A patron exhales vapor from an e-cigarette at a store in New York. Juul and other vaping companies face an escalating backlash that threatens to sweep their products off the market. (Frank Franklin II, File)

 

The Independent ( UK) published an OP-ED validating the message that we have been sending out from the castle. The entire article is here:

 

This is an OP-ED by Eugene Gu, and the points here are the ones that are not being said.

 

As a physician, I believe the medical community has a solemn responsibility to adhere to facts and evidence over hype and sensationalism. This is especially true when it comes to public health, for it is an integral part of our Hippocratic oath to “first, do no harm.” Yet it is with great dismay that I’ve seen the medical community in both the mainstream press and on social media resort to fear-mongering and mob-like scapegoating when it comes to the nuanced complexities of the vaping epidemic in the United States. A UCSF Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Tobacco Control even tweeted that those who vape “would be better off just smoking.”

 

I was shocked by that tweet, too; better off smoking? What kind of provider is that? Ugh, some days, these random tweets chase the bats out of my belfry. His next assessment is just as staggering and right on the point here.

 

When doctors ignore actual evidence, we exploit our credibility as healers to promote our own agendas, which can ultimately cause significant harm to patients. Every year more than 480,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking, and more than 41,000 die from secondhand smoke. That means that in just one hour, more than twice as many Americans die from tobacco smoke than everyone who died from vaping-associated lung injuries thus far.

 

When I brought my husband on the podcast, it was for the purposes of information. My husband struggled with smoking for many years, tried all of the tricks and pills to quit smoking. It wasn’t until he started vaping that we saw real progress with both lung function as well as nicotine reduction. We also talked about the number of deaths that occurred as a result of vaping and the fact that they were caused by constituents that are not present in nicotine vapes. Dr. Gu is entirely on point in this next paragraph

 

The same holds true for e-cigarettes. Stories of previously healthy young patients suddenly falling ill after vaping, needing to be intubated and hooked to breathing machines, is extremely jarring and heartbreaking. But when it comes to public health, evidence matters more than emotions. While the long-term effects of vaping are unknown, e-cigarettes maybe 95 percent less harmful than smoking, according to Public Health England.

 

Holy information Batman. We take a simple instance of illness to ignore actual data about a particular behavior that is 95% less harmful than smoking over hype. The said statement is what our country has become; we completely use hype to ignore the truth and the story. Dr. Gu does talk in this article quite a bit about the importance of the effects of both smoking and vaping on teens, a discussion that needs to be had. You would be hard-pressed to find any provider that would be ok with teen smoking or vaping. This is the strawman argument against vaping (or anything in the country for that matter); what about the children? 

 

The case about children does need to be brought up, as an additional piece not as the initial discussion:

 

While using deaths caused by black market vapes to scapegoat the entire e-cigarette industry is unethical, the situation is complex because the vaping industry is guilty of its own terrible misdeeds. Companies like Juul, one of the most popular e-cigarette makers in the US, used deceptive marketing practices to target teens and schoolchildren. Juul even sent company representatives to schools and youth camps, sometimes without the teacher in the room, to promote vaping with enticing flavors like mango, mint, and cucumber. (we were this casual about smoking in the day as well)

 

I have to say that this article talks about everything that thinks to my husband, “you heard it here first,” so to speak. I think the best advice that comes out of this piece was don’t believe the hype. The good doctor points this out in the last of the article:

 

In essence, there are three main issues going on simultaneously. First, there is a plague of tobacco smoking that claims the most lives by far and is the clearest and present danger to public health. Second, there is a growing epidemic of teen vaping that is getting a whole new generation addicted to nicotine. Third, there are people falling deathly ill because of black market THC vapes. All three problems can be solved if we tackle them separately, without fear-mongering and manipulating the truth.

 

So let’s look at these things separately, not freak out. Smoking is still legal, and there has been no public freak out over it. Lots of kids smoke and still do it even with harmful effects on development, yet this is only addressed in the fear-mongering that has surrounded the vaping debate.

 

Look in the medical profession; we are all about evidence-based medicine. We, too, get caught in the hype from time to time (look at ketamine), but we need to go back to a careful and thoughtful approach. This is a great article and worth everyone’s time.