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| RATING: TRUTH TWISTER |
E-cigarettes and smoke-free tobacco products are not a safe alternative to smoking.
"Don't be fooled into thinking an e-cigarette is a safe alternative to smoking" - Dr. Jeff Engel, North Carolina Health Director
"There is no scientific evidence that e-cigarettes are a safe substitute for traditional cigarettes or an effective smoking cessation tool" - Russ Sciandra, American Cancer Society
"You can call chewing tobacco by whatever name you want — smokeless tobacco, spit tobacco, chew, snuff, pinch or dip — but don't call it harmless." - Mayo Clinic
"Just because there is no smoke, doesn't mean that smokeless tobacco is safe." - National Cancer Institute
ANTZ CHECK:
Here is the "twist." There is a difference between "safe" and "safer." It seems that the only people who expect tobacco and nicotine alternatives to be safe (ie. without any risk whatsoever) are the ANTZ - even though that same standard of "100% safe" is not applied to the vast majority of products we use every day.
1) By using the word "safe," the ANTZ avoid having to admit that smoke-free tobacco and nicotine products contain a tiny fraction of the potentially carcinogenic chemicals that can be found in smoke.
2) Their own statistics suggest that a greater percentage of smokers than smoke-free users suffer from so-called "tobacco-related" diseases and death. Note the lack of death statistics and types of disease on the CDC Smoke-free tobacco page compared to the its Smoking web page.
3) The greatest health risk increase associated with tobacco use is lung cancer, which health groups attribute to smoke exposure. Since smoke-free users do not inhale smoke, that should mean the greatest danger of tobacco use is eliminated - thereby reducing a significant health risk, ie. making it "safer."
4) The CASAA E-cigarette User Survey reported that nearly 80% of the respondents did not intend to use the device to achieve complete abstinence from nicotine and approximately 81% of that group expected "reduced health risks," not 100% safety.
5) FDA-approved smoking cessation products are not even expected to be "safe." In fact, consider that Chantix and electronic cigarettes came on the market at about the same time and there have been thousands of MedWatch complaints about serious adverse reactions and hundreds of deaths linked to Chantix. However, electronic cigarettes have been linked to no deaths and no serious adverse reactions have been reported. Health groups have been reported as stating that the benefits of quitting smoking outweigh the risks of taking Chantix, yet they still call for e-cigarettes to be removed from the market until they can be proven "safe."
CONCLUSION:
Not only is the expectation that e-cigarettes and smoke-free tobacco products be proven "safe" unrealistic, they are also being hypocritical and unethical by making the public believe that is a reasonable or common standard to set. By purposely avoiding the discussion of relative risks and twisting the meaning between "safe" and "safer," the ANTZ knowingly let millions of smokers believe the health risks associated with e-cigarettes and smoke-free tobacco are exactly the same as smoking. Their own statistics indicate that is not the case. I rate this lie to be a Truth Twister.
ANTZ Check Lie icons:
A Toxic Shocker: Using negative comparisons and analogy to make something sound more dangerous than it really is. Often uses scary-sounding chemical names.
A B*** S*** Lie: Absolutely untrue, no evidence whatsoever to support the claim.
A Truth Twister: Presenting facts in such a way that something that could just as easily be seen as positive is presented only as negative or a careful use of specific words to change the focus of a discussion.
An Ego Booster: Relying on an authoritative or respected reputation to give the impression that an opinion or theory is a known fact. You must believe what they say solely because they are someone "important."NEXT...ANTZ CHECK #4: There is no (scientific) evidence
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