Vaping Misinformation – The Media Strike Again
The Mail Online have recently published an article that claims that “Vapes DON’T help people quit smoking normal cigarettes, study finds” [1]. We all know that this is vaping misinformation and there are a large amount of studies and articles that prove the contrary. Let’s take a closer look at why the author of this article is misinformed and what the public though.
Regional Bias
The study from George Washington University gathered data from 545 dual users. Over 5 years they found that more than half decided to quit vaping. One issue with this is that the study was conducted in the US. Over the past 5 years there have been several news stories that have cast a bad light on vaping in the USA.
Firstly, the claims that vaping was killing users through a complication known as EVALI was detrimental to the public image of vaping. It turns out that this was caused by vapers using illicit chemicals in their vape. But this didn’t stop the press from branding vaping as the killer instead of what they were vaping.
Next came the ban of Juul in June 2022. Due to the products being popular amongst a younger audience, the FDA banned sale of the pods and kits.
Also, vaping is largely demonised in the USA because of the agenda of the large tobacco companies. With big tobacco holding so much influence in the US, vaping struggles to be promoted as a safer alternative to smoking. In fact, a 2022 report revealed that large tobacco companies actively use the tactic of spreading disinformation to further profits [2]. This includes promoting vaping misinformation.
Conflicting Results
Evidence from one year ago in a separate study by the JAMA Network shows the exact opposite of what this study reveals [3].
The JAMA Network study focused on 1600 adult smoker who have never tried vaping before. This study revealed that smokers were eight times more likely to quit. 28% of the new vapers from this study stopped smoking naturally with the help of an e-cigarette. This is a huge difference to 5.8% of participants that managed to quit without vaping.
Also, the NHS revealed that between 2019 and 2020 roughly 58% – 74% of vapers aiming to quit cigarettes were successful [4].
Media Bias
This Mail Online article is just one more addition to the negative press that surrounds vaping in the UK. A study by ecigclick.co.uk was conducted over 6 months and found that 53% of stories related to vaping were negative. That’s over 3 times the number of positive articles that were published [5]. This vaping misinformation and negativity can have a negative impact on smokers wanting to quit.
Luckily, the UK government’s attitude to vaping is completely different. OHID, Cancer Research UK and the NHS all support vaping, due to it being 95% healthier than smoking. In his ‘smokefree 2030’ recommendations, Javed Khan suggested that vaping be offered as a substitute for smoking. He also suggested that more accurate information be provided to the public regarding vaping. In 2021 OHID reported that only 34% of adult smokers knew that vaping was less harmful than smoking [6].
Thankfully, the public response to this article was very supportive of vaping. Most of the comments were of success stories or people simply commenting on how false the article seemed. It didn’t help that just over a week before the Daily Mail published an article praising how vaping is helping smokers quit [7].
Reading the comment section restored my faith in the public opinion of vaping, as a majority of the comments were positive. However comments like “I’d rather inhale second hand smoke than toxic fumes” were extremely worrying. They highlight the need for the government to educate people on the benefits of vaping compared to smoking.
If you’d like to discuss anything about vaping, feel free to contact us.
