category review
score Half-Truth πŸŸ₯πŸŸ₯🟨🟩🟩
claim "Vaping is a deadly health hazard"
url https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/is-vaping-a-good-way-to-quit-smoking-or-a-deadly-health-hazard-your-questions-answered-c-7327843
author 7NEWS / Molly Magennis
tags ['third-party-fact-check', 'EVALI', 'ergo-harmful', 'nicotine-addiction', 'brain-damage', 'title-exacerbation']

half-truth

Is single-sourcing a good way to write articles, or a deadly health hazard?

And a lot of the discourse is driven by vested interests. Not clear if the author was motivated by clickbait, teen saviourism through harm embellishments, easily duped by faux authorities, or out of minimal journalistic ethos. The origin question would have been trivial to answer.

Just a quick glance at a recent 7news article, which is unlikely to alleviate any of the confusion it arose from. The citations make it obvious whose brain child it was.

phrase check

claim qs desc
and to health experts, that’s a cause for concern πŸŸͺ Those experts don't happen to be callcenter managers relying on less efficacious quit options and repeat customers, don't they?
increasing evidence vaping is bad for your health 🟫 Distraught strain of PR studies detailing risk minutae without clear approximation for realistic use patterns
outlawed the purchase of nicotine vapes 🟩 Actually good phrasing for what's otherwise often mischaracterized as "ban" and thus misunderstood as banishment.
many people believe vaping is safer than smoking πŸŸ₯ Not many people believe correctly that removing tar and carcinogens might make a difference. FUD campaigns have not been pervasive just among the anti-vax crowd. But here we go, insinuating the opposite of what the academic consensus says.
a whiff of flavoured smoke 🟨 Le visual misdiagnois. Nah fire, nah smoke.
growing body of evidence shows vapes can contain a host of toxic 🟧 Isn't exactly news though. That's been known for a decade. Only the Cali press releases became more histrionic.
which is highly addictive πŸŸ₯ Tobacco trivialization as nicotine-addiction
Vaping is not the risk-free version of smoking that some would have us believe. πŸŸͺ It's surprising that the straw man (like who's saying risk-free?) source is never cited. Is Khorshid really a honest doc, as some unspecified people want us to believe?
why are more Australians now vaping? 🟫 Don't mention the black market, or who lobbied for it! (… I'd imagine the source saying.)
Regular smoking involves inhaling smoke and small particles from burning tobacco leaves. πŸŸͺ Surprised at the cognition at the existence of smoke. Not for smoking to be redeclared as "regular smoking" now. Really lazy way to draw a false equivalence.
highly addictive chemical called nicotine. πŸŸ₯ 80s-belief in crack nicotine (isolated from tobacco accelerants/amplifiers) notwithstanding. Plant extracts are now chemicals too. That's a remarkable sign of how far those public health "experts" take the appeal to chemophobia now. Desperation off the charts?
inhaling an aerosol of chemicals, 🟨 It's not fine. But like, barely offensive anymore.
heavy metals πŸŸ₯ Imagining the Β΅g/L relevancy (0.00000001%) is courteously left to the reader. ([…] answer some of the q’s that people still had)
particles from flavoured liquid - known as e-liquid πŸŸͺ Rolling eyes at vapor being particles again. But the term rescoping might be relevant. Nobody classes it that way. But it's very revealing as to an upcoming scare story (not read that far yet), I guess. Actually not as much on teen hysteridemic and simplistic reasoning.
some marketed as nicotine-free do in fact contain the chemical. 🟧 Here "marketed" means "to evade regulatory clownshow" β†’ which ain't exactly an unheard outcome of prohibition.
deliberately labelled wrongly so that the retailer 🟨 This was confusing. Dr Sarah not lying? But then it dawned on me, this phrase was meant to reattribute the illicit sales from corner/street shops to actual vape shop retailers (who under immense scrutinity, prolly didn't).
One such chemical was benzaldehyde 🟦 Not sure of relevance. At this point in the article, didn't think it interesting.
did so in the belief they were less harmful than regular cigarettes. πŸŸ₯ Molly, one of your only sources must really (but I mean REALLY) hate correct perceptions.
White said there’s β€œzero doubt” vaping is harmful πŸŸ₯ Quick reminder, there's different turns of phrases to pick from: harm-free, super duper ergo-harmful, or e.g. "much less harmful than" - like more renowned public health orgs do.
vaping is better than breathing air πŸŸ₯ I mean that's one way of lying about the intended use case: vaping substitutes continued smoking or relapses. (But you know, QV call volume has been declining ever since vaping came about.)
People who end up addicted to vaping 🟧 Are more prevalent in opinion articles than in the real world. For obvious reasons: Dependence levels in users of electronic cigarettes, nicotine gums and tobacco cigarettes
(EVALI), caused by the addition of a toxic agent to the liquid in e-cigarette πŸŸ₯ Like, did they also ban Google in Australia? Or has QuitWhite given up on simulating credibility?
Sydney teenager was treated in the ICU for EVALI. Can't be bothered to look it up again, TBH...
long-lasting effects of exposing developing brains to nicotine 🟧 Adolescent rodents shouldn't vape.
In 2019, a 24-year-old Texan man died when a vape exploded 🟫 The 1500 smoking-related house fires garnered no newsworthiness in attention outlets.
White also said several toddlers, including one in Australia, have died from poisoning after accidently drinking e-liquid containing nicotine. 🟧 Kinda makes you wonder who wanted those very high-nic concentrates (100mg/ml) instead of regular and harmless concentrations (3-6mg) in vape shops. The more important question; premeditated?
E-cigarette-related calls to the four Australian poisons information centres 🟨 Mention the prevalence in comparison to bleach incidents, or just the NHMRC?
White said most doctors would be reluctant to prescribe e-cigarettes. 🟨 Didn't say who inspired the doctors to be "reluctant", did she?
continuing the cycle of nicotine addiction. 🟧 If you discount the tapering down, and all real-world evidence, sure.
when combined with counselling, like from the Quitline 🟩 What a lazy ass plug, Sarah. Article footer be like: call Quitline on 137848
it’s not hard to buy e-cigarettes 🟫 Tell us who enabled it, though.
β€œa zero-tolerance approach” on retailers caught selling them 🟧 Better late than never, I guess? Might have been less effort to not send adults to the prescription model illicit market.
to do more to halt unlawful e-cigarette imports 🟧 What a concerned individual. Decrying the very issue she wanted to see.
whole β€œnew generation of Australians” from being addicted to vaping products. πŸŸ₯ Classic CTFK phrasing. That whole new generation actually isn't all that interested. Vaping is a fringe and temporary phenomenon, outside of former smokers.

Impossible to tell if the notion of harm equivalence is just carried from similar naming, or by the obvious gish gallop arguments.

references

Don't know who needs to read this:

verdict

Technically this is mostly false. But also: first time offender, and it's really just the phrasing that's so remarkable here. Apart from the EVALI lie, it doesn't seem overly motivated though. Thus "half-truth".

And a note to the outlet: this ought to be {"@type": "OpinionNewsArticle"}.

how to do journalism

Next time you have Dr. Sarah on the line, relay some evaded question please:

  • Were e-cigs invented by the tobacco industry; why might it often be implied as such?
  • Is nicotine the sole addictive substance in tobacco? And vaping thus similarly as addictive?
  • Is Simon correct in implying that cigarettes are no more harmful than NVPs?
  • Vaping not helping with quitting relies on the most promulgated sourcing (UCSD) or is highly cognizant of real-world evidence?
  • The unworkable prescription model was widely predicted to strengthen illict sales. Why do its proponents deflect responsibility now?
  • Is PHE really owned by Phillip Morris as US tobacco control often insinuates?
  • What's the ethical basis for prioritizing teen puritanism over tobacco death reduction?
  • Was EVALI caused by e-cigarettes and not falsely attributed through self-reports constrained by criminal/insurance reasons?
  • Do the existing diacetyl cases indicate plausibility or fiction for vaping PL?
  • Is the WHO TFI more credible than Peak Tobacco in the 90s?
  • Has Emily made up her mind up about 2, 9 or 13 cig pack equivalency?
  • Do smokers benefit from 10 quit attempt delays onto purity, or quicker smoking abstinence?
  • Why rely on appeal to fear campaigns and flavour conjectures, but not regulated marketing, or eradicating gadget appeal through purpose disclosure?
  • Are you in favour of the NSW campaign emulating the Truth/FDA muppet ads to stoke more experimentation among non-smoking teens?

Other potential issues in article