Why All The Hysteria That Vaping Causes Cancer?
With the recent study showing that vaping might be linked to vaping in mice, the internet and media outlets have translated to mean vaping causes cancer in humans. Also, the nature of the study and numerous limitations associated with it suggests the study does not whatsoever relate to vaping in humans.
Table Of Contents
What Happened?
- A new study by New York University (NYU) Team shows smoke from e-cigs might have a cancerous effect on mice
- The study was published on October 7th, National Save Vaping Day, is a mock to some vapers
- 9 of 40 mice exposed to smoke with nicotine had lung-related issues while 23 of the mice exposed to tobacco smoke suffered from cancerous related issues
- Though the study claims that it found mice to have cancer sensitive ions that would react with nicotine in the body to expose the body to cancer cells, which would be the same in humans
Come on! Who’s fooling who? On Monday the 7th, which also happened to be the National Save Vaping Day, a team from the New York University (NYU) reported to have conducted a study and the findings showed that vaping would lead to cancer in mice after a heavy inhaling for a year!
Caught in the midst of this frenzy, some media outlets went ahead and posted these claims without fully disclosing the full details of what was studied and how it related to human anatomy and human cancer in totality.
Some of these media outlets should be ashamed of their actions. Honest press keeps the Facts clear!
What Are the Real Facts and Statistics
- To begin with, only 9 out of 40 mice that were exposed to E-cig smoke with nicotine were for 52 weeks developed lung adenocarcinomas.
- Of the same population, 23 mice exposed to E-cig smoke had genetic changes that would lead to the multiplication of their cells and bladder hyperplasia.
- The major percentage of the specimen had severe issues when exposed to tobacco as opposed to nicotine, even though we will further dispute their claims.
A new study from researchers at NYU has found that e-cigarettes cause “lung cancer and potentially bladder cancer” in mice. https://t.co/oAYrHexQWe
— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) October 7, 2019
The Limitations of the Study
Of importance to note were the sample size used and the period of time the study was used.
Having to study only 40 specimens with only 54 weeks and later publish such a report would not be very conclusive
Steps that would have, by some reason aided them to achieve their targeted results if they were only after ensuring that e-cigs would cause cancer:
- Also, the mice that were tested were very likely to develop cancer within their lifetime with or without the study in place.
- The study was also conducted by exposing the mice to high levels of e-cigarette ‘smoke’ over a period of one year, the levels that normal humans would not usually reach with vaping.
Tobacco smoke is among the most dangerous environmental agents to which humans are routinely exposed, but the potential of E-cig smoke as a threat to human health is not yet fully understood. Our study results in mice were not meant to be compared to human disease, but instead argue that E-cig smoke must be more thoroughly studied before it is deemed safe or marketed that way.
By affirming that their research was only intended for the mice and their results had nothing to do with humans beats the recent facade that vaping causes cancer.
So, Why the Hysteria?
To most vapers, this new study just doesn’t shed much information but rather a contradiction of all major studies done on this topic.
With the news sending chills down peoples’ spines, the media is highly to blame for this unrest.
Taking advantage of the current click baits within the vaping niche, some media outlets are just reporting to attract readers but misinform readers.
Otherwise, this is just any other research that was published at a time that vaping is on the receiving end of constant backlash, with even President Donald Trump, having plans to impose federal bans on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes.
With tobacco and tobacco flavored e-cigs being spared with most of the bans, one is left to wonder whether the misinformation is a plan by tobacco manufacturers to sabotage vaping in general.
Ideally, vaping had taken over conventional tobacco smoking and now all this turmoil for vaping is likely to be a ploy to deter people from vaping and back to tobacco smoking.
The bottom line, it is very irrational of the media outlets to publicly share false or misleading information just for the sake of attracting numbers. Vaping hasn’t been reported to cause cancer in humans, and that’s the moral of the story!
Ryan Helms
January 14, 2020 at 2:31 pmJames,
I wrote a long response on one of your other artilces. I woud love to chat with you and pick your brain abut some things. I am super interested in vaping and nicotine and how it affects humans and how safe is nicotine and so fourth. My email is listed above, Id love to hear from you. Thanks
James Bickford
January 31, 2020 at 3:43 pmHi Ryan,
Thanks for getting in touch with me! I have tried to find the article on which you left a comment, but with no luck.
Could you let me know what blog post or article it was? Maybe then we could have that chat ; ) Take care
Adelheid Harvey
November 6, 2019 at 4:57 amVery interested in vaping to eliminate tobacco. Why have their been young people fuing from severe lung damage?