1mo ago

It's hard to say goodbye

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That crazy myth needs to die. Nicotine is approximately as harmful as caffeine. Highly addictive but not particularly harmful itself. Tobacco and all the chemicals they put in cigarettes are the stuff that gives you cancer.
- Nicotine poses several health hazards. There is an increased risk of cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal disorders. There is decreased immune response and it also poses ill impacts on the reproductive health. It affects the cell proliferation, oxidative stress, apoptosis, DNA mutation by various mechanisms which leads to cancer. It also affects the tumor proliferation and metastasis and causes resistance to chemo and radio therapeutic agents.
  […]
  In normal cells, nicotine can stimulate properties consistent with cell transformation and the early stages of cancer formation, such as increased cell proliferation, decreased cellular dependence on the extracellular matrix for survival, and decreased contact inhibition. Thus, the induced activation of nAChRs in lung and other tissues by nicotine can promote carcinogenesis by causing DNA mutations. Through its tumor promoter effects, it acts synergistically with other carcinogens from automobile exhausts or wood burning and potentially shorten the induction period of cancers.
  
  Ooh boy, it's time to link to my favorite "I did a lot of work and no one responded" pair of posts, with a deep dive into how the NIH and other offices' claims about nicotine are utter bullshit and a great example of the failures of the modern scientific apparatus: https://lemmy.world/post/16434400/10677530
  My favorite parts:
  There’s stuff like this heart.org result, which exclusively talk about “smoking and nicotine”. These types of articles are dangerous in and of themselves because they require a level of critical thinking to separate out “smoking” and “nicotine”. A lot of anti-vaping hit pieces have a top-level title talking about nicotine, but then the body of the article references negative effects that are exclusive to smoking. Here’s one such hit piece, run by a dystopian-sounding group called the “Truth Initiative” which should immediately make anyone suspicious of their goals. Note the article is under topic “harmful effects of tobacco”, subtopic “nicotine addiction”.
  So like, they took the high end of that study they referenced, increased it a little, used that as the low end of their study, made their high end 4 times that, and then gave that amount to a fucking mouse injected with a human tumor. And then did it again, 5 more times a day. And then said that “mimicked the daily intakes of cigarettes in smokers”. HAH.
  Side note: see how incestuous this all is? We have a study of studies (NIH) referencing a study of studies (Jensen) referencing a study of studies (Chowdhury), referencing…nothing at all.
  
  ”study of studies”
  Yes my sweet child - that is called a meta-analysis.
  
  Yeah no fucking shit, Sherlock
  
  I think we see the real problem here - you are addicted and aggressive because you are going through withdrawal. Also a bit of Dunning-Krueger - guess you are an undergraduate engineering student with no training in medicine or statistics.
  
  No withdawal - I'm vaping right now.
  Vapes saved me from an early death due to smoking and it bothers me on a personal level when people spout falsehoods about them. And on a civic level when those people are government officials.
  
  People are not “spouting falsehoods.” Read the studies I linked. You weren’t impressed with meta-analysis you found, the studies I show described their methodologies in detail.
  Vaping may be better than smoking, but it is not good for you. Nicotine is harmful. Aerosols in your lungs are harmful. These are not really things you can argue with.
  
  Sure, I agree. But it's SO MUCH LESS than tobacco that we should not view them as in the same ballpark.
  
  You can argue that it is less harmful (which I would agree that the lower temperature and lack of burning plant matter is probably a good thing), but arguing that it is not harmful at all is solidly pseudoscience.
  Arguing that there is a conspiracy between the government and scientific researchers to pretend that nicotine is harmful is getting into Qanon territory.
  I worked in a middle school, and this kind of “vape is harmless” rhetoric is literally killing children. And yes - middle schoolers are probably getting sketchy carts from China - but a lot of them are hurt by the idea that vape is perfectly safe. (Friend helped on a school district lawsuit against Juul)
  CDC data from 2020:
  As of February 18, 2020, a total of 2,807 hospitalized EVALI cases or deaths have been reported to CDC from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories (Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands). Sixty-eight deaths have been confirmed in 29 states and the District of Columbia (as of February 18, 2020).
  Remember how desperately the cigarette industry attacked the science behind the harm caused by smoking - the lies, the paying off doctors? I know you said you won’t click on YouTube links, but Knowing Better has a great video on that history. Do you think the people manufacturing vapes have your best interest at heart, and wouldn’t do the same?
  
  So far, the only sketchy science I've seen has been people trying to claim vapes are killing our children. It's a classic moral hysteria. Every. Single. Case. Of kids being harmed by vapes has been sketchy Chinese shit, which they wouldn't try to get if you people weren't so insistent on banning vapes in the US!
  I'm arguing that vapes are less harmful than alcohol, fast food, or car exhaust. Less harmful than sitting at a desk all day. Less harmful than any of a thousand things people do daily. This absolute hysteria around vaping needs to end.
  And it's less a conspiracy than a social movement - if you want funding, find vapes to be harmful. If you want your career destroyed, tell the truth. I don't think there's a cabal of evil moustache-twirling scientists; I think there's a very powerful social and financial incentive to come to certain conclusions.
- They hated him because he spoke the truth
- be me, sneaking outside at work to vape while my coworker brings a literal gallon of coffee everyday.
  nicotine certainly has been demonized in the last few decades.
  
  I saw a great long-form article with a theory that I don't completely buy into but is very interesting.
  In 1998, a MASSIVE lawsuit against the tobacco companies was settled. The result was the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). Due to the harmful public health effects of tobacco, cigarette companies were required to pay huge sums to the state governments, in perpetuity, based on the level of sales of cigarettes. To be clear, this was a great and reasonable idea, given the public health costs associated with smoking (funny enough, since then, costs have lowered on average as people live longer but smokers don't).
  Several states then "securitized" their future payments and sold them off to get short-term injections of cash. If the term "securitization" seems familiar, it's the craze that led to the financial collapse in 2008, when people were securitizing junk mortgages. As part of these tobacco bond securitization agreements, states have to pay their business partners a certain dollar amount every year going forward, NOT based on the level of sales of cigarettes.
  Then, for a variety of reasons including vaping, cigarette sales started to tank. Meaning states were getting less money from the MSA, but they still owed the same amount to their debtors. Many of these bonds are in junk status, and some states are realistically looking at bankruptcy due to that stupid decision 20 years ago. There's $97 billion they owe in total, and most states have no way to pay it.
  So now we have a large number of state governments with an extremely powerful financial incentive to suppress vaping and encourage cigarette smoking.
  
  This is a conspiracy theory.
  This is no different from being an anti-vaxxer or Ivermectin nut. You are selectively reading bits of studies that you are not understanding, and do not have basic knowledge of how statistics or the human body work.
  
  Like I said, I don't fully buy into it, but the facts are incontrovertible and it's a fairly compelling argument.

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