LETHAL CURES: TRUSTED EXPERT MEDICAL/MEDIA CONSENSUS FABRICATES BENEFIT – AGAIN – FROM EVIDENCE PREDICTING PUBLIC HEALTH HARM
Remarkably incompetent evaluation and interpretation of research results is the common theme: in generation of the opioid crisis; promotion of opioid substitution (MAT) against consistent evidence for harm, not benefit; now claims for vaping as reducing cigarette use
by Clark Miller
Published December 8, 2021
Tough choices !
Taking steps to reverse an unfortunate youth vaping epidemic will work against the cigarette cessation benefit that adults get from using the e-cigarettes.
We know there is such benefit – here it is directly stated in a headline by a source no less credible than NPR –
So, we can see that there definitely is “Benefit of Vaping for Adults” and, unfortunately some “Risk of Teen Addiction”. That much is clear. Everyone agrees on that, it goes without saying.
I mean . . . except that . . . it actually turns out that for adult vapers all relevant evidence points, as for youth, to use of nicotine by vaping as a “gateway” leading to increased use of tobacco cigarettes by adults.
And that study? The one cited by America’s Top Tobacco Researchers as establishing vaping’s benefit to adults trying to quit cigarettes?
Turns out those conclusions are invalidated based on elementary flaws in experimental design and interpretation, errors of the most basic types.
It’s almost as if – isn’t it? – no one learned anything from generation of the increasingly lethal opioid crisis, predictably, by America’s Media/Medical collusion, driven by what appear to be pathological levels of diminished capacity – for competence, research literacy, journalistic responsibility, for critical thought.
Yesterday:
Experts determine opioids are safe and effective for all pain
Today:
But then . . . there is this –
Adult smoking rates dropped from 42% in 1965 to 14% in 2019, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has not released last year’s data but the Quitline report cited U.S. Treasury Department data showing cigarette sales increased 1% in 2020 after dropping 4 to 5% each year since 2015.
The decadeslong decline in U.S. cigarette sales halted last year as people in lockdown lit up more frequently and health concerns around e-cigarettes caused some vapers to switch back to cigarettes.
Wait . . . What?
During a viral pandemic marked by high risk of respiratory mortality, with mass messaging that smoking tobacco is a contributing high risk factor, adults who were using e-cigarettes – mass messaged as reducing risks associated with inhalation of nicotine – went back to smoking cigarettes? That shift associated with a population-level stalling and reversal of decades of decreased cigarette use?
And the main reasons given for the change away from vaping were about ease of obtaining the products?
At least we can rely on trusted sources, on American media to identify the top experts who will sort all this out and do something about it.
We can, can’t we?
