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Research Shows E-Cigs Might Be As Good For Quitting As Nicotine Patches
"Taking a drag from an e-cigarette may be just as safe and effective as slapping on a nicotine patch for smokers struggling to quit, according to the first physician-run trial to compare the two products." That's according to research recently published in The Lancet (PDF) and reported by Bloomberg. Why is this significant? From the article: "If European and U.S. regulators treat e-cigarettes as medical devices, yet leave cigarettes on general sale, tobacco makers 'will retain their market monopoly, and we will never learn whether e-cigarettes would replace traditional cigarettes if allowed to continue evolving and competing with smoked tobacco on even terms,' [wrote clinical psychology professor Peter Hajek]. The results will also be presented today at the European Respiratory Society’s annual meeting in Barcelona.
E-cigarettes have taken Europe and the U.S. by storm. In France, there are more than 1 million regular users, according to a government-commissioned report published in May. Sales worldwide will probably approach $2 billion by the end of this year and top $10 billion by 2017, according to a forecast by Wells Fargo & Co."
There's an e-cig kiosk at my local mall. In Ottawa, Canada. You can't smoke real cigarettes anywhere. Not in any workplace (including restaurants and bars), I think the one exception being hotel rooms, but that's only in designated smoking rooms, and not in common areas. You can't even smoke in public parks. Anyway, the people selling the e-cigs were smoking them at the kiosk. I didn't notice any odour, and it definitely didn't bother me. But I do kind of wonder if there are any effects anyway. If completely safe, I wouldn't mind this coming into general use for people who wish to smoke. It's much nicer than stepping into an elevator with a person who just came in from smoking, or even an elevator that was recently used by a smoker. The smell tends to linger quite a while. I used to not think it was such a bad thing, but since they've just about outlawed it everywhere, I've started to get bothered by it more and more. Also, can't say I'd miss having tons of cigarette butts left on the ground at the entrance to every building.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
yummy, I always like breathing in someone else's medicated ethylene glycol.
It's propylene glycol. But besides that, second hand nicotine was never an issue (and propylene glycol is recognized as safe, and even used in many asthma inhalers). The harm from second hand smoke comes from the smoke particles, something that's not present in e-cig vapor.
Good thing you don't get any second hand smoke from ecigs.
Conclusions: For all byproducts measured, electronic cigarettes produce very small exposures relative to tobacco cigarettes. The study indicates no apparent risk to human health from e-cigarette emissions based on the compounds analyzed.
It's easy to find a bunch of "what if" that says it's harmful second hand. People that bother to test find levels so low (if at all) that it's not a problem.
I'll agree to your controls. They can't be used where scientific evidence shows they will harm others. Better get used to the smell.
“For more than 25 years Smokefree Pennsylvania has been advocating indoor smoking bans. Based on the results of this study I see no reason for e-cigarettes to be included in smoking bans.” - Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania.
“Most vapers believe e-cigarette vapor is not harmful to those around them, but it is reassuring to finally have scientific evidence confirming those beliefs.”- Spike Babaian, President of National Vapers Club
This is the first study to cover such a wide range of toxins, however previous studies, which have evaluated a smaller number of toxins, have shown similar results.
“The results of this study confirm the findings of my last 4 years of research. E-cigarettes pose no discernible risk to public health." - Dr. Murray Laugesen - Public Health Medicine Specialist, Health New Zealand
source
I think you've misunderstood the summary of the results. Formaldehyde was present in all of the vapors tested, but in varying degrees. Only 1 in 3 reached the levels of regular cigarettes.
Yes, there are studies showing harmful effects on people using nicotine gum or patches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Toxicology
These harmful effects are minimal. From your citation: ... no epidemiological evidence supports that nicotine alone acts as a carcinogen in the formation of human cancer .... The only demonstrated negative effect was on birth defects, and I am skeptical about that: many of the women studied had switched from smoked tobacco when they realized they were pregnant, so it is likely many of them where still smoking during the first month of gestation without realizing they were knocked up, and it is also likely that many of them were sneaking some smokes later in the pregnancy. Also, people that smoke tend to have plenty of other unhealthy habits as well, like drinking alcohol and eating crap food. So this might be a "correlation is not causation" situation.
After playing link telephone, since the actual study is stupidly deep in a chain of 4 links, as far as I can tell it's a "study" conducted by a consumer research group in France called "60 Million Consumers" (translated). The entire text of the study is about 3 paragraphs long, and has approximately zero details (i.e. how much was in the samples, or what the deviation was) ascertainable through Google Translate.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23033998
Korma: Good