Doll's studies on smoking - a re-post - on saving smoker's lives, not necessarily with e-cigs! "E-cigs save lives" is better than "Smoking Kills"

This is a partial re-post connected to the discussion on the slogan "e-cigs save lives".

In 1951Richard Doll started his doctor's study on smoking and lung cancer. He submitted reports in 1950  1954, 1956 the 1970's This study lasted till 1991. A report came out in 2004. It is full of numbers - numbers repeated eternally by the Tobacco Control Industry. It's true, numbers show us things. I think, of all the smoking and lung cancer studies, this one is worth considering because of the time period and Doll's dedication to it. He was devoted - researched without computers, using old fashioned method.

His notes do not appear in the 2004 report, but I have read his notes (can't find the link). In his notes he observed a strange thing. Smoking became MORE harmful to smokers in the last section of his studies. He says....QUOTE "When current cigarette smokers were compared with lifelong non-smokers, the excess mortality associated with smoking was already substantial during 1951-71, but it was considerably more extreme during 1971-91. During 1951-71, the death rates in cigarette smokers were about double those in non-smokers throughout middle age; during 1971-91, the corresponding difference was nearly treble. If, as is likely, most of the difference in mortality between smokers and non-smokers is actually caused by smoking then a threefold excess would imply that about two thirds of the deaths in middle age among the smokers were caused by tobacco. Even at older ages the excess mortality associated with tobacco was substantially greater in 1971-91 than it was during 1951-71. This difference between the apparent effects of tobacco in the two periods arose because age specific mortality decreased substantially only among non-smokers."

But, he realises this is not logical and wonders why the improvement in healthcare did not affect also the smokers. There is some discussion about this strange fact - and in the 2004 report - it is "solved"! I have a different theory (but then I'm not a scientist). "Smoking Kills" and anti smoking images appeared on packs from the 70's. I guess, that the warnings on Tobacco Packs became self fulfilling nocebos of death. "Smoking Kills" is a pretty plain message making tobacco more dangerous. Furthermore, Tobacco Control made cigarettes more dangerous still by demanding the Tobacco Industry make "safe" products.

The Tobacco Control Industry has meddled so deeply,  in smoking that THEY are the problem. 

Modern statistics record that smoking is more dangerous than the numbers Doll's Doctor's Study ever produced. Nowadays science is done in Universities, funded by "interested" corporations, often as the student attempts to get his degree that entails writing a paper. His paper is a scientific study backed by the numbers convention of proving his postulation. Now, many postulations are proven because he is paid to prove them. I think science has become totally corrupt, especially the science linked to health.

We are constantly being given visual images - medical porn - on what smoking does to us - and as we think - so it is.

I am not a smoker, but a vaper yet I believe that medical violoporn and the violence of the visual images on cigarette packaging, deeply affects our minds. It is a criminal act on smokers by those who know not what they do. I think it is most important, but I seem to be a voice crying in the wilderness. My opinion is that the grotesque images on packs of cigarettes are so violent to the mind, that we severely affect our health by just looking at them. They take effect before even the cigarette has been lit!

If, in the future, there is some dedicated scientist who is devoted to exposing a great wrong, he could measure the effect of tobacco and lung cancer before and after the use of images on cigarette packs over the years.

I predict that those to whom the greatest harm will be done through terrifying brainwashing, is to the young people and the children who will grow up with nothing else but such abusive pictures in their minds, and to them tobacco will be deadly!

The only way to enjoy nicotine and  all the comradie, social pleasure and joy of "smoking" that I once had, is for me to be a vaper. I am a smoker who vapes only because I prefer vaping to smoking. But I have not forgotten my roots. I was treated unjustly. I was made to feel of the lowest class - a leper. I was mentally violated every time I opened a pouch of tobacco that told me it would kill me. I was relegated to outdoors, and then even that was taken away by law. Do you know of ANY group of humans so treated in a civilised country in Modern History? We were an expense to the State. We were milked in taxes and the profit was great. I will not forget. I am a human being. I am NOT a number. I am not a statistic, I have paid for every medical treatment I get. I have never harmed anyone by my smoking. The whiff of  Second Hand Smoke from me in the park will cause no harm. The harmful effects are measured by scientist's numbers over many many trillions of whiffs. and you won't be in them that long - not even in my car. You have been given the right to abuse me, to call me names, to not employ me, to suggest I am mentally ill, to invade my privacy, to judge me.

As a vaper I will remember my roots. I see the eyes of smoking enemies swiveling towards vapers. But, this time, it might be different. Vapers are ex-smokers. Remembering our roots might galvanise us into protecting our future because tobacco's modern deadly form, is not an option. Well, it's not for me.

"E-cigs save lives" is a slogan that certainly beats "Smoking Kills"

"E-cigs save lives" - Whaaat? Beauty and the Idiot!

Oh dear - there is a WEBSITE called E-cigs save lives! 

I didn't know - it has EVERYTHING you need to spread the word and solves my confusion as to where to get my bumper sticker.

Furthermore, it's well worth visiting just to see the wonderful Mod on the home page. It evoked such emotion in me - Blade Runner, Star Wars, Spaceship Future - a work of art - beautiful. Check it out.

So I need to apologise for being an idiot! My blog yesterday was about the slogan meaning more to vapoteurs than to the public. It was not about the website. I didn't know about it. Ignorance is unforgivable. I'm a VAPER for Gods sake!

Visit the website - sign the petition, donate, order your bumper sticker, get flyers, read, share and spread the word! It's ALL there - everything you need.

Good stuff!

Lovely.

E-cigs save lives? Whaaaat?

I have taken the profile pic "Ecigs save lives" on Twitter because I truly have admiration for those that have actually done something by putting it together. It's short, fits the box and is punchy. But it's annoying people! see Class Warfare and Saving Lives

It makes me slightly uneasy too. Firstly, lots of us do not use e-cigs! I hate the term electronic CIGARETTES. We have been doomed from the start by using this term. I can see how for some, it's ok - it really is a cigarette, even looks like a cigarette, and that's what people want if they are switching from cigarettes. Why is it the "cig" part makes me cringe?

Well, I have worked out why it does. It reminds me of all the discrimination, persecution, comments, legislations and hurt I endured whilst smoking. Cigarettes are analogous to PAIN - emotional pain.

I am sure that motive is in the hearts of many vapers who are trying to separate themselves from the smoking camp. We avoid pain, emotional pain, by vaping! To be a member of the most dreadfully persecuted minority in the world is frightening.

I know we vapoteurs are in at the beginning of the first technological innovation for nicotine use that is safer than smoking, so things are developing and "vaping" itself is a new term that seems to be going to stick.  Yet the vapour we produce dooms us too. It looks like smoking!

Do e-cigs save lives? Or is it a claim that will make smokers snort with derision and the ignorant snigger? It's a huge claim, which in itself might make us look like exaggerating fundamentalists. It's the exact opposite of "Smoking Kills".

As a vaper, "e-cigs save lives" says more than it seems. I know how vaping has affected my health for the better. When I was a smoker I never intended to stop and, even after 50 years of smoking, I was  well. And I know people much older than me (95!), who are well and healthy smokers too. Smoking does NOT kill. And we are not totally sure that e-cigs will necessarily make me live longer, but certainly, they IMPROVED my life!

Diabetes is a pretty horrible condition if left untreated. You can go blind, lose limbs and vitality, and indeed any enjoyment from life. For a diabetic "ZeroCarbs saves lives" would imply that life would be better and possibly longer if diabetics controlled their diet. Diabetes is a spin off of our very incorrect modern food intake.

"E-cigs save lives" to US means that - improving and possibly extending our potential lifespan. But what does it mean to other people, non smokers, anti-smokers, Tom Dick and Harry?

"Vaping saves lives" isn't any better really. and who the hell knows what vaping is when even on TV presenters talk about SMOKING e-cigarettes!

In Brussels, 2000 black balloons were popped to symbolise the lives lost if  AM57 : medicine regulation applied to e-cigs was voted through at the ENVI meeting, as it was. But a lot of the twististics on smoking/smoking related deaths are pie in the sky guesses anyway - 2000 ? 500? who knows.

I think Tom Dick and Harry haven't a clue what we actually mean when we pop balloons representing lives lost, or have bumper stickers propounding "e-cigs save lives". They do not understand the life transforming thing vaping is as WE do. Our passion looks peculiar. They actually haven't a clue.

They just think "Whaaaat?"

Aw shucks!

ENVI Commission :

AM57 : medicine regulation applied to ecigs - For 44 against 27 It's accepted

AM58 : ecig defined as a non-regulated product - rejected

Brussels and Burst! Best Luck and thanks.

Best Brussels balloon bursting barrage!

Tomorrow, our UK vaping delegation will be off to Brussels. There they will meet up with other vapers from other countries, to protest the interference into vaping of the EU ENVI Committee (read Clive Bates's articles) They are bursting 2000 black balloons as a symbol of lives lost per day if vaping is not allowed to be freely available as a consumer product. Transformed into medical devices as ENVI plan, they will be as unattractive as patches or gum!

Go well, and thank you!

Vaping is Smoking - but different. Vaping is NRT - but different. Vaping delusions

Taken for a comment on this blog.

To me, vaping is smoking - but different.  It's different because vapers are so enthusiastic about vaping, more enthusiastic than they were when they smoked. Vaping is also NRT - but different. No one is enthusiastic about patches or gum.

As a survivor of the smoking age, and from my own experiences in life, I find it very hard to believe the "scientific" evidence that second hand smoke can kill you at all. None of my friends or family have proved it.That was used to twist the minds of the public so that they would join the witch hunt against smokers. ITS TOBACCO CONTROLS' ONE SINGLE BIGGEST PIECE OF PROPAGANDA. I hear and read, and indeed my MP said to me the same thing "No one can deny that second hand smoke kills". This one "fact" makes smokers feel guilty and the rest of society, angry at us. Everyone becomes pliable and smokers just crumbled in the face of it. I couldn't believe the turning of society happened so easily. The world is worse for it.

Added to that, the decorative bits are that smoking smells, smokers smell. These things are what smokers can't actually deny.

So along comes vaping. My very first response was "What a good idea!" I tried it in 2008/2009 - it was shit. But in 2011, when the technology had advanced, I had a whole different experience. I accidentally found I preferred vaping to smoking. But I consider myself a smoker that vapes. My background mentally comes from a place before brainwashing. Everyone smoked. It was "normal". I am an angry smoker that constantly rants about the way smokers are persecuted.

But many vapers are the product of the lies and distortion put about by Tobacco Control Industry. Some believe they are better than smokers, and that vaping is something different - but is it?. Vaping is NRT some think. But it is pleasing and delightful to do - not like NRT at all.

The difference between my attitude and those vapers who are trying to save their necks by clambering up the pyramid of suffering smokers, putting their feet in the mouths and ears of the already persecuted, is that they do not want the same thing as happened to smokers to happen to us. It's a kind of panic. So they use the anti-smoking rhetoric as a way of making us vapers look better than smokers. And also to sell their products! It is truly sad. But I understand why it is happening.

The shame of it is, that what we do is considered smoking and our lot will be the same as that from which we thought we'd escaped. We should also be fighting for relaxations in the smoking ban and removing medical porn nocebos on cigarette packaging. We should be on the side of smokers, not against them. Loads of us are working to save our lives at Brussels, black balloons and all. Vaping, for me, is the new smoking - smoking in the technological age. And I am really pleased that I don't smell of cigarettes.

I feel I have lived through a golden age of smoking - it was wonderful. And a golden age of vaping - and that's been lovely too.

But because of greed, corruption, and righteousness becoming an industry, I might be done for again! I will be gutted if we make no progress with our cause in the EU. But then, smokers endure their suffering, with very little hope for a future without persecution. It is our delusion that their plight will not be ours too and that what happens to smokers has nothing to do with US.

Information for Kate Shepherd, Bury Stop Smoking Service Manager from Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust,

Dear Ms Shepherd,

 

I was distressed to read a quote from you in an article in the newspaper - This is Lancashire.

 

You were quoted as saying “The vapours from electronic cigarettes are not pure nicotine, but a complex mixture of chemicals and it is unknown whether this mixture is safe. There is no evidence that electronic cigarettes are effective as treatment for nicotine addiction.”

 

But this is simply not true. For proper information about vaping as using electronic cigarettes is called, there are many proper scientific tests, trials and information now about them. They are such an important, successful and popular advance in the battle against smoking, that they cannot be dismissed in people's minds by an inaccurate quote from any leader in smoking cessation in our country like you.

There are 1.3 million people who vape in the UK. Many of those do not smoke any more. Electronic Cigarettes would be a wonderful tool for your stop smoking drive.By making comments in the press as you have, from a place of ignorance, you could be killing people.

If you want to do your homework, here are some people who might be of use to you - contact details for - Professor John Britten,The University of Nottingham

Professor John Britten on Vaping.

Prof. Etter (France) about e-cigs

Vapers telling their own stories

Yours sincerely,

 

Liz Hilton

PS - here follows a huge amount of information from last year should you be interested...

Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, author of a study on the effects of e-cigs on the heart, talks to Paul Bergen about e-cigarettes, his study and tobacco harm reduction.
Professor Carl Phillips: Carl is an associate professor at the University of Alberta and also runs the TobaccoHarmReduction.org project. He is also an award-winning researcher in epidemiology methods.
Professor Michael Siegel: Michael, originally a doctor specialising in preventative medicine, is now a professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department, Boston University School of Public Health. He has over 20 years of experience in tobacco control, primarily in the field of tobacco control, and has testified in numerous cases against tobacco companies.
Professor Ricarddo Polosa: MD, PhD, Director of the Institute for Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology of the University of Catania, discusses his research into the electronic cigarette.
Dr Adrian Payne: Dr Adrian Payne is the Managing Director of Tobacco Horizons, a Tobacco Harm Reduction Consulting Agency. During a post-doctoral career spanning more than thirty years, he has worked for both tobacco and pharmecutical companies, often in the field of Tobacco Harm Reduction.
Dr Joel Nitzkin: Dr Joel Nitkin is Chair of the Tobacco Control Task Force for the American Association of Public Health Physicians.
David Sweanor: David Sweanor has worked with numerous companies and organisations, including the International Union Against Cancer, World Health Organization, World Bank and the Pan American Health Organization, on the issue of tobacco harm reduction. He has received both international recognition and prestigious prizes for his work.
Scott Ballin: SCOTT D. BALLIN is a tobacco and health policy consultant in Washington, DC and has spent more than 30 years involved in issues related to tobacco and health. Read more: interviews/scott-ballin-bio.html#ixzz1TyFKbSBG
Dr Murray Laugesen: Dr Murray Laugesen is New Zealand’s most experienced researcher on smoking policy and cigarettes. He founded Health New Zealand Ltd as his research and consultancy company in 1995, after 18 years as principal medical officer in the Department, (now Ministry) of Health, and Public Health Commission. Since 1995, Dr Laugesen focused first on policy and policy advocacy (see www.smokeless.org.nz ) and then research. He is also one of the few to have carried out research into the electronic cigarette.
Paul Bergen: Paul Bergen, M.Sc., M.L.I.S. is a research associate at the Public Health Sciences at the University of Alberta. Paul is an enthusiastic supporter of tobacco harm reduction and is heavily involved in the Tobacco Harm Reduction Project.

Interview with Users and Activists
Saving British Pubs - with E-Cigarettes: Russell Ord of CAM VIP tells us of a campaign to rescue the UK's remaining pubs.
Kate of Vaper's Network: Kate tells us how she got into vaping and what difference it made to her.
National Vaper's Club Interview: From switching to e-cigarettes to dealing with the FDA, Spike Babaian shares her experiences as an e-cigarette user and as President of the National Vapers' Club.
Escaping the VAT Rise: An interview with Jackie from UK Vapers.
Vapefest: An interview with Fiona Doathwaite.
ECITA Interview: Paul Bergen interview Katherine Devlin from the UK Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association.