Avera Medical Minute: Are Electronic Cigarettes Healthy?

[kristin]

Typical drivel using the fact they "aren't healthy" to convince people they aren't better than smoking.

"As a respiratory therapist I'm not going to recommend this. If you are going to use this to try and quit tobacco then try to start tapering off using it. If you are using it as replacement you are still getting nicotine and nicotine is harmful to our body."

Avera Medical Minute: Are Electronic Cigarettes Healthy? - KSFY Action News: Breaking News, Weather and Community |

Accompanying video: http://www.ksfy.com/global/category.asp?c=185294&clipId=5463805&autostart=true

And on the same site: http://www.ksfy.com/Global/story.asp?S=13831845

And the video: http://www.ksfy.com/global/category.asp?c=185294&clipId=5463805&autostart=true

 

[murf43143]

"nicotine is harmful to our body"....... learn2science

 

[Placebo Effect]

I spoke to Ms. Murray yesterday after I saw this article pop up on Google News. I told her about how I had managed to not smoke for five months thanks to the product, and explained how ingesting burning matter is approximately 100 times more harmful to the body than using an e-cigarette. Her main concerns were the unknowns -- the lack of manufacturing standards, the lack of understanding about exactly how much nicotine users are getting, and she briefly mentioned the chemicals found by the FDA. I explained the results of Dr. Eissenberg's study from last year, and how all signs point to the e-cigarette's effectiveness being linked to its mimicking of the actions of smoking rather than fulfilling and prolonging nicotine addictions, as well as the flaws in the FDA's press release about the product.

She was very nice and open to learning about the product. I told her about Dr. Siegel's recent article and she said she'd look it up since she had access to the Journal of Public Health Policy. She seemed to really like the idea of people using the e-cigarette and tapering down to no nicotine liquid before quitting altogether. When I explained that the FDA and other organizations are looking into supporting the long-term use of NRTs due to the threat of relapse back into smoking, and the massive difference in harms suffered by people who smoke and those who just get nicotine, she appeared to have some chance of changing her mind in the future.

 

[Kurt]

Nice work, Placebo! Calm, rational, civil presenting of the facts. The question I would have is if it takes only that to get some to change their minds, then what prompts them to write unresearched articles like this in the first place? Is someone trying to pull their strings before they can make an informed opinion? There has to be some passionate impetus to feel a need to actually write an article and get it published, and yet a simple conversation like yours can make some of them think again about it. Puzzlement.

 

[Placebo Effect]

Nice work, Placebo! Calm, rational, civil presenting of the facts. The question I would have is if it takes only that to get some to change their minds, then what prompts them to write unresearched articles like this in the first place? Is someone trying to pull their strings before they can make an informed opinion? There has to be some passionate impetus to feel a need to actually write an article and get it published, and yet a simple conversation like yours can make some of them think again about it. Puzzlement.

This particular kind of article / TV news feature is common. Producers need to burn 60 seconds of airtime, so they find a novel concept. Here, it's the e-cigarette. They look for a local person with some level of credibility and ask them about it. The person who is asked about it isn't being asked to prepare a voluminous report with proper citations, so even if they're largely in the dark about the product, they're not going to spend a lot of time boning up on the subject material before offering their opinion. As such, whatever preconceived notion they have about it will be reflected in their comments.

In hindsight, I wish I'd asked her if she actually said that e-cigarettes may be bad for your lungs. I definitely brought up how, unlike cigarettes, we know exactly what is in e-liquid, and I explained how tests dating back 60, 70 years ago showed that even constant exposure to propylene glycol -- the same chemical used in asthamtic inhalers -- was not harmful to test rats.

 

[Vocalek]

When the FDA said, “They contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze," the Agency misrepresented their findings. They used terminology calculated to instill fear and loathing on the part of the listener. Who does not fear developing cancer or being poisoned? Why refer to diethylene glycol (DEG) as a tobacco humectant, when antifreeze sounds much more ominous?

Furthermore, the FDA failed to tell the whole truth. Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines (TSNAs) are not cancer-causing at the quantity (8 nanograms) found in an e-cigarette cartridge as well as in an FDA-approved nicotine patch.

The FDA also neglected to specify the level of danger presented by 1% DEG in a one milliliter cartridge. The lethal dose is 1 milliliter per kilogram of body weight. Thus 6,804 cartridges in a single day would be required to reach the fatal DEG dosage for a 150 pound adult.

We have to wonder how many deaths were directly caused by the FDA's duplicity during the past 18 months. How many smokers were convinced that it would be safer for them to continue smoking real cigarettes? How many citizens of foreign countries were never even given a choice because their government banned e-cigarettes, citing the U.S. FDA's "safety concerns"? How many of these smokers developed cancers or were felled by heart attacks and strokes that might have been avoided had they only stopped smoking in time?

 

[DiggerP]

Doggone it Vocalek, I had to stand up and applaud reading that! Extremely well said!

I'm adding your comments (with your permission) to my personal library of "Answers to Provide to Uninformed Politicians".

This is a good time of year for local business associations to have luncheons (often with political speakers) - I've found that's a great place to dispel some myths directly. Also, meetings of the "State" Republican (or Democrat) associations occur quarterly and are open (those are the guys that HELP the guys that run for office). I love having one page info packets for them (that's as long as their attention span lasts).

Sorry if I hijacked the thread a little... you got my energy level up LOL!

 

[Rosco]

You just can't fix stupid. This is what we will have to deal with forever. Why? Because there are those just like this(fda) in abundance.
God bless us all.

 

[Crumpet]

Nice work, Placebo! Calm, rational, civil presenting of the facts. The question I would have is if it takes only that to get some to change their minds, then what prompts them to write unresearched articles like this in the first place? Is someone trying to pull their strings before they can make an informed opinion? There has to be some passionate impetus to feel a need to actually write an article and get it published, and yet a simple conversation like yours can make some of them think again about it. Puzzlement.

I've been .....ing about this forever now. Journalism is dead. Dead and buried. Every 'article' is nothing more than an editorial piece highlighting the personal biases of the author. And talk about no integrity.....any journalist worth their spit knows that you fully research every angle of a topic before writing about it. I won't even get started on the spelling and grammatical errors I see on a regular basis. There is just no excuse for that. If people managed to get it right in the dinosaur days they now ought to be able to edit properly with electronic assistance. And can miss whatsherface tell me exactly how nicotine is hurting my lungs? As far as raising blood pressure...that is not an equal risk for everyone and I'm tired of people acting like it is. If my blood pressure got any lower I'd be as dead as the profession of journalism is! Reading crap articles, however, is one thing that just might give me a stroke one of these days.

 

[Placebo Effect]

Vocalek, at this point I pretty much have your entire post memorized. I always point out that one would have to use approximately 1000 e-cig cartridges to equal the number of carcinogens in a single Marlboro light.

 

[Vocalek]

Doggone it Vocalek, I had to stand up and applaud reading that! Extremely well said!

I'm adding your comments (with your permission) to my personal library of "Answers to Provide to Uninformed Politicians".

This is a good time of year for local business associations to have luncheons (often with political speakers) - I've found that's a great place to dispel some myths directly. Also, meetings of the "State" Republican (or Democrat) associations occur quarterly and are open (those are the guys that HELP the guys that run for office). I love having one page info packets for them (that's as long as their attention span lasts).

Sorry if I hijacked the thread a little... you got my energy level up LOL!

I consider my comments "Open Access." Spread the word!