A Rethink? Are E-Cigarettes Less Harmful?
The media have been citing a study from a UK cancer centre that is already more than a year old. It makes one thing clear: “E-cigarettes are less harmful than cigarettes”. The evidence was fairly straightforward – while a conventional cigarette damages 123 genes, the researchers found just 2 genes in connection with e-cigarettes that could theoretically be affected.
The thing is, this study is anything but new, and for more than a year the mainstream media barely mentioned it. Especially considering that not long before, they had been whipping up a frenzy about exploding tanks (sorry, according to most media outlets it was the battery).
So what actually happened in those two weeks? What’s the catch? It’s in a throwaway line repeated almost word for word by nearly every media outlet: “Overall, nicotine replacement leads to fewer carcinogenic chemicals, while still supplying the user with nicotine”. Nicotine replacement – and because the pharmaceutical industry apparently wanted another mention, many articles also added this: “The concentration was roughly comparable to the amount of chemicals you take in, for example, through a nicotine patch.”
So we have two claims here: they are trying to label the e-cigarette as nicotine replacement and compare it with nicotine patches. Anyone who comes up with that second comparison has never smoked and has never tried the patch!
Anyway – there is clearly a subtle attempt to frame the e-cigarette as nicotine replacement. And where do you get nicotine replacement products? Exactly, at the pharmacy!
But there was also a report proving that some vape mods really can be used as blunt weapons. A Wochenblatt article from Passau reported on an attack on a young man who was hit on the head with a vape mod!
By the way, the tobacco industry is also getting involved with e-cigarettes – more on that next week!
Source WDR
