Gateway Research Slams Vape Flavours
Children using flavoured ecigs more likely to smoke, claim researchers.
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by Dave Cross
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At the outset, it should be noted that this paper was carried out by members of the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) and published in the organisation’s official journal. The AAP operates with a Trump-like regard to the truth with respect to vaping, and we detailed their recent annual conference here.
The next thing to consider is the method they used for their research: statistics. “Estimates of flavoured e-cigarette use from the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey were investigated,” the authors write. “A logistic regression model was used to assess whether flavoured e-cigarette use was associated with intention to initiate cigarette use among never-smoking youth, intention to quit tobacco use among current-smoking youth, and perception of tobacco’s danger among all respondents.”
A way of rephrasing this would be to say: ‘we took some raw data that was constructed to make vaping look bad, then we twisted it to support our bias agenda’.
The big question hanging over the entire work is ‘what is an unflavoured electronic cigarette’? Where are these products being purchased, and who is using them, because Internet searches reveal no such products exist. The nearest you can get to an unflavoured vape is for someone to be using a plain base of VG/PG and nicotine – but even then the VG will lend a sweetness to the experience.
The flaw lies in the self-administered data collection technique that relied on teens giving truthful answers without the initial researchers verifying that information. It leads the team representing the Division of Health Services and Outcomes Research at Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas, to state: “Compared with users of nonflavoured e-cigarettes, users of flavoured e-cigarettes had higher odds of intention to initiate cigarette use.”
Hongying Dai, the lead author, said: “Our study provided strong evidence for association between flavoured e-cigarette use and susceptibility to smoking. Within never-smokers, we found flavoured e-cigarette users were associated with high odds of intention to smoke cigarettes in the future.”
“Previous studies have investigated e-cigarette use but did not specialize on flavoured e-cigarettes. We found a majority of youth are particularly interested in flavoured e-cigs,” Dai continued.
It may have been more interesting to see if they could actually find anybody – a single person – who has progressed from non-smoking to smoking via vaping, flavoured or otherwise.
The reason they haven’t produced anything concrete is because there is no link, evidence of a gateway effect doesn’t exist. Flavour, for the AAP, is simply a stick to beat vaping with. It has been noted that restricting flavoured tobacco led to a reduction in smoking and they hope that by pushing for the elimination of flavours from vaping they can see a further reduction in smoking – as they erroneously consider the two to be one and the same.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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