News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’. Parent comment

Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by shkkmo on Sunday September 01, 2019 @06:41PM (#20855484)
Given how long smoking was deemed to be safe, what studies have you seen that show that vaping hasn't and won't turn out to have long term health effects on par with smoking? A decade is not a very long time to run the kind of large scale longitudinal studies that are needed to accurately gauge long term health effects. Making significant claims about the long term safety of e-cigs without this data seems quite irresponsible.

Edit: lots of downvotes but still nobody actually willing to provide evidence for these ridiculous "several orders of magnitude safer" claims.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by intertextuality on Sunday September 01, 2019 @07:54PM (#20855746)
It’s so strange to me how vaping is seen as this miraculous thing and any criticism is seen as being a hater.

10 years is not nearly long enough to measure long term health effects, sorry. Being “safer than cigs” isn’t worth anything at all.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by oh_sigh on Sunday September 01, 2019 @09:04PM (#20856005)
It's worth a lot if people vape over smoking cigarettes. It's worth negative if people who wouldn't otherwise smoke cigs take up vaping.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by idDriven on Monday September 02, 2019 @03:33PM (#20861306)
More complex question would be if I vape my dessert flavor with or without nicotine is that better for me than eating said dessert? I have had so many people tell me how they 'cant resist' sweets, and I'd rather vape my cake.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by idDriven on Monday September 02, 2019 @03:27PM (#20861280)
Before I switched from smoking 12-ish years ago my lungs would physically hurt in the morning and I would cough when I woke up. To me, and other people who legitimately view vaping as something that was life-changing in a very positive way that comes off as a very uncaring attitude. Vaping dramatically improved my health.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by mastazi on Sunday September 01, 2019 @09:09PM (#20856030)
A lot of the resistance you describe comes from the fact that vaping is illegal in many countries (interestingly, smoking is legal in almost all of those places) and people living in places where vaping is legal, are concerned that there might be a push towards prohibition.

I agree with you that the amount of evidence we have is not conclusive and if you browse the various vaping forums online, you can see that most vapers openly admit that as well, the problem arises when the lack of conclusive evidence is used as an argument in favour of prohibition, that is what drives many vapers to respond.

In other words, if something is “possibly harmful but we’re not sure yet”, is that a sufficient reason for making it illegal? Most vapers think that the answer is no.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by shkkmo on Sunday September 01, 2019 @09:44PM (#20856189)
> people living in places where vaping is legal, are concerned that there might be a push towards prohibition

Spreading false, misleading information doesn't help legitimize your cause.

> the problem arises when the lack of conclusive evidence is used as an argument in favour of prohibition, that is what drives many vapers to respond

I haven't see anyone here doing that, I certainly haven't.

> In other words, if something is “possibly harmful but we’re not sure yet”, is that a sufficient reason for making it illegal? Most vapers think that the answer is no.

I do not thing there is any doubt that vaping is harmful to some degree (that appears to be the scientific consensus). The unresolved questions are "how harmful?" and "is it a net negative for society?". However, even if the answers are "almost as harmful as cigarettes" and "yes, it increases public health risks overall despite reductions in smoking", I still would not support banning e-cigs (though I would support advertising restrictions).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by mastazi on Monday September 02, 2019 @12:13AM (#20856725)
I wasn’t replying to you, not sure why you feel the need to resort to personal attacks.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by voltagex_ on Sunday September 01, 2019 @08:57PM (#20855977)
Possible reasons were discussed in https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbrie... (transcript coming later AFAICT). Basically: libertarians and tobacco lobby groups.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’ by idDriven on Monday September 02, 2019 @03:19PM (#20861229)
From EPA "Propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol were first registered in 1950 and 1959, respectively, by the FDA for use in hospitals as air disinfectants. At one point, there were approximately 190 pesticide chemical companies having active propylene or dipropylene glycol registrations." This entire report details safety information, including aerosol use for almost 70 years.

https://archive.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/web/pdf/pr...

Another related Glycol saves sick infants from infection and no long-term sequelae reported: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.37.11...

Vegetable Glycerin: https://monq.com/science/vegetable-glycerin/

The more research you do on pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics the more the 96% less harmful than smoking figure appears likely to be in the correct ballpark for harm-reduction vs smoking. Source: https://pneumonia.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41479-...

[ Parent | on HN ]