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So, we know this is bollocks then

The findings were published in the journal Tobacco Control.

All that remains is to find out why it’s bollocks.

Vaping acts as a gateway to smoking, scientists have warned, after finding teenagers who used e-cigarettes were four times more likely to start smoking tobacco within a year.

Researchers from the University of Michigan say vaping may desensitise youngsters to the dangers of smoking, even when they were initially aware of the harms.

The new study 347 teens were questioned about their views on drug use, vaping and smoking and followed up a year later to see if their opinions and habits had changed.

Hmm:

Conclusions These results contribute to the growing
body of evidence supporting vaping as a one-way bridge
to cigarette smoking among youth. Vaping as a risk
factor for future smoking is a strong, scientifically-based
rationale for restricting youth access to e-cigarettes

What the paper doesn’t even attempt to discuss let alone explain is that the rise in vaping has coincided (at the very weakest, caused could be more likely) with a large fall in the rate of teenage smoking. It’s thus really very unlikely that vaping leads to smoking.

Of course we’ll wait for Mr. Snowden to do the proper analysis of this bollocks.

18 thoughts on “So, we know this is bollocks then”

  1. So Much For Subtlety

    Among youth who had never smoked a
    cigarette by 12th grade, baseline, recent vapers were
    more than 4 times (relative risk (RR)=4.78) more likely
    to report past-year cigarette smoking at follow-up, even
    among youth who reported the highest possible level of
    perceived risk for cigarette smoking at baseline. Among
    12th grade students who had smoked in the past but
    had not recently smoked at baseline, recent vapers were
    twice (RR=2.15) as likely to report smoking in the past
    12 months at the follow-up. Vaping did not predict
    cessation of smoking among recent smokers at baseline.
    Among never-smokers at baseline, recent vapers were
    more than 4 times (RR=4.73) more likely to move away
    from the perception of cigarettes as posing a ‘great risk’
    of harm, a finding consistent with a desensitisation
    process.

    So some non-smokers were more likely to become smokers if they have been vaping. Seems reasonable. Either you hate nicotine or you don’t.

    Among former smokers, if they have given up but have vaped, they are twice as likely to go back to the cancer sticks. Seems reasonable. Either you smoke or you don’t.

    So the rule seems to be, if you go from non-smoking to vaping you may well go back to smoking. But that misses the point. Because we want to know how many smokers to go vaping and then to stopping altogether. And they are very careful not to tell us that. Which suggests that they did not get the results they liked and so published those results that they did.

  2. So Much For Subtlety

    Of course we’ll wait for Mr. Snowden to do the proper analysis of this bollocks.

    Isn’t he busy with that Baywatch chick?

  3. “Among youth who had never smoked a
    cigarette by 12th grade, baseline, recent vapers were more than 4 times…”

    Seriously? That is the comparison?

  4. It’s survey-based tosh. You can’t prove anything with surveys.

    https://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA

    Furthermore, the method is completely flawed. They’re trying to work out whether vaping is a gateway to smoking. In order to prove a causal link, you must have a control group who aren’t allowed to vape and see how many of them start smoking, as well as the group for whom vaping is an option.

    I could equally go and ask a bunch of electric car owners who had run out of charge on a motorway in the past week whether they were more or less likely to buy a fossil fuel powered car as a result of electric car ownership. You also have to go and look at the electric car owners who haven’t run out of charge on a motorway in the past week or you haven’t controlled for your output.

  5. Professor Richard Miech, from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, said: “These findings contribute to a growing body of evidence showing that teens who vape are more likely to start smoking than their peers who don’t vape

    That settles it then…..

  6. Risk-takers are more likely to take risks.

    Do bansturbation researchers never bother to apply common sense?

  7. Bloke in North Dorset

    Who believes teenagers who answer surveys? On second thoughts, who believes anyone who answers surveys?

    On the when I was telephone surveyed during the referendum campaign I lied like a cheap Japanese watch.

  8. “…to see if their opinions and habits had changed…”

    Conflating two types of data – opinion and activity – and both reliant on self-reporting not observation.

    Research?

  9. As a non-smoker, I’m all in favour of vaping. No ash, no fag ends, no discarded fag packets…what’s not to like?

  10. The Welsh Assembly Government will be all over this ‘research’ like a rash, I wouldn’t be surprised to see vaping and e-cigs made illegal in the principality.
    If people stop smoking (e-cigs/vaping is more successful than the Approved Methods in smoking cessation) then they won’t get sick and be as dependent on the Public Sector.
    Total expenditure for Wales was equivalent to 61.8% of estimated GDP in 2014-15, nearly 28% of that is spent on health and education.

  11. Bloke in Costa Rica

    Since anecdotal bollocks seems to be the modus operandi of these reports, I will say that everyone I know who uses e-cigarettes is doing it as a means of quitting nicotine altogether. So put that in your hookah and smoke it, “scientists”.

  12. Not sure what you are saying BobRocket, but smoking saves money on medical costs.

    Medical costs are a function of duration. Dying 10 years early saves a lot of money.

  13. Government-paid propagandists want to force vapers back onto tobacco so that a) the gov’t takes in more addiction tax money and b) the smokers die early and gov’t has to dole out less medical care money. Government morality.

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