Ecigs May Affect Genes in Airways

[Vaslovik]

Can you link to the information you are citing? And was population growth taken into consideration? There are a lot more people alive today than ever before in recorded history so if smoking rates had remained steady and the population grows it still shows a growth in the smoking rate.

I see that this thread has turned into a campaign for continued smoking on a site where vapers quit smoking for the sake of their health, their loved ones, and their lives. I'm saddened to see this shabby political move allowed here. I will see no more from those supporting that.

 

[Sugar_and_Spice]

I see that this thread has turned into a campaign for continued smoking on a site where vapers quit smoking for the sake of their health and their lives. I'm saddened to see this shabby political move allowed here. I will see no more from those supporting that.

Not sure how you arrived at that opinion? I was asking him where he got his information. I in no way am campaigning for continued smoking.

 

[bobwho77]

So do I. But that does not mean every smoker that has a stroke is a smoking related illness. Leading to the question of how those stats are put together. Like @skoony I try to take a dispassionate view toward these things, particularly in public speech. That does not mean I don't have strong feelings, I just try to keep it out of the discussion. My father died of lung cancer before his time. Plenty of emotion there, but no place for it in a discussion of statistical accuracy and possible related political motivations. Just my own style.

If you're on your way to church (cold sober) and get run over by a beer truck (truck driver's sober, too) is that still an "alcohol related accident"?

 

[Lessifer]

I see that this thread has turned into a campaign for continued smoking on a site where vapers quit smoking for the sake of their health, their loved ones, and their lives. I'm saddened to see this shabby political move allowed here. I will see no more from those supporting that.

I don't think anyone is campaigning for people to continue smoking. No one argues against the fact that cigarettes are harmful. What is being said is, the anti smoking movement has been lying for a LONG time about just how harmful cigarettes are. We should be able to recognize their lies, as they are the same ones they are now trying to use against vaping. A lie of exaggeration is still a lie. They've lied to convince people that SHS is harmful, even under minimal exposure situations. Now they're using those lies to convince people that SHV is dangerous.

 

[VNeil]

If you're on your way to church (cold sober) and get run over by a beer truck (truck driver's sober, too) is that still an "alcohol related accident"?

It is if you're on a mission to ban beer...

 

[Kent C]

Can you link to the information you are citing? And was population growth taken into consideration? There are a lot more people alive today than ever before in recorded history so if smoking rates had remained steady and the population grows it still shows a growth in the smoking rate.

Some info:

Basically around 270 million 1995 to 319 million 2014 from other sources.

So using the '95 figure of 270 million x 25% smokers = 67.5 million smokers
vs.
2014 figure of 319 million x 18% smokers = 57.4 million smokers

Basically 10 million less smokers but (not knowing exactly the smoking related deaths of '95) the "lies link" says 1990-1994 = 427,743/yr SRDeaths (CDC figures) vs. 450,000 (some say 480,000) SRDeaths in 2014. While smokers numbers have went down 10 million, smoking related deaths have gone up.

But even though the number of smokers is higher in '95 - those are still counted as smoking related deaths, when they die of certain illnesses, even though they quit. Still one would think that if there are 10 million less smokers, the SRDeath number should drop some..... and it's getting higher**.

Finding a 'smoking related deaths' historical chart is almost impossible. But this table shows some... in 5 year 'packages' so you'd have to divide by 5 - which with all totals gets you close to the 450,000 figure ...or by 50 for the 1965-2014 figure. Using the "Total—Cancers, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, pulmonary diseases" figure although the house fires are also included in the smoking related death stat.... and the prenatals, and second-hand smoke.


Table 12.15, Smoking-attributable mortality,a total and by gender, United States, 1965–2014 - The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress - NCBI Bookshelf

Also:
http://www.forces-nl.org/download/lies.pdf

** Of course with the 'lies' pdf, it says the SRDeaths are much lower - hence 'lies' :- ) so the actual numbers are likely in line with the decline of smokers, it's just that the use of the higher number fits the propaganda of the anti-smoking gov't and 3&4 letter agencies' agenda. ACA, ALA, FDA, CDC, et al.

 

[skoony]

@Kent C thanks. I couldn't even find a chart. Everything was broken down in age
groups.
A while back I posted some stats from the early 2000's. 2000 to 2010
I believe. What I found was as the smoking rate dropped some 13-15%
the rate of peripheral arterial disease had increased by at least that much
in the population as a whole. I am sure it was more. Anyway my point is
smoking is considered a major cause of PAD.( some say the number 1 cause)
I suspect if one takes a specific supposed smoking caused illness and
concentrates on that one disease statistical evidence is easier to track
down than aggregate info.
Regards
Mike

 

[nomore stinkies]

IMHO All of us have our reasons for quitting. All of us have stories of what smoking has done to ourselves and the ones we love. All of us were looking for an alternative other than the ones that were offered to us. All of us are passionate about getting the message out to others who feel hopeless in their pursuit of quitting. All of us are hoping that the FDA deeming will come to a positive conclusion. Politics should have no place in the way one chooses to quit cigarettes but the politicians and researchers are creating that atmosphere by continuing to lie about the health benefits of vaping. No one, that I have read in this forum, promotes smoking. The FDA deeming promotes smoking by trying to irrationally ban vaping by their over-reach in obtaining PMTA's. Sad but true. Remember we are all in the same boat.

 

[nomore stinkies]

I did it for science. Thanks to me nobody else will ever need to do it.

Myself and I'm sure other posters appreciate your experiment for science! May we will call on you if we get another scientific challenge?

 

[sofarsogood]

Myself and I'm sure other posters appreciate your experiment for science! May we will call on you if we get another scientific challenge?

Thank you, you are too kind. I think I'd rather just rest on my laurels and wait for a call from the Nobel committee.

It must be an important discovery. If we vapers all walk around with our vape stuck in our nose the kids will think that's not cool and smoke instead. That will make the Tobacco Control people very happy. If the kids don't smoke who are they going to control? Now where is my Nobel Prize?

 

[nomore stinkies]

Thank you, you are too kind. I think I'd rather just rest on my laurels and wait for a call from the Nobel committee.

It must be an important discovery. If we vapers all walk around with our vape stuck in our nose the kids will think that's not cool and smoke instead. That will make the Tobacco Control people very happy. If the kids don't smoke who are they going to control? Now where is my Nobel Prize?

OMG Laugh so hard. What a great comeback!. I have a call in to the committee- I'm on hold.....I'm sure they will get back to me promptly....playing music...... Hold on.....your call is important to us....... holding... still holding........

 

[CarolT]

The list of toxic chemicals is easy to find if you look for it online.



What's In Cigarette Smoke?

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins. These include nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide, as well as formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and DDT.

What's In a Cigarette, 599 Ingredients in a Cigarette

What Chemicals Are In Cigarette Smoke?

A Disturbing List of Toxic Chemicals in Cigarettes

Check it out for yourself, unless you are in denial. BTW, I'm not anti-smoker, I'm anti-smoking. I've been there and done that for over 30 years, which is why I'm against it now.

Those so-called "toxic chemicals" are well-known components of ordinary food. This is another case of anti-smokers exploiting ignorance and nurturing scientific illiteracy.

 

[CarolT]

The reason I'm against smoking, as opposed to smokers, is what it did to me and those I love. I don't care about what's natural and what's not in cigarettes. Ebola is all-natural, that don't mean I want it. There's enough in those smokes that's not natural and that's plain toxic for me. I ended up with really serious health problems from smoking. They went away after I started vaping instead. I'm pro-smoker in that I want them to turn to vaping to quit smoking and save their health and their lives.

You can politicize this all you like, making an issue of "smoker's rights" but the health damage goes on and on, and people keep dying from it. Now we have the FDA and ANTZ making war on vaping because they "just don't know the risks" they say, while the risks of smoking have been well known for decades, and so has the death toll. So don't give me this bit about "smoker's rights, and being anti-smoker. That's just a straw-man argument and a lot of smoke. To accuse me of being anti-smokers is just support for suicide on the installment plan with your head buried in the sand.

If you want to keep smoking and politically co-opt vaping into that for support I'm not with you. Sorry. It's your call, your health, and your life, but let's not pretend that vaping is equal to smoking, or that smoking deserves the support of vapers, because it's just not so.

Anybody who claims that "the risks of smoking have been well known for decades" is announcing that they've been duped by scientific fraud for decades. The anti-smokers falsely blame smoking for diseases that are really caused by infection, by cynically exploiting socioeconomic differences in exposure between smokers and non-smokers. Anyone who can't see through their trick isn't competent to proclaim what supposedly caused family health issues.

On top of that, because most vapers are former smokers, they can pull the same trick to falsely blame vaping. Obviously anyone who can't see through the charlatanism would have no foresight about this.

 

[Lessifer]

Anybody who claims that "the risks of smoking have been well known for decades" is announcing that they've been duped by scientific fraud for decades. The anti-smokers falsely blame smoking for diseases that are really caused by infection, by cynically exploiting socioeconomic differences in exposure between smokers and non-smokers. Anyone who can't see through their trick isn't competent to proclaim what supposedly caused family health issues.

On top of that, because most vapers are former smokers, they can pull the same trick to falsely blame vaping. Obviously anyone who can't see through the charlatanism would have no foresight about this.

I've never quite understood your argument, even after researching a bit. I know smoking can't really be blamed for all 500,000 or whatever deaths a year and all of the supposedly smoking related illnesses, but are you trying to say smoking isn't harmful to your health at all? Or is it just certain diseases that are blamed on smoking that shouldn't be?

 

[CarolT]

I have a sneaky suspicion that every death of every former or current smoker by any natural cause, or perhaps due to certain illnesses, is tabulated as a smoking related death.

My mother died of a stroke in her 70s. She was a smoker at least up to a year or two before her death. I doubt if the attending physician put much thought into the cause of her stroke. I have no doubt he checked the "smoking related death" check box and called it a day.

No, it doesn't work that way. The CDC uses a computer program called SAMMEC. It calculates the number based on the relative risk ratio for smoking, the proportion of smokers by state, and the population size - NOT by anyone ticking cause of death boxes. There is no individual data used.

 

[CarolT]

I've never quite understood your argument, even after researching a bit. I know smoking can't really be blamed for all 500,000 or whatever deaths a year and all of the supposedly smoking related illnesses, but are you trying to say smoking isn't harmful to your health at all? Or is it just certain diseases that are blamed on smoking that shouldn't be?

It is a multitude of diseases, and the largest number are from heart disease. Cytomegalovirus causes at least as much heart disease as smoking supposedly does, and smokers are more likely to have CMV infection because it's more common in less wealthy people. This is what they cynically exploit to blame smoking while ignoring CMV. And every Surgeon General report proves they do this.
The Surgeon General Lies That Smoking Causes Heart Disease
The Surgeon General Lies About Cancer

 

[Lessifer]

It is a multitude of diseases, and the largest number are from heart disease. Cytomegalovirus causes at least as much heart disease as smoking supposedly does, and smokers are more likely to have CMV infection because it's more common in less wealthy people. This is what they cynically exploit to blame smoking while ignoring CMV. And every Surgeon General report proves they do this.
The Surgeon General Lies That Smoking Causes Heart Disease
The Surgeon General Lies About Cancer

Ok, I get that, and I actually believe you have a point. However, for myself, when I talk about the harms of smoking I don't mean any major diseases because I don't have any. I undoubtedly feel better after stopping smoking though.

 

[VNeil]

No, it doesn't work that way. The CDC uses a computer program called SAMMEC. It calculates the number based on the relative risk ratio for smoking, the proportion of smokers by state, and the population size - NOT by anyone ticking cause of death boxes. There is no individual data used.

I meant that figuratively rather than necessarily literally. Those same calculations suggest that 41,000 Americans die every year from Second Hand Smoke. I'll suggest that computer program calculates whatever someone wants it to calculate....

 

[choochoogranny]

So, in this case, CarolT, it's "trash in....trash out" getting a "hockey stick" result for smoking?

 

[Bob Chill]

Another thing that makes believing smoking related death numbers tricky is that we're all going to die one way or another regardless of smoke. We're also each as unique as a fingerprint on how we respond to consuming things over time and also our genetic predisposition. Some people sunbathe their whole life and never get skin cancer while others get a couple bad burns in their youth and have to get basal cell carcinomas removed in their 30's.

Me for example. I've always had high normal blood pressure. Even going back to when I was a teenager. That progressed to state 1 hypertension by the time I was 43. I'm pretty confident that blasting through thousands of marlboros over many years sped that process up but it was going to happen to me regardless at some point. Luckily it's being easily controlled by a small dose of meds and I get annual physicals. My doc had to make a small reduction in my meds within 8 months after I started vaping. My doc tried to take me off all together but that was a no go.

So there lies the question. If I never went on meds and never smoked would I have lived longer than being a life long smoker? I would say the odds say yes on that one. If I was a smoker and died of a stroke or heart attack @ 65 it would go down as smoking related. If I was a non-smoker and died of a stroke or heart attack @ 70 it would be natural causes. But I died the same way either way.

The point I'm trying to make is that measuring "smoking related deaths" isn't really that important because we're all going to die. I think we can all agree that smoking most likely shortens a persons lifespan for a myriad of reasons and a lot of those reasons are decided at birth. Sure, there are some folks who are born with insane genes and can live a long life regardless of anything they do. How many of us are one of those? I'm probably not one of those people. Smoking or heavy drinking or whatever vice someone has is playing roulette with your chemistry. I started really getting nervous in my mid 40's before vaping saved me from those thoughts.

I remember talking about my uncle who smoked unfiltered chesterfields for 70 years and died at 85 of COPD complications. I used that as an excuse to not care about smoking because you can live to 85 and smoke like a chimney. Thinking about it now my uncle was blessed with an incredibly resilient body and probably would have lived to 90 or 100 had he never smoked.