www .lep .co.uk/news/health/local/electronic-cigarettes-fears-1-5642830
The guy apparently vaped for 4 days and got some kind of nasty gum infection. The kicker is that he said his dentist recommended that smoking would be safer.
Being the sarcastic, ahem, let's say "so and so" I am, I just could not resist (munged link):
bit [dot] ly [slash] 108YSLh
Or here's my snot-o-gram which I wouldn't be surprised if they delete (though the comments are not friendly to the publication nor the article, I'm far from the only one bashing them):
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"Chris Bilsborough, 42, used an e-cigarette for four days..."
"It's not good stuff. Some people might be fine for a while, its the long term effects."
Um... excuse me? Four days and a comment about "long term effects"? Since when is four days "long term"? Who is this guy?
"...was left with a gum infection and spots on his arms and legs."
Of course, being the responsible publication you are, you have rigorous scientific evidence these things are related because, as you well know, correlation is not causality.
"My dentist said to me I'd be safer with cigarettes."
You actually had a medical professional say this? Actually say cigarettes are better than... well... anything? And the medical professional isn't being investigated to see if he or she should retain their license to practice?
"It's the liquid that is highly toxic."
Yeah, it's called "nicotine". The nicotine in cigarettes is toxic. The nicotine in nicotine gum is toxic. The nicotine in nicotine patches is toxic. The nicotine in nicotine inhalers is toxic.
"We would strongly recommend that if you want to stop smoking, you should use a properly regulated and licensed nicotine replacement therapy, such as nicotine gum, patches or inhalers."
Translation:
Pharmaceutical companies profit selling these products which have a failure rate in the 90% range and in several studies show a higher failure rate than "cold turkey". But that's okay because it means repeat business.
Transferring the nicotine addiction to "vaping" (aka "e-cigs") does not generate profits for pharma. Therefore, it is innately bad and evil and must be suppressed. Until pharma enters the e-cig market. Then it'll become okay.
"In the absence of any long-term studies of the use of these products, there is simply no way of knowing whether they are safe and effective."
So let's not bother to do studies. Let's just publish scare mongering stories about some guy who may or may not have had an allergic reaction to something more or less around the time or there abouts he says but we can't actually confirm he tried an e-cig. Or not. Or something. Anyway, e-cigs bad. Profit for pharma corporations good.
I see our nations are not so different after all despite our lil' spat a couple centuries ago. Corporate profits are virtue. Small business profits are immorality.
Ah, Airstrip One, double-plus good on ya!
"What's more, we don't know whether they may lead young people to try conventional cigarettes..."
The most disingenuous tactic to shut down debate ever concocted. "Won't somebody think of the CHILDREN?!?!"
I smoked 35 years. I tried every single "cessation" scam pharma came up with (except Chantix, while suicide is one way to quit smoking I'll pass thank you).
I started vaping.
I lost interest in cigarettes.
And I am far from alone. There are thousands of us. Tens of thousands. Maybe millions.
Who are you protecting? Human beings or corporate profits?
I was really upset with myself for a few minutes there.
