E-cigarettes and vaping ‘may cause lung cancer like normal cigarettes’

[aubergine]

Pretty sure one could make the cases that there is more evidence that using nicotine without tobacco combustion is more beneficial than it is harmful.

Yeah, and in some cases most certainly. I did my internship in a hospital psych ward that mostly contained persons in acute crisis. Cigarettes were forbidden except in one little area on the grounds, and patients had very restricted access to that. So you take a bunch of highly agitated people, many of whom are smokers, now in sudden withdrawal from cigarettes (thus skewing diagnoses, too) and in a very stressful environment, and pump them full of crappy psych meds (don't get me started) while cheerfully and self-righteously driving them nuts. Nicotine patches were about as helpful to them as they ever were for me, which is zilch. I used to sneak people out for smoke breaks all the time; nicotine can be a great med. Same hospital now allows no smoking or vaping on the grounds. I'd love to check the charts for Anxiety Disorder now. People are so stupid.

 

[DC2]

Psychiatric wards are where electronic cigarettes are most needed.
And denying such patients the opportunity to use them is evil and heinous.

That's all I have to say about that.

And it's not often I have the opportunity to use the word "heinous" but if the shoe fits...

 

[AndriaD]

Pretty sure one could make the cases that there is more evidence that using nicotine without tobacco combustion is more beneficial than it is harmful.

Yeah, and in some cases most certainly. I did my internship in a hospital psych ward that mostly contained persons in acute crisis. Cigarettes were forbidden except in one little area on the grounds, and patients had very restricted access to that. So you take a bunch of highly agitated people, many of whom are smokers, now in sudden withdrawal from cigarettes (thus skewing diagnoses, too) and in a very stressful environment, and pump them full of crappy psych meds (don't get me started) while cheerfully and self-righteously driving them nuts. Nicotine patches were about as helpful to them as they ever were for me, which is zilch. I used to sneak people out for smoke breaks all the time; nicotine can be a great med. Same hospital now allows no smoking or vaping on the grounds. I'd love to check the charts for Anxiety Disorder now. People are so stupid.

And that is the primary reason why I REFUSED to even contemplate hospitalization for my last very-severe bout with depression. You do not help emotionally disturbed people by refusing them the only thing that likely comforts them -- there were a lot of days that if I hadn't needed to get up to go outside and smoke, I wouldn't have gotten up at all; take away even the possibility of a smoke? Nope, I'd have stayed in bed, and no Nurse Ratched on the planet could have moved me. And you're right, those meds are crap, and do nothing but give the patient a withdrawal problem when they're finally released. But I guess it helps to keep the inmates quiet and manageable, which is really all the hospital employees care about -- they do much the same in some prisons.

Modern medicine is at least 95% crap; for all the good it does for people with chronic problems like asthma and hypertension, it does 10 or 100 times that much harm to others, who don't really need all those pills, but pills are easier than trying to find a REAL solution. Docs are great at writing prescriptions -- and giving useless advice like "quit smoking" -- and not much else.

Andria

 

[aubergine]

Ya, Andria. The whole mental health profession has been co-opted by Pharma (meds-driven 'diagnoses' and 'treatment'); at the psychiatric level especially it serves as an extra-legal social control. Fought that for my whole career, a losing battle for the large part, so far. Chantix is the least of it. There are some really good people in the field, but everyone, practitioners and patients alike, is forced to mesh with the juggernaut or struggle against it, at some real cost.
People have no idea.

 

[Maurice Pudlo]

Aaaahhh this is the same formaldehyde study we've been talking about for months!!! I'm tearing my hair out!!!!

Can some research lab, ANY research lab, please give us a NEW study?? Pretty please???

If anyone conducts a study that refutes or adds to this formaldehyde study and makes certain it is published as widely as this one has, I WILL BAKE YOU A CAKE! A WHOLE CAKE! Please someone follow up on this study!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll add a vannila custard pie, made with my vanilla custard TFA flavor just because I can.

MP

 

[Uma]

This is also a central argument that I have been making for years.

The end game is that Big Pharma wants to own and control nicotine.
And they have big plans for providing nicotine as a drug.

But they have a few "loose ends" they need to clean up before they can do so.
And WE are the "loose ends" that need cleaning up.

I agree.
Here is yet another pharmaceutical "Patent" derived from the tobacco plant, for Dementia.
Science/News/News/KBS World Radio
The pill will be ready in say, 5 years. Imagine that. (According to WHO aka BP, The "endgame" is supposed to happen within that time frame as well, then eCigs ended within 10 years after that.)
(Courtesy of a post by our favorite red head)

 

[dragonpuff]

Ya, Andria. The whole mental health profession has been co-opted by Pharma (meds-driven 'diagnoses' and 'treatment'); at the psychiatric level especially it serves as an extra-legal social control. Fought that for my whole career, a losing battle for the large part, so far. Chantix is the least of it. There are some really good people in the field, but everyone, practitioners and patients alike, is forced to mesh with the juggernaut or struggle against it, at some real cost.
People have no idea.

I can attest to this personally. I am on lifelong therapy with one daily medication, and I vape high dose nicotine; before that I smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day. Without nicotine, I would probably need at least 2 or 3 more medications just to function, let alone do nearly as well as I do in my life now. A long time ago I was completely incapable of handling the most basic aspects of life (couldn't even work), and now most people don't even know there's anything wrong with me (earned 2 college degrees so far).

I have had multiple medical professionals warn me NOT to try and quit smoking again, because the consequences were so severe. Yet, they cannot recommend nicotine as a medication, for anything. I always thought that was tragically unfortunate, because I know I'm not the only one in this position.

 

[AndriaD]

Ya, Andria. The whole mental health profession has been co-opted by Pharma (meds-driven 'diagnoses' and 'treatment'); at the psychiatric level especially it serves as an extra-legal social control. Fought that for my whole career, a losing battle for the large part, so far. Chantix is the least of it. There are some really good people in the field, but everyone, practitioners and patients alike, is forced to mesh with the juggernaut or struggle against it, at some real cost.
People have no idea.

This weekend, I voiced the opinion to my mother that it was my firm belief that the best way to enjoy good health was to stay as far as possible away from doctors -- you'd have thought I uttered blasphemy.

Now I did enjoy marked improvement in my last bout with depression when they finally tried me on Effexor, and I have to wonder if that's not because Effexor is on-label for anxiety as much as for depression, because I've suffered both those problems throughout my life -- but withdrawing from the stuff made cigarette withdrawal look like a fun day at the park. I only went ahead and tried the pharmaceutical approach, last time around, because as much as therapy was helping my husband and me deal with my depression, it wasn't really helping me *feel* better at all; it was only after adding the medication that I finally began to see daylight at the end of a very long tunnel.

But these commercials just make me furious; if you're already taking one antidepressant, you should add another? HOGWASH! You should get outside and do some yardwork, that'll make you feel MILES better than any drug ever invented! But no, BP wants you to keep taking more and more and more drugs, so their fellow-conspirators, the doctors, can enjoy an income stream for years down the road, treating all those side effects from all those pills they keep pushing.

Andria

 

[Stosh]

Modern medicine is at least 95% crap; for all the good it does for people with chronic problems like asthma and hypertension, it does 10 or 100 times that much harm to others, who don't really need all those pills, but pills are easier than trying to find a REAL solution. Docs are great at writing prescriptions -- and giving useless advice like "quit smoking" -- and not much else.

Andria

Strangely the FDA thinks these meds are all just fine.....

 

[AndriaD]

Strangely the FDA thinks these meds are all just fine.....

Which just goes to show you what greedy evil villains they are!!! They're not just in bed with big pharma, they're having a long-standing torrid love affair!

Andria

 

[dragonpuff]

But these commercials just make me furious; if you're already taking one antidepressant, you should add another? HOGWASH! You should get outside and do some yardwork, that'll make you feel MILES better than any drug ever invented! But no, BP wants you to keep taking more and more and more drugs, so their fellow-conspirators, the doctors, can enjoy an income stream for years down the road, treating all those side effects from all those pills they keep pushing.

Andria

I can't even begin to tell you how furious I was when I first saw the commercials advertising antipsychotics (re: Abilify) as a useful adjunct to depression therapy! Those drugs were designed to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - they are very strong drugs, extremely sedating and loaded with dangerous side effects. Promoting off-label use of such powerful drugs is exceedingly irresponsible!

Oh, but it's those e-cigarettes we should REALLY be worried about... they are loaded with trace amounts of common chemicals, teeming with large amounts of not-purchased-from-a-pharmaceutical-company nicotine, AND THEY TASTE GOOD!!! For the sake of the children aaaaaaaaAAAHHHH!!!!! 8-o

 

[Kent C]

That is a belief that I strongly subscribe to, and the reason why I continue to use nicotine when I am not even slightly addicted to it at this point.
And I've been making that very same argument for years now, although it hasn't really caught on yet.

Well, the reason it hasn't caught on is because of cigarettes of course. In all the studies that have shown the beneficial effects of nicotine... and when you consider just a few lines from my post:

When chronically taken, nicotine may result in: (1) positive reinforcement, (2) negative reinforcement, (3) reduction of body weight, (4) enhancement of performance, and protection against; (5) Parkinson's disease (6) Tourette's disease (7) Alzheimers disease, (8) ulcerative colitis and (9) sleep apnea. The reliability of these effects varies greatly but justifies the search for more therapeutic applications for this interesting compound. And study found “significant nicotine-associated improvements in attention, memory, ...

... there are very few drugs or 'things' that can produce such a wealth of positives with out damaging side effects. But in all those 'good studies' there is the obvious caveat that they don't in any way encourage smoking cigarettes, so those studies, because of that, imo, don't get the media notice that all the negative things associated with smoking, get. A lot of people are stunned to learn of the positive effects of nicotine.

And, like you, evidently, I like it in the bloodstream even though I could (perhaps not as easily as you) walk away from it if I wanted. I would have never been able to say that 5 years ago.

 

[Racehorse]

"may" also not cause lung cancer like normal cigarettes

there will probably never be a way to make that determination, because most people who vape were former smokers.

That is why I always tell people who have weird symptoms (mouth, ear, nose, throat, lungs, etc.) to see a doctor. Just because we stopped smoking doesn't mean we aren't still an *at risk* population for smoking-related diseases.

 

[AndriaD]

I can't even begin to tell you how furious I was when I first saw the commercials advertising antipsychotics (re: Abilify) as a useful adjunct to depression therapy! Those drugs were designed to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - they are very strong drugs, extremely sedating and loaded with dangerous side effects. Promoting off-label use of such powerful drugs is exceedingly irresponsible!

Oh, but it's those e-cigarettes we should REALLY be worried about... they are loaded with trace amounts of common chemicals, teeming with large amounts of not-purchased-from-a-pharmaceutical-company nicotine, AND THEY TASTE GOOD!!! For the sake of the children aaaaaaaaAAAHHHH!!!!! 8-o

Oh, I know about those antipsychotics; my son is apparently bipolar, though he tends to the depressive side, which I think they call "type II" -- at one point he was being given "clonapin" and that stuff actually MADE him psychotic!

But I'm still leery of that bipolar diagnosis; I was diagnosed that way many years ago, but it's total BS; I have an anxiety/depression disorder, and I'm never manic -- unless I actually have a REAL reason to be that ecstatic! Like when we finally bought a house, yeah I was a bit manic about that, but considering the work necessary to pack up one house and move to another, it was good thing I was!

Andria

 

[dragonpuff]

Oh, I know about those antipsychotics; my son is apparently bipolar, though he tends to the depressive side, which I think they call "type II" -- at one point he was being given "clonapin" and that stuff actually MADE him psychotic!

But I'm still leery of that bipolar diagnosis; I was diagnosed that way many years ago, but it's total BS; I have an anxiety/depression disorder, and I'm never manic -- unless I actually have a REAL reason to be that ecstatic! Like when we finally bought a house, yeah I was a bit manic about that, but considering the work necessary to pack up one house and move to another, it was good thing I was!

Andria

Andria, I know a lot about this stuff and I understand what you're going through. If you want to talk further, feel free to PM me

 

[DC2]

Okay, so here goes...

My father went a bit nuts one day about 7 years ago.
Turns out it was due to a urinary tract infection.

Then he went a bit nuts again, no too long after.
Turns out that was due to dehydration.

Eventually, when they let him out of the psych ward it was determined that he was no longer capable of living on his own.
So he moved into a board and care facility.

And he was prescribed Zyprexa.

For the last few years he has been showing increasing signs of Parkinsonism.
Parkinsonism is NOT Parkinson's disease, but it is the diagnosis when people show symptoms that look like Parkinson's disease.

Fast forward to about one week ago...

The neurologist says that Zyprexa can cause Parkinsonism.
Thanks for telling me.

If I had known that I would had my father taken off the Zyprexa years ago.
Now we have taken him off it and his symptoms of Parkinsonism are starting to go away.

Big Pharma is evil, and they don't care about anything but how to get money from every human being on earth.

They are 10 times worse than Big Tobacco ever was.

Take no drug unless you absolutely have to.
That is all.

 

[dragonpuff]

there will probably never be a way to make that determination, because most people who vape were former smokers.

That is why I always tell people who have weird symptoms (mouth, ear, nose, throat, lungs, etc.) to see a doctor. Just because we stopped smoking doesn't mean we aren't still an *at risk* population for smoking-related diseases.

Actually, studies have shown that if you quit smoking for a long time (i.e. years), your risk for smoking-related diseases, including cancer, is reduced to almost as low as a never-smoker so yes, over time they can prove if there is any risk of vaping causing cancer.

I highly doubt it does though. Cigarettes cause cancer in two ways: 1) They deliver large amounts of carcinogens to the lungs over time, and 2) they weaken the body, especially the lungs, reducing our body's natural defense against illness, including cancer. It's a double whammy. Vaping does neither of these things, so I think we will find in the future that vapers are being diagnosed with cancer at about the same rate as the population as a whole.

 

[dragonpuff]

Okay, so here goes...

My father went a bit nuts one day about 7 years ago.
Turns out it was due to a urinary tract infection.

Then he went a bit nuts again, no too long after.
Turns out that was due to dehydration.

Eventually, when they let him out of the psych ward it was determined that he was no longer capable of living on his own.
So he moved into a board and care facility.

And he was prescribed Zyprexa.

For the last few years he has been showing increasing signs of Parkinsonism.
Parkinsonism is NOT Parkinson's disease, but it is the diagnosis when people show symptoms that look like Parkinson's disease.

Fast forward to about one week ago...

The neurologist says that Zyprexa can cause Parkinsonism.
Thanks for telling me.

If I had known that I would had my father taken off the Zyprexa years ago.
Now we have taken him off it and his symptoms of Parkinsonism are starting to go away.

Big Pharma is evil, and they don't care about anything but how to get money from every human being on earth.

They are 10 times worse than Big Tobacco ever was.

Take no drug unless you absolutely have to.
That is all.

Parkinsonism is a potential consequence of any antipsychotic so yeah, these should only be prescribed long term if the person really needs them long term!

Zyprexa is a nasty drug I remember when it was being touted as the latest and greatest thing, and everyone who had a psychotic disorder was being prescribed it. Then they started prescribing it for people with depression and insomnia. Finally, several years after being on the market, they found that it causes type II diabetes (permanently, not just while still taking the drug), and it increased suicidal thinking and behavior in people who are depressed! Now most doctors won't touch it with a ten foot pole

I feel fortunate to be of sound enough mind that I can negotiate with my doctors about what drugs I'm willing and able to take, so many people don't have the knowledge or capacity to do that psychiatric patients get taken advantage of all the time.

I'll take my one daily script and my lemonade flavored nicotine, thank you very much!

 

[DC2]

Parkinsonism is a potential consequence of any antipsychotic so yeah, these should only be prescribed long term if the person really needs them long term!

I wish the doctors had told me that, but apparently they didn't know it, or decided I didn't need to know it.
Either way, screw them twice.

This is my freaking father we're talking about here.
And they ....ed him over.

 

[dragonpuff]

I wish the doctors had told me that, but apparently they didn't know it, or decided I didn't need to know it.
Either way, screw them twice.

This is my freaking father we're talking about here.
And they ....ed him over.

Parkinsonism is far more common in older antipsychotics than newer ones. They may not have told you because they believed the risk was so small that the benefit outweighed it, but that was still very irresponsible of them, they are required by law to tell you all the risks. Even worse, he could have done better on another drug altogether. I am sorry about your father

I've known people (very close to me) who have attempted or nearly attempted suicide because they were on antidepressants. They weren't told the risks either, and they could've lost their lives for it.

My doctor, who is undoubtedly super cool, told me that back in the 80's when they started coming out with antidepressants and new mood stabilizers, pharmaceutical companies began a massive smear campaign against lithium. They put out ads saying that you'd have to be really nuts, eating the grapes off the wallpaper crazy, to take lithium, but you're not, so you should take this "milder" drug instead. They took advantage of the public's prejudice against the mentally ill to get them to stop taking a drug that is no longer patented and they can't profit much from. Lithium today remains one of the safest, most effective psychiatric drugs on the market, but it is rarely prescribed except as a last resort.

These companies are really as close to pure evil as you can find on this planet...