Oh dear what have ITV been up to?
Lazy, incorrect and potentially very dangerous disinformation from @ITV @itvnews
The brief outbreak of lung injuries occurring almost exclusively in USA was caused by addition of Vit.E Acetate to illicit THC (marijuana) vape carts.
FACT! Please publish error & retraction. https://t.co/7U3fsLd2PJ— INNCOorg (@INNCOorg) June 18, 2022
If you are not familiar with ITV – they are one of the main 5 free to air terrestrial TV channels here in the UK.
Like many of the channels they also have their own news pages. The article in question is here – Is vaping seen as safe now a new health report advises it as a way to stop smoking?
The article does seem quite positive towards vaping in places with paragraphs such as…
“The NHS says vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking nicotine because they don’t burn tobacco, and don’t produce tar or carbon monoxide – two of the most damaging elements in tobacco smoke.”
“”At a rough estimate, it is expected to be under 5% of the risks of smoking if vaping continues over the long term,” Prof Peter Hajek, Director of the Health and Lifestyle Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London, told ITV News.”Smokers who switch to vaping avoid almost all health risks associated with smoking. It makes sense to recommend such a switch, especially to smokers who find quitting difficult.””
But sadly it did veer into horses**t territory when it started spouting the “EVALI” myth.
EVALI ( E-cigarette or Vaping produce use Associated Lung Injury) was a lung disease which had an outbreak mainly in the USA and was caused by dodgy THC (Cannabis) cartridges.
Sadly the impact of EVALI was that it made people scared of vaping. This is still the case since 2019.
Anyway the ITV article repeated this crap and even got a quote from the well known anti-vaping organisation WHO (World Health Organisation).
“In recent times e-cigarettes and vaping have been linked to an outbreak of lung injury in the USA,” the WHO states on its website.
“E-cigarette emissions typically contain nicotine and other toxic substances that are harmful to both users, and non-users who are exposed to the aerosols second-hand.””
Again vaping nicotine was not the issue in the EVALI cases – it was people buying and using dodgy Vitamin E Acetate infused cartridges.
Our late lovely Neil H wrote an article about this in 2019 – Vaping is not about to kill you – but black market THC cartridges might.
All I can suggest is that ITV need to have a sit in the corner and have a good word with themselves…
And ignore WHO.
