The federal failure over EVALI deaths and illnesses will cost more lives and not just through contaminated THC cartridges says a new hard hitting report.
It states the misinformation and mishandling of the crisis now runs the risk of killing more people as smokers back away from nicotine based e-cigarettes.
EVALI is an acronym for E-cigarette or Vaping product use-Associated Lung Injury, has so far claimed over 60 deaths and left 2,711 people seriously ill.
The damming report comes from the Competitive Enterprise Institute [CEI] – a non-profit public policy organization that supports less government involvement in people’s lives and promotes individual liberty.
It states the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] knew right from the start of the outbreak last summer what the major link was.
And that was – the overwhelming majority of reported cases were directly linked to black market cannabis cartridges laced with Vitamin E Acetate and other cutting agents.
However, and by ignoring the evidence, briefing the media and public on the dangers of ‘vaping’ in general, this led to very many vapers returning to smoking and smokers turning away from all things vape.
And of course, regular users of THC cartridges who bought from street dealers and disreputable sources, continued to use them and either died or became seriously ill.
Shocking by any standards.
The CEI was on to the real reason for the EVALI outbreak as early as July last year and at the time co author of this new report, Michell Minton, wrote:
Over the last four weeks, eight Wisconsin teenagers have been hospitalized with severe lung damage.
The news that vaping caused these illnesses has swept across social media and is, predictably, being used to push for more government restrictions on e-cigarettes.
But, what few of these reports have pointed out is that it seems most—if not all—of the hospitalizations were related, not to e-cigarettes, but illicit “street vapes.”
Like I said, the CEI was way ahead of the curve on this one.
Federal Failure Over EVALI Fueled Anti-Vaping Hype
All the media hype and scaremongering over EVALI has had the effect some might say the CDC and FDA in particular was looking for – that is a mass media bias on the safety of vaping.
And if you think that’s pie in the sky – the facts don’t lie…
According to some sources a staggering 87.5% of Americans believe vaping is just as dangerous to health as lit tobacco!
This is reflected in recent market report showing a massive slowdown in vape sales of around 10% in the United States.
Data from Nielson – a survey and consumer insight agency backs up the CEI report and shows:
E-cigarette sales volume rose 38.1% in the four-week period ended Sep. 21, compared with 48.1% growth in the 12-week period.
Sales for products made by Juul Labs grew just 31.2%, a slowdown from its 56.2% growth for the 12-week period.
Worryingly as the EVALI crisis took hold in July last year, lit tobacco sales that were plummeting suddenly leveled out – proof positive vapers were returning to smoking in their droves.
As you can see from the graph from Nielsen below – it clearly shows the dramatic drop in US tobacco sales stopped at the very moment the media first became aware of the EVALI outbreak.
Co-author of the CEI report, Michelle Minton, doesn’t hold back:
The Centers for Disease Control failed to warn the public which products were causing lung injuries and deaths in 2019.
By stoking unwarranted fears about e-cigarettes, government agencies responsible for protecting the health and well-being of Americans have been scaring adult smokers away from products that could help them quit smoking.
You can’t be clearer than that especially when you see the FDA has just this past week approved Moonlight and Moonlight Menthol – two brand new combustible cigarettes that apparently have reduced nicotine levels.
Repeat after me – it’s NOT the nicotine that kills – it’s the combustion releasing the cancer causing chemicals that kill.
Don’t take my word on that – the report uses scientific fact to back that up:
The dangers associated with smoking come mainly from burning tobacco and inhaling tar and other products of combustion.
Nicotine, divorced from this combustible delivery method, is relatively harmless with effects and risks similar to those associated with caffeine.
Indeed.
So how are these reduced nic level cigarettes perfectly acceptable in the eyes of FDA but not the 95% safer e-cigarette?
Answers on a post card marked Big Tobacco – Big Pharma and FDA Collaborate to Kill…
EVALI Led To Mass Vape Bans and Save the Children!
The CEI report also takes the feds to task over the use of the EVALI outbreak as a lever to convince ignorant politicians and the anti-vape hungry media that children needed to be protected.
This has of course lead to an upsurge in calls for flavour bans or the outright banning of vaping in general, bringing us to the sorry state of the vape in the USA we’re faced with now..
*sighs*
However as I’ve shown very many times – there is NO such thing as a teen vape epidemic in the USA.
The CEI report categorically agrees:
For the last two years, at least, officials at the FDA and CDC have dedicated much energy and millions of dollars to combating what they have described as an “epidemic” of adolescent e-cigarette use.
This terminology is based on a misleading interpretation of survey data that found an increase in experimental use of e-cigarettes—once a month or more—among middle and high school students since 2017.
However, they ignore that the percentage of teenagers who have never smoked but use e-cigarettes habitually—20 or more times a month—is approximately 0.5.
That is not an epidemic.
Moreover, while e-cigarette experimentation is up, teen use of combustible cigarettes is at the lowest rate ever.
Nevertheless, when news headlines began reporting a growing number of mostly young people being hospitalized after reportedly vaping, government and non-governmental health organizations seized the opportunity to link the outbreak to e-cigarettes and foment public panic and support for policies they have been proposing for years.
Couldn’t put it better myself.
Final Thoughts
I’ve called this a damming report and there’s no doubt it is – very refreshing to see coming out of the so called Land of the Free…
Whilst the CDC and FDA farted about, people died and became seriously ill it’s that simple.
Call me a conspiracy theorist or cold if you like – but the EVALI outbreak was a convenience to the anti-vape brigade arriving as it did just as more facts showed the teen vape epidemic was nothing but smoke and mirrors – an illusion.
That meant of course those shadowy forces massed against vaping – Big Pharma in particular and Big Tobacco to some extent, were struggling to find ways to convince those looking to quit smoking to turn to suicide inducing medication – patches and gums.
Big Tobacco meanwhile was in a win-win situation as they were now taking more and more interest in vape products, so their ample asses were covered either way the cards fell.
It’s as simple as Big Tobacco creates the disease – Big Pharma has the answer – Kill and Cure hand in hand.
Vaping of course throws a spanner into the works leaving the big two struggling and the FDA losing its grip on the control of the kill and cure…
EVALI was a gift to the anti-vaping organizations and indeed the CDC and FDA – that are NO fans of vaping trust me.
As Michelle Minton rightly says, instead of reigning in the scare stories surrounding e-cigarettes that grew like wildfire across the world – they continued to use the words ‘vaping’ and ‘e-cigarettes’ without ANY reference to the real truth we knew all a long.
EVALI was caused by contaminated black market THC cartridges sold by drug dealers.
By not making that clear from the outset, the CDC and FDA has blood on their hands – shame on them.
