I'm battling some ANTZ from Cali with edits to the wikipedia page on e-cigs

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Kent C

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I haven't followed this closely and really never read the 'finished product' but I'm reading it now and find many points in questions. I'll list them.

Evidence suggests e-cigarettes may be safer than smoking tobacco products, and possibly as safe as other nicotine replacement products, but there is insufficient data to draw conclusions.


On this point 'may be safer' isn't even stated by Glantz or Zeller - they have said they are safer than smoking cigarettes - and Zeller in particular states it directly. His concern is more about the 'net population' - that it is not good for public health even though they are safer, he just doesn't want more people - mainly kids picking up the nicotine habit. And there are many of 'our' studies that say they are safer but are not listed by this particular comment.

Emissions from the e-cigarette aerosol contains flavors, aroma transporters, glycerol, propylene glycol, nicotine, carcinogens, heavy metals, ultrafine particles, and other chemicals

There are certain circumstances where the last 3 or 4 items listed are present and that is a small percentage of most vaping that occurs. This should be part of the note on this statement and it should be pointed out that the level of danger in this regard is so much less than cigarettes to near negligible. That is stated somewhat but imo, not forcefully enough, in the next sentence.

E-cigarette aerosol has notably fewer toxicants than cigarette smoke (other than particulates) and is likely to pose less harm to users or bystanders

'notably fewer'?? 4000 vs. 6 or 7! and 'likely to pose less harm' - that is one of the biggest understatements I've ever read.

Complaints of less serious adverse effects from e-cigarette use were throat and mouth inflammation, vomiting, nausea, and cough

I would think that if 'vomiting' was even a 'less serious adverse effect' - we'd have more than a couple instances of this (unless I've completely missed them) on this forum. Hiccups, yes, vomiting not so much although there likely has been some - perhaps 'culled' by Prue Talbot.... I can't see that a study would have that many cases unless it was of non-smokers who were given 36mg doses.

The frequency of use has increased with up to 10% of American high school students having ever used them as of 2012

Pretty sure the information in the study from ASH in Europe and Scotland has better and newer data on this.

E-cigarette brands have been increasing advertising at a fast rate, the aggressive marketing used is similar to that used to sell cigarettes in the 1950s and 1960s.

Guilt by association with cigarettes. Ecigs aren't marketed any different than any other new product that is in high demand - cell phones, big screen tvs, fast food. This should be edited or edited out as it tends to bring in the anti-smoking bias which has little to do with ecigs.

There's much more but it was hard to go on past the WHO lies. I did see the one reference to the diethylene glycol found in the SE carto. Somewhere - in the deeming I think but perhaps in the economic impact - the FDA actually 'admits' this to be an outlier. That should be found and noted.
 

bigdancehawk

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E-cigarette brands have been increasing advertising at a fast rate, the aggressive marketing used is similar to that used to sell cigarettes in the 1950s and 1960s.

Guilt by association with cigarettes. Ecigs aren't marketed any different than any other new product that is in high demand - cell phones, big screen tvs, fast food. This should be edited or edited out as it tends to bring in the anti-smoking bias which has little to do with ecigs.

Have the ANTZ ever seen an ad or marketing campaign they don't characterize as "aggressive"? It would be interesting to hear their definition of the term.
 

Kent C

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Have the ANTZ ever seen an ad or marketing campaign they don't characterize as "aggressive"? It would be interesting to hear their definition of the term.

There is a particular faction (including ANTZ) that hate business, so anything that business does, except kowtow to their regulations, and especially marketing, is wrong - mainly because they 'who know what is best for the masses' think the masses too stoopid to know they are being duped by promotions. They know Media Matters works on their guys, so they assume that all promotions are just as twisted and all consumers are just as vulnerable.
 

Nate760

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Have the ANTZ ever seen an ad or marketing campaign they don't characterize as "aggressive"? It would be interesting to hear their definition of the term.

My all-time favorite act of ANTZ straw-grasping was when some columnist wrote earlier this year that NJoy was marketing to children by using Courtney Love as a celebrity endorser. Because nothing excites the kiddies more than a 50-year old former minor rock star whose last (and, for that matter, only) hit record came out when their parents were in high school. I can't tell you how much I loved Cilla Black and Marianne Faithfull when I was just a wee adolescent.
 
You see the problems with the Wikipedia e-cig article are that:

a) The article is owned by WP:MED (Wikipedia Medicine project). Not technically owned by them of course, that would be a gross violation of the rules, just for all intents and purposes. Since WP:MED generally concur with the interests of certain sections of the medical establishment, the article is preoccupied with alleged negative health effects. Issues such as what an e-cig actually is take a back seat.

b) Want to change the article, make it less biased? Well you can't, as an individual you will be easily defeated by WP:MED who are well organised.

How about recruiting others to the cause on a thread like this. Well in Wikipedia jargon this is known as "recruiting meat puppets". Both the recruiter and the "puppets" can be blocked/banned for the activity.

c) Even if you manage to overcome these almost insurmountable hurdles, Wikipedia specifically prohibits "righting great wrongs" and instead openly aims to report mainstream opinion (albeit in a neutral manner) on any given subject. This is frequently translated into establishment opinion on scientific and medical matters.
 

DrMA

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That's exactly right, @makeyourself. Think about it from the perspective of the general public, as well as the medical community. Let's say one knows nothing of PV devices. Who are they gonna believe? Some research study funded by what appears to be a special interest group (ie Burstyn) or the position statement issued by an illustrious medical organization such as WHO.

Wikipedia, in general, reflects the systemic biases built into Western society, in particular the English language pages. For ecigs, this means the page will reflect the prevailing opinion of the establishment, which is largely antagonistic. Unfortunately, this attitude reflects almost directly the attitude of the general public, who are, for example, inclined to believe FDA's opinion over that from a pro-THR blog.
 

Nate760

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That's exactly right, @makeyourself. Think about it from the perspective of the general public, as well as the medical community. Let's say one knows nothing of PV devices. Who are they gonna believe? Some research study funded by what appears to be a special interest group (ie Burstyn) or the position statement issued by an illustrious medical organization such as WHO.

One has to wonder how much longer the WHO can possibly be regarded as illustrious or authoritative when they continue to promulgate policy positions that are so far off the deep end of complete stark raving insanity.

WHO Logic: Male infants should routinely have part of their genitals chopped off at birth, since it might reduce their chances of HIV infection if they should develop the habit later in life of having unprotected sex with HIV-infected partners.

Normal Person Logic: Maybe we should encourage people in high-risk populations not to have unprotected sex with random partners. Or, I dunno, pass out some condoms or something.

WHO Logic: Cigarette smoking causes more preventable deaths than any other thing. We really want you to quit smoking, but only if you use a method that's proven to fail at least 90% of the time. We are unwilling to countenance the use of a cessation technology that might be wildly more successful, in addition to being effectively harmless, because it might cause some kid somewhere to develop a taste for vaporized nicotine, and that's a risk we just can't take.

Normal Person Logic: Since all other forms of tobacco/nicotine use are orders of magnitude less hazardous than cigarette smoking, maybe we should try to get as many people off cigarettes as possible, as quickly as possible, using any and all means available. Whatever health concerns remain, if any, will pale in comparison to those that existed previously.

In the former case, WHO thinks the best policy course is to presume that all male infants will go on to become male adults who serially practice promiscuous, unprotected sex. In the latter case, they think millions of individuals should be allowed to die so as to avoid the risk of a few hypothetical individuals engaging in a behavior that likely poses no potential for harm to themselves or anyone else.

And this is maybe the scariest thing about the WHO: they're not even consistent in their own hideously flawed thinking.
 

Nate760

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And this is maybe the scariest thing about the WHO: they're not even consistent in their own hideously flawed thinking.

I may have spoken too soon when I wrote this, because there actually is some commonality in the two WHO positions I outlined above. In both cases, the rights of people who don't engage in the worst-case behavioral scenario (high-risk sexual behaviors on the one hand, never-smokers who take up vaping on the other) are completely disregarded. This is where "greater good" public utilitarianism (to borrow a phrase from Kent) morphs into outright totalitarianism. Your choices should be taken away because the WHO thinks you might make the wrong one. This mentality should be a moral affront to anyone who gives a damn about the rights of individual human beings to make their own decisions about what happens to their own bodies.

PS - Back to the original topic of the thread, I had a look at the Wiki article this afternoon, and O. M. F. G. What a stinking mess that thing is. The spelling and grammar/syntax errors would get a 6th grader sent to summer school.
 
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Jman8

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Major accomplishment today. The article on ecigs has been tagged as biased. This may not sound like much to the casual reader, but it represents a serious offense to Wiki editors and it takes lots of time and argument behind the scenes to have this "mark of shame" plastered at the top of an article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electronic_cigarette&oldid=630051724

I said earlier in this thread that another Wiki article could be created to deal with 'eCig controversy' and seems apparent it has gotten to this point.

Very glad they tagged the article as biased, as it was very prevalent in parts of that page.
 

DrMA

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Check this out: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/b...et-source-for-information-on-ebola-.html?_r=0

I fear the Wikipedia article on vaping will become increasingly more a platform for gushing ANTZ slurry.

the University of California, San Francisco, begins an elective class for fourth-year medical students that focuses on Wikipedia editing.

The fact that glANTZ realized Wikipedia is an effective way to push his views onto the public and this institution is now actively training shills to do just that is extremely worrying.
 
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NorthOfAtlanta

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Check this out: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/b...et-source-for-information-on-ebola-.html?_r=0

I fear the Wikipedia article on vaping will become increasingly more a platform for gushing ANTZ slurry.



The fact that glANTZ realized Wikipedia is an effective way to push his views onto the public and this institution is now actively training shills to do just that is extremely worrying.

More of this money rearing its ugly head? (TCORS)

https://prevention.nih.gov/tobacco-regulatory-science-program/research-portfolio/centers

:unsure::facepalm::vapor:
 

bigdancehawk

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Interesting link. The FDA is funding a "study" to confirm conclusions which the researchers have already reached:

"Adolescents are highly susceptible to the use of emerging modified risk tobacco products like electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), which are marketed with diverse flavors (sweet, menthol) and may be especially attractive to adolescents. Uptake of such product may increase initiation and maintenance of tobacco addiction. Therefore, developing an understanding of whether flavors influence the attractiveness of the product or whether they actually influence its addictive property is crucial to the regulation of the constituents of existing and future modified risk tobacco products. Therefore, we proposed two studies using psychophysical methods in laboratory settings to investigate the reinforcing properties of e-cigarettes and whether they are altered by commonly used flavor constituents among adolescents who smoke mentholated and non-mentholated cigarettes."

https://prevention.nih.gov/docs/trsp/rfa-da-13-003/webinar/krishnan-sarin.pdf
 

DrMA

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Nate760

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Glantz has gone so far off the deep end that he's increasingly viewed as a liability and an embarrassment even by his own allies in the tobacco control movement. I was in a discussion last week with a guy whose consulting firm is working for the FDA gathering data to support the deeming regs; when I brought up Glantz's name, his response was "Everybody knows Stan Glantz is a .....; let's just not go there."
 
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