New study on exposure to 2nd hand vapor

[DrMA]

Based on a study of 5 homes with e-cig users, these Spanish authors (see this thread for relevance of country of origin) submit that:

• airborne nicotine in the 5 ecig homes at 0.13±2.4 μg/m³ is significantly higher than 0.02±3.51 μg/m³ in non-smoker homes. As a practicing statistician I can tell you with certainty this is very dubious
• cue in ridiculous and massively overstated conclusion that non-smokers passively exposed to e-cigarettes absorb nicotine

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935114003089

There are so many problems with this study it's hard to even begin pointing them out, but here are the most egregious errors:

• sample size of 5
• ecig users are former smokers, thus contamination from past smoking affects the results in the vaper houses
• deciding to publish such junk instead of going back and doing more research

 

[Kent C]

Recycled lies.

 

[Anjaffm]

You mean this bull poo poo about the oh-so-horrible "passive nicotine" - the one that Christopher Snowdon has taken apart?

Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: Passive vaping

best comment underneath:

Not even Chapman believes in this crap

https://twitter.com/SimonChapman6/status/516762311868948480

And for those who do not have Twitter:

Simon Chapman‏@SimonChapman6
18:31 - 29. Sep. 2014
"Third hand nicotine" dangers. Time to get a grip?
Replies to When smokers move out and non-smokers move in: residential thirdhand smoke pollution and exposure

Hey, even a prominent tobacco Control Industry guy is balking at this crap.

Please note that nicotine has never played any part in the second-hand-smoke propaganda.

/edit:
And please note that a sample size of 5 is not a study. How was that with the "anecdotes"?

 

[DrMA]

Yep, that's the one, Anja.

 

[Nate760]

[*]airborne nicotine in the 5 ecig homes at 0.13±2.4 μg/m³ is significantly higher than 0.0.02±3.51 μg/m³ in non-smoker homes.

In other words, detectable amounts of nicotine are present in normal ambient air, irrespective of whether anyone's been smoking or vaping in the area. This is a convenient opportunity for us, if we so choose, to use the ANTZ' own junk science against them. When they start whining and moaning about how they "have the right not to breathe your exhaled nicotine," we can politely point out that they breathe airborne nicotine pretty much every moment of every day, and it doesn't appear to be doing them any harm.

 

[Kent C]

In other words, detectable amounts of nicotine are present in normal ambient air, irrespective of whether anyone's been smoking or vaping in the area. This is a convenient opportunity for us, if we so choose, to use the ANTZ' own junk science against them. When they start whining and moaning about how they "have the right not to breathe your exhaled nicotine," we can politely point out that they breathe airborne nicotine pretty much every moment of every day, and it doesn't appear to be doing them any harm.

More perspective:wiki

A cleanroom has a controlled level of contamination that is specified by the number of particles per cubic meter at a specified particle size. To give perspective, the ambient air outside in a typical urban environment contains 35,000,000 particles per cubic meter in the size range 0.5 μm and larger in diameter, corresponding to an ISO 9 cleanroom, while an ISO 1 cleanroom allows no particles in that size range and only 12 particles per cubic meter of 0.3 μm and smaller.

One could go into any ANTZ home and find similar levels of contaminants.

 

[Nana Gail]

What were the Spanish Lab Rats using to collect the particles, a butterfly net?

 

[danfinger]

In other words, detectable amounts of nicotine are present in normal ambient air, irrespective of whether anyone's been smoking or vaping in the area. This is a convenient opportunity for us, if we so choose, to use the ANTZ' own junk science against them. When they start whining and moaning about how they "have the right not to breathe your exhaled nicotine," we can politely point out that they breathe airborne nicotine pretty much every moment of every day, and it doesn't appear to be doing them any harm.

Wait a minute, I'm led to understand that nicotine cures Alzheimer's. If everyone is constantly inhaling nicotine why do people still get Alzheimer's?

 

[Davey59]

Only approved results ever make it to mainstream.

You may never have even heard about these.

Second hand smoke has no harmful effects in healthy individuals, helps build immune system in non smokers. WHO

Cigarette smokers save the government billions in early death. Harvard economics professor.

An inconvenient truth.

 

[Lilvapie]

Wait a minute, I'm led to understand that nicotine cures Alzheimer's. If everyone is constantly inhaling nicotine why do people still get Alzheimer's?

Why do people get it? Genetics. But yeah, it has been said that it prevents Alzheimers- when taken in doses higher then that are in the air naturally of course....

 

[jpargana]

(...)

And please note that a sample size of 5 is not a study. How was that with the "anecdotes"?

Typical ANTZ double standards:

- Millions of vapers, so probably at least thousands of positive testimonials: dismissed as "anedoctes", because there was no "formal" study involved.
- A sample of five(!) households is "data", because thare was a "formal" study(?) - more to the point, "study" - involved.

 

[Steamix]

Can I get funding too ?

I been to five places near my dwellings. Looks pretty flat. So I need to do a study if earth is really flat or spherical as its often claimed . Have to study that phenomenon elsewhere. Need funding to study other places. Like the Carribean, Hawaii, Seychelles ...

I'll report my findings here. Promise

 

[danfinger]

Why do people get it? Genetics. But yeah, it has been said that it prevents Alzheimers- when taken in doses higher then that are in the air naturally of course....

Ah.. the answer is to have some really huge fog machines billowing out RY4 or nicoticket's latest blueberry sugar fest all over the nation/world. Or maybe just implant some kind of PV into everyone's throat at birth? I think the fog machines would be more feasible.

 

[dragonpuff]

Typical ANTZ double standards:

- Millions of vapers, so probably at least thousands of positive testimonials: dismissed as "anedoctes", because there was no "formal" study involved.
- A sample of five(!) households is "data", because thare was a "formal" study(?) - more to the point, "study" - involved.

It is not just official studies that they count as real data, it is studies that prove the points they want to make. Note all the quit smoking studies that have already been done on e-cigs, which are dismissed to the point where the FDA claims no studies have been done at all...

Plus, all of us who are counted as "anecdotes" are so because we quit smoking. Dual users, on the other hand, are not considered anecdotes, but instead are held up as proof that there is a "real" danger in vaping.

Funny how that works...

 

[DC2]

• airborne nicotine in the 5 ecig homes at 0.13±2.4 μg/m³ is significantly higher than 0.0.02±3.51 μg/m³ in non-smoker homes. As a practicing statistician I can tell you with certainty this is very dubious

Does GSD mean Geometric Standard Deviation?
And if so, what exactly does that mean?

I did a bit of statistics in college some decades ago, and I must admit to not being familiar with the term.
But I am not sure it is as simple as +/- as you have in your quote.

Because it seems to me that if it was as simple as +/- then the results would certainly not be statistically significant.

 

[dragonpuff]

Does GSD mean Geometric Standard Deviation?
And if so, what exactly does that mean?

I did a bit of statistics in college some decades ago, and I must admit to not being familiar with the term.
But I am not sure it is as simple as +/- as you have in your quote.

Because it seems to me that if it was as simple as +/- then the results would certainly not be statistically significant.

GSD is the standard deviation around the geometric mean. It is a bit different than taking the standard deviation around an ordinary mean, or "arithmetic mean", as we're used to: Geometric standard deviation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I must admit I've never seen this before either.

From what I can see (in my lazy google searchings and wikipedia readings), the geometric mean and standard deviation are useful when comparing two different things across multiple categories at once:

For example, the geometric mean can give a meaningful "average" to compare two companies which are each rated at 0 to 5 for their environmental sustainability, and are rated at 0 to 100 for their financial viability. If an arithmetic mean were used instead of a geometric mean, the financial viability is given more weight because its numeric range is larger- so a small percentage change in the financial rating (e.g. going from 80 to 90) makes a much larger difference in the arithmetic mean than a large percentage change in environmental sustainability (e.g. going from 2 to 5). The use of a geometric mean "normalizes" the ranges being averaged, so that no range dominates the weighting, and a given percentage change in any of the properties has the same effect on the geometric mean. So, a 20% change in environmental sustainability from 4 to 4.8 has the same effect on the geometric mean as a 20% change in financial viability from 60 to 72.

Source: Geometric mean - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't have a clue why these researchers chose to use geometric mean to compare amounts of nicotine exposure in this study, it doesn't seem to apply here. I wonder if they chose this method specifically to manipulate the numbers to show what they wanted to show...

 

[DrMA]

The geomean (GM) and GSD are commonly used during the analysis of concentrations data, which tend to follow a lognormal distribution. The GM and GSD are considered to accurately reflect the right-skew of such data in estimating the central tendency of these distributions. The representation of GM±GSD is not technically accurate, but I thought it was a close-enough approximation for illustration purposes on an internet forum. In the scientific literature, the GM is usually provided with calculated 95% confidence intervals rather than GSD, because the 95% CIs are not symmetrical when expressed on this scale. So, for this paper,the figure presented as

• 0.13±2.4 μg/m3 might actually look something like GM = 0.13, 95%CI = 0.02 - 0.75 μg/m3
• 0.02±3.51 μg/m3 might actually look something like GM = 0.02, 95%CI = 0.002 - 0.25 μg/m3

 

[DC2]

I'm just saying that...

airborne nicotine in the 5 ecig homes at 0.13±2.4 μg/m3 is significantly higher than 0.02±3.51 μg/m3 in non-smoker homes.

Is clearly not even remotely statistically significant.
When the +/- is higher than the measured number, there is no point in anything.

So I guess I'm still not clear on this whole GSD thing and how it can be translated into something that makes any sense to me.

 

[Kent C]

I'm just saying that...



Is clearly not even remotely statistically significant.
When the +/- is higher than the measured number, there is no point in anything.

So I guess I'm still not clear on this whole GSD thing and how it can be translated into something that makes any sense to me.

I did a 'statistics for dummies' search and this one might help. Those who know can correct me if I'm wrong but the GSD is used for a skewed data set and helps 'adjust' for that skewness so as to compare apples to apples so to speak; where the standard deviation is used for a symmetrical bell shaped curve where the 'distance' between data is more evenly distributed.

Here 'a' is the standard bell curve and 'b' is the right skewed curve:

The Symmetry and Shape of Data Distributions Often Seen in Biostatistics - For Dummies

So I'm guessing from what DrMA has stated, that the use of GSD instead of just SD is likely unjustified in this study - or as would make more sense from what we've seen in the past - to actually skew the data to fit the bias against ecigs.

And I might add - that with only 5 samples, it seems that the skewing would be less likely (non-existent?) vs. having a large population where the possibility of skewing would be more likely... it would seem

 

[DrMA]

Good illustration, Kent. That applies to a reasonable sample size, which, in most statistical theory is usually considered to be above N=20.

Otherwise, I'm saying that the use of GM and GSD is widely practiced for data representing concentrations, such is the case for this article. However, there's no way to quantify the shape of the distribution underlying 5 samples. Basically, no reliable statistics can be generated from 5 samples whether one uses GM, arithmetic means or anything else for that matter.