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Comment by Judgmentality | Hacker News Reader

We don't have as much data on vaping as we do for smoking, but this reminds me of what cigarette companies said for decades: "where is the data showing our products are harmful?"

We already know vaping causes popcorn lung. I suspect 1:1 between vaping and smoking that vaping is safer, but who knows? We won't know until we have decades of data about mortality related to vaping. It seems plausible that it increases lung cancer rates and we just don't have enough data to know yet.

https://www.cancertherapyadvisor.com/home/cancer-topics/lung...

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> We already know vaping causes popcorn lung.

Not true. The data we have shows that it was being caused by Vitamin E acetate, which was used by off-brand THC cartridges. None of the major nicotine vapes used this chemical.

Also, this attitude of "oh we don't know" could be extended to any new product anywhere, including the vaccines we are using now. All of the current data supports vaping to be significantly safer than cigarettes, so let's proceed with that data and if the data later changes, we can update our guidelines.

Otherwise, you are killing people in the meantime.

> Otherwise, you are killing people in the meantime.

What? I'm arguing vaping is more dangerous than not vaping. I specifically said I believe vaping is safer than smoking.

For what it's worth, I believe all drugs should be legal. I don't care if you want to vape or not. I don't care if you want to inject fentanyl into your veins or not. It's your body.

"I suspect 1:1 between getting vaccinated and not, that getting vaccinated is safer, but who knows?"

See the problem with this type of rhetoric? There have been tons of studies done at this point with regards to vaping. Everything shows it as being safer. This is not equivalent to the tobacco companies lying to the public. Juul never makes any claim as to their product being 100% safe, just look at the packaging.

On top of that, you also repeated a known falsehood that vaping causes popcorn lung.

My point is that repeating these arguments and casting doubt on vaping being safer further promotes these bans on vaping, which in turn will kill more people.

> I'm arguing vaping is more dangerous than not vaping.

There is no need to argue an obvious fact that 100% of people will agree with.

You're comparing vaping to getting vaccinated. You've clearly got an axe to grind.

> There have been tons of studies done at this point with regards to vaping. Everything shows it as being safer.

I haven't seen them, but there were also lots of studies that cigarette companies touted to show how safe their product was until they could no longer deny it. And seeing as how those same companies just invested a shitload of money into Juul, it doesn't seem crazy to think they'd use the same playbook. We also have no reason to believe vaping isn't purposefully designed to get people hooked on nicotine only to later sell them another product like cigarettes or something else they later develop. In fact, there are studies suggesting exactly that (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6652100/). There are many ways vaping could prove to be more harmful than we can currently see because it's a relatively new product.

I get your point about vaping potentially being helpful by getting people off smoking if it's safer, but it's simply unproven. Like I said if people want to vape let them, but I'll wait for the data before concluding whether or not it's safer. I suspect it's more dangerous and I'm sticking to that until the data proves otherwise. Similar to how you suspect it's less dangerous and will stick to that until the data proves otherwise. The common thread is we're lacking data and neither of us can confirm our hypotheses.

In other words we disagree and it's impossible to know who's right until we have more data. From my perspective your stance is just as harmful as you perceive mine to be.

> You're comparing vaping to getting vaccinated. You've clearly got an axe to grind.

Not sure what you mean by this, but I think everyone should be vaccinated unless you have some health condition that prevents you from doing so.

The reason I'm making that comparison is that there is an ongoing public debate about vaccines and long-term health effects that use very similar arguments to yours. All of our current data shows that getting vaccinated is a better risk tradeoff than potentially getting covid. Just like all of our current data shows that vaping is safer than smoking. Both of the counter arguments center around "but we don't know what the long term effects are" and can be applied to both these new vaccines and to vaping.

I understand the point you're making but I don't think you understand the point I'm making. If it turns out vaping is a net positive for society then I will genuinely be happy that you were right and I was wrong.

Let's just agree to disagree.

I've seen countless people replace smoking with vaping and the massive benefits it has had on their physical health. So yeah, it pains me to see the push to ban the only working smoking alternative.

Not implying that you wanna ban it, but that's the reason why I'm so in favor of it.

> Let's just agree to disagree.

Agreed.

Well, there also incidents about 5 years of people making vape juice with Diacetyl, a food additive that gives a creamy buttery taste. Turned out that while it was food safe, bringing it to the temperature necessary for vaping did bad things to it and it also caused "popcorn lung"

I'm sure there were even more sketchy recipes used before, but it's not an argument against vaping, it's an argument against those recipes.

> The data we have shows that it was being caused by Vitamin E acetate, which was used by off-brand THC cartridges.

That's a different, less well understood respiratory problem. Some ecigarette liquid contains (or used to contain; it's banned in Europe but maybe not in the US?) diacetyl as a flavouring; that causes popcorn lung and various other problems.

Regardless, neither of these are a concern where not present, which they generally aren't.

"We already know vaping causes popcorn lung."

We know that vaping fluid with a particular flavoring chemical caused popcorn lung. That chemical is now rare.

"The chemical that gave this condition its nickname is diacetyl. After workers at a factory that packaged microwave popcorn were found to have bronchiolitis obliterans more often than other people, some companies stopped using diacetyl as a flavoring. But it's still used in some electronic cigarette flavors in the US. Many e-cigarette makers state they aren't using this chemical in their products and its use in e-cigarettes is banned in Europe." (https://www.webmd.com/lung/popcorn-lung#1)

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