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Anti-THR Lies

Self-proclaimed public health experts aren’t ashamed about lying in public any longer.

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We told the tale of South African fibber Peter Ucko just two weeks ago. Now, joining him on the monthly roll call of liars, come more anti-vape prevaricators. Brian Jenssen is the product of several years of high-level training, yet still manages to be ignorant. Dorie Apollonio must have struggled to not break out laughing when she made a comment about potential harm.

Most were stunned that Peter Ucko could simply invent a study off the top of his head, adding a fictitious university and link it to Cancer Research UK, in order to sleight the greatest smoking harm reduction tool ever created. Commenting at the time, NNAlliance Sweden said that South Africa deserved better.

These mendacious charlatans aren’t restricted to one country. There’s a global network of them peddling their snake oil dishonesties.

“Doctor” Brian Jenssen published his stack of unsubstantiatable excrement on the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia website – laughably titled it’s “Health Tip of the Week”!

The man, who is an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Pediatrics, lists his expertise as “Research Interests,” and “Tobacco policy”. If that were the case then it would be reasonable to assume he’s good at it – but he mainlines nonsense into the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“There’s a common misconception among teens and many adults that vaping is a ‘healthier’ alternative to smoking. This is a myth,” Jenssen lies. There are lobotomised penguins in the South Atlantic that appreciate vaping is at least 95% safer than smoking.

“There is remarkably clear data showing that teens who try vaping are much more likely to go on to smoke regular cigarettes,” he continues – ignoring the fact that the data is at odds with reality.

He concludes with the statement: “There’s a real knowledge gap,” which is the first correct thing out of his mouth. For an intelligent man, he has a lot of learning to do.

Over on Gizmodo.com, Dorie Apollonio and Stanton Glantz are ensuring that Jenssen doesn’t feel alone. Apollonio lies to Gizmodo’s readership that any level of nicotine is an overdose: “since nicotine has no therapeutic use, and it’s addictive, and it probably has some toxic effects.”

After another rambling pile of nonsense, described by at least one person as “the single worst pile of s*** on e-cigs EVER”, She poses a question and invents an answer: “Can you die from vaping? The answer is: yes.”

The academic from the University of California San Francisco, the home to anti-vape nonsense, continues with some other fictitious dangers: “There aren’t necessarily childproof caps on nicotine solution.” Erm, apart from the regulations forcing companies to use them in the States and Europe – for responsible companies who were already doing it long before the regulations, Dorie.

Speaking as someone who has never tried to do this, Glantz adds: “Unlike conventional cigarettes, whose physics limit how fast you can puff them, there is no intrinsic limit to how quickly or how many puffs you can take at one time from an e-cigarette.”

The world deserves better than these public health frauds, quacks and con merchants.

Dave Cross avatar

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV
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Dave 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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