Let’s talk about how @American_Heart is again spreading anti-vaping propaganda under the guise of promoting public health. Before examining their latest claim, a brief history lesson is in order. THREAD 🪡
Last November, the AHA's annual conference included an abstract which claimed that “E-cigarette users face 15% higher risk of stroke at a younger age than traditional smokers.”
Nobody could evaluate the study since it had yet to be presented publicly. Still, the media eagerly regurgitated AHA's press release:
The problem? The study's most striking finding was that "Stroke was far more common among traditional cigarette smokers than e-cigarette users or people who used both, 6.75% compared to 1.09% and 3.72%, respectively." acsh.org/news/2021/11/1…
After critics pointed out that the abstract documented lower stroke risk in vapers, AHA pulled the presentation from its conference without explanation.
AHA's latest claim, also based on unpublished abstracts, was that people who vaped or smoked experienced acute increases in heart rate and blood pressure, and performed significantly worse during exercise compared to those who didn't use nicotine.
The media predictably parroted the abstract:
Independent experts were skeptical of this result. The acute change in heart rate was just a benign, short-term effect of nicotine. Moreover, comparing smokers to vapers is misleading because most vapers are former smokers. https://t.co/uqugnRhPLiinews.co.uk/news/health/va…
The study authors' defense?
Three questions: If nicotine wasn't the relevant "toxic" agent, what was, and in what dose did it cause the observed effects? If Dr. Hajek was wrong to "pass judgment" on an abstract, why did the researchers give hyperbolic quotes to the media based on the abstract?
Bottom line: this is more anti-vaping spin from AHA. Unpublished results should not reach the public via exaggerated headlines before independent experts have a chance to review the research.
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It’s literally incredible. The world’s leading public health authority, @WHO, is now getting regularly lit up by @CommunityNotes for brazen and calculated deceits about nicotine vaping. Let’s take a close look.
THREAD 🪡
There is a widely-held scientific consensus that vaping is vastly less harmful than smoking. Yet with zero supporting evidence, WHO flatly insists the opposite, with the clear intent to dissuade the public.
Not only is WHO's claim wrong—they themselves have said it's wrong. Among the more than 100 scholarly sources cited in this community, two are from the World Health Organization itself!
Deceptive headline, half-truths and a whole lot of scaremongering. @USATODAY's @Mary_Walrath just wrote maybe the most irresponsible anti-vaping story we've ever seen. Let's do the fact-checking her editors should have done before publishing this train wreck. THREAD 🧵
Reporting on a study from @EmoryRollins, Walrath's piece veered off the rails immediately with the headline. There isn't a shred of evidence (in the article, the study or anywhere else) to support the claim that vapor poses a risk "like secondhand smoke."
We invite USA Today and Emory to prove us wrong. They won't, because there is no evidence causally linking nicotine vapor to *any* disease. Walrath buried this critical fact in the 9th (!) paragraph of her story.
🔎 This is horrendous. In a forum at @SMPAGWU yesterday (on misinformation!) @DrCaliff_FDA once again misleads Americans with the false notion that vaping is just as dangerous as smoking — thus deterring people from switching to a vastly safer alternative. 1/
Here's the verbatim remarks. Notice the false equivalence and the bunk gateway theory and how he lumps vaping in with lethal diseases -- even though vaping has injured or killed precisely no one and in fact saves lives.
Oh, more proactive you say? So far as we can tell, you haven’t lifted a finger to set the public record straight on what your own @FDAtobacco director says are widespread misperceptions about vaping.
🧐 Can we just talk for a second about the crayola math that @FDATobacco is using to rationalize its attack on open-system vape products? As @Vaping360 reports, the agency showcased an erroneous figure in its own press release.
1/🪡
And as our @GregTHR notes, the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey reported that 7.7 percent of middle and high school students had used an e-cig in the prior 30 days. AMONG THOSE respondents, 11.3 percent said they used a Smok product — which is 0.87 percent of total respondents.
The total number of students that completed this survey was 22,069. By simple calculation, that means that *176 total students* in the nationwide survey said they had used a Smok product in the prior 30 days. That’s the figure FDA is citing to outlaw this entire product line.
Blistering ruling against @FDATobacco just dropped in the 5th circuit vape case. Here's our statement, along with analysis.
THREAD 🪡
Here is a link to the full ruling, which is chock-full of hard-hitting language that rebukes FDA's methods, duplicity, and the horrendous outcomes it has caused. theavm.org/s/bb9i.pdf
🔎 👀
Here's a crucial piece just posted in the prestigious Chronicle of @Philanthropy by renowned journalist @MarcGunther. It examines the blinkered intransigence that is blocking progress on tobacco harm reduction. Let's dive in.
THREAD 🧵
The piece centers on Cliff Douglas @cdoug, a conscientious voice in this debate who has tried mightily to foster an open and principled discourse on the most effective ways to help people quit smoking.
But even someone with career-long, impeccable credentials in tobacco control is up against powerful forces that won't tolerate or engage with any viewpoint outside their cloistered bubble.