get that data together. Hopefully, it's not at the current expense of the vaping public. My hope is that they don't put in a full ban and allow testing to happen concurrently. I'm not sure that others here have the same objective. Hangar and Tbob have valid points. Why shouldn't all of us who are vaping want a long term study to prove it as a truly safer product?

I do love the level of passion on this forum, but we shouldn't really shoot each other down so hard, as we all are supporting the same thing.

kevin

[yvilla]

David Sweanor on the issue of "safe"; no these few snippets from his interview address everything you have been worrying about Hangar:

"Q: You've stated that electronic cigarettes are not safe, but that they are a lot better than cigarettes. Just how unsafe are they?

A: After many tens of thousands of research papers we know what causes the illnesses associated with smoking. In short, ‘it’s the smoke, stupid’. Non-combustion products will vary in their risks, but everything we can see about the sort of product sold in the West (whether smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes or medicinal nicotine) tells us that cigarettes are orders of magnitude more hazardous.

Everything has risks, so simply pointing out that something is ‘not safe’ shows a person to be either ignorant or disingenuous..."As to ‘not safe’, we perhaps need elaboration. The point I try to make when faced with the ‘it’s not safe’ canard is that nothing meets the criteria of being absolutely ‘safe’. The key issue in looking at safety is that it is a relative concept; we need to look at safety of any activity compared to some alternative. Rather than the unattainable standard of ‘safe’ we should be thinking in terms of ‘safer’.

Despite the risks associated with soccer, I would, for instance, prefer my children play soccer rather than play with live hand grenades.

Q: Opponents of the electronic cigarette have said that it could stop smokers from giving up, that is untested and untried and that claims that the electronic cigarette are healthier than normal cigarettes are unproven. How would you respond to these allegations?

A: .... If there is anyone who believes cigarettes are no more hazardous than e-cigarettes I’d recommend a remedial course in basic sciences. For anti-nicotine campaigners who say we need to wait for more research I would point out the way they are proving Nietzsche correct – we take on the attributes of our enemies. Cigarette companies spent decades making spurious claims that we need ‘more research’ before we could move on policy measures, despite the already-existing basis for informed policy measures. They provide very poor role models.

Q: One criticism that has been levelled at the electronic cigarette is that we don't know the effect of heating up a nicotine vapour and inhaling it into the lungs. Is this a valid criticism?

A: We certainly know that inhaling a heated nicotine vapour into the lungs is one heck of a lot less hazardous than inhaling the same vapour along with the thousands of chemicals and dozens of known carcinogens that are inhaled when that vapour is delivered by smoking a cigarette. An investigation to determine if the non-smoke vapour is, say, 1/100 or 1/1,000 the risk of cigarette smoking might be a good thing. But if someone thinks cigarettes should not be challenged in the marketplace until we have such results I think they need to try thinking a little more deeply. They should also question whether they have undergone a Nietzsche-like transformation that is causing them to be sounding like a 1970s cigarette company executive."

So try your vaunted reading comprehension skills out on that.

[nitewriter]

actually thats a very good question (do i believe in them?)...and to be honest its a question i cant answer completely yet because i dont have enough information..

yvilla just (re)posted the threads for you. I suggest you educate yourself before condemning us for choosing what WE believe to be best for US. We know the risks and the testing that is needed, yet we've all made our own individual choices, just as you must do.

Weighing both sides of the issues is a healthy practice, usually completed before making a final decision. You obviously made the decision to try e-cigs before completely anaylizing the risks. Don't think for a minute that we've made that same mistake.

I wish you the best and hope you find what's best for you.

[klum]

I'm not sure that Hangar or Tbob or myself were saying that we "believe" E-cigs are not safer than analogs. According to the quotes that you just sent even David Sweanor says "An investigation to determine if the non-smoke vapour is, say, 1/100 or 1/1,000 the risk of cigarette smoking might be a good thing."

It's not my position to say that it's not less harmful than cigarettes, I believe that they are less harmful than analogs. My position is that I would like to know the long term affects on my body. I'm not just talking about carcinogen related cancers, I'm talking about large amounts of inhaled PG (over time), large amounts of flavorings (over time) and large amounts of nicotine. Maybe they are harmless, but, maybe not. What is wrong with wanting to know these things?

As I said before, it's not about whether we all want this to be legalized outright. I think that we all have that goal in mind. It's that some of us would like to have tests done to see what kind of reactions our bodies might have in the long term. Whether those tests can happen while we are still vaping legally or not is the question. As I said before, I hope concurrently with our use. I'm not sure what the argument is here? Do you not want some form of testing to find out the LT affects?

kevin

[yvilla]

It's not my position to say that it's not less harmful than cigarettes, I believe that they are less harmful than analogs. My position is that I would like to know the long term affects on my body. I'm not just talking about carcinogen related cancers, I'm talking about large amounts of inhaled PG (over time), large amounts of flavorings (over time) and large amounts of nicotine. Maybe they are harmless, but, maybe not. What is wrong with wanting to know these things?

kevin

Kevin, there is absolutely nothing wrong at all with wanting to know more about the long term effects of vaping!

But if you read back over the posts Hangar has been making, I think you will see that he is going a lot further than that. That is why I have been so insistent in responding to them.