Article response - "Chemical flavorings found in e-cigarettes linked to lung disease"
This was originally a FB response to this article:
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/12/popcorn-lung-seen-in-e-cigarette-smokers/
I do not smoke e-cigarettes or any other form of nicotine and I would like to find this true.
However, this article contains a number of logical fallacies and is entirely missing what should be the core component of this argument: Which property of diacetyl is causing lung disease, and whether or not it is present in e-cigs, and in what quantities.
The article itself seems to be arguing against e-cigs in general. They are couching things as "potentially" and "maybe," but the overall rhetorical implication of the article is that ecigs = bad.
In particular, their opening paragraph rhetorically implies that this chemical is present in 75% of all e-cig juice, which is incorrect - it's present in 75% of the juice for the *study*, which is a sample size of 51. On the first retail site I can find, there is twice that amount at least, on a single vendor. There are likely hundreds of different flavors, at least.
Another red flag is that the closing paragraph states that e-cigs contain many other harmful chemicals, which is a) unsubstantiated with any references or sources, b) has no relevance to the argument that diacetyl is connected to lung disease, c) implies that those chemicals are present in all e-cig juice - again, incorrect.
It's good that there are more studies out regarding the health effects of e-cigs. However, because some e-cig juice contains a harmful chemical does not mean all will, and it should not be assumed that a chemical with harmful properties in another context would have the same effects when consumed in an e-juice.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/12/popcorn-lung-seen-in-e-cigarette-smokers/
I do not smoke e-cigarettes or any other form of nicotine and I would like to find this true.
However, this article contains a number of logical fallacies and is entirely missing what should be the core component of this argument: Which property of diacetyl is causing lung disease, and whether or not it is present in e-cigs, and in what quantities.
The article itself seems to be arguing against e-cigs in general. They are couching things as "potentially" and "maybe," but the overall rhetorical implication of the article is that ecigs = bad.
In particular, their opening paragraph rhetorically implies that this chemical is present in 75% of all e-cig juice, which is incorrect - it's present in 75% of the juice for the *study*, which is a sample size of 51. On the first retail site I can find, there is twice that amount at least, on a single vendor. There are likely hundreds of different flavors, at least.
Another red flag is that the closing paragraph states that e-cigs contain many other harmful chemicals, which is a) unsubstantiated with any references or sources, b) has no relevance to the argument that diacetyl is connected to lung disease, c) implies that those chemicals are present in all e-cig juice - again, incorrect.
It's good that there are more studies out regarding the health effects of e-cigs. However, because some e-cig juice contains a harmful chemical does not mean all will, and it should not be assumed that a chemical with harmful properties in another context would have the same effects when consumed in an e-juice.