Norway Says No
Dr Karl Erik Lund and Norwegian consumer group Nikan have attacked “unbalanced and exaggerated information” about vaping printed in a national newspaper
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by Dave Cross
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Nikan (Nicotine Alliance Norway) is a non-profit organisation that works to promote alternative nicotine products (such as snus and vaping) as less harmful alternatives to smoking. The ETHRA member believes these products work as part of smoking cessation that there is a need for accurate information.
Nikan and many Norwegian vapers were taken aback when Dagens Næringsliv carried its “biased and erroneous report on e-cigarettes”. Complaints were lodged through multiple avenues, but the paper refused to make any corrections or remove the article.
Nikan asked Dr Karl Erik Lund, a harm reduction expert who works at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, to write a piece responding to the Dagens Næringsliv report. The English translation has been published by ETHRA on its website.
Lund accuses Dagens Næringsliv of, “oversimplifying the vaping phenomenon”, and added that it was, “biased, alarmist and contains errors”. He added that the “[vaping] community has in a short time guided many smokers to switch to e-cigarettes – at no cost to the taxpayer. These switchers are often smokers that we on the health side have a hard time reaching, as they have little use for nicotine replacement therapies, and they see themselves not as patients but as consumers. The vaping community now feels they have been denounced by the DN as an actor in a conspiracy staged by the tobacco industry - which they are not.”
Responding to whether or not it is possible to get “f***** lungs” from vaping, Lund comments: “The DN presents the story of a 20-year-old who believes that she no longer has the energy to run to the bus because her lungs are ‘f*****’ from e-cigarettes. Does the DN really have confirmation that her problems can be attributed to vaping? In light of the research that reviews respiratory effects from vaping, the presented correlation seems strange. If the DN had strived for a more balanced angle, the paper could refer to research showing respiratory ailments are reduced when switching from smoke to vape. Will the DN be doing a follow-up article, featuring a former smoker who can now run for a bus, thanks to the switch to e-cigarettes?”
Lund also tackles points such as whether vaping is responsible for the American EVALI lung disease outbreak (it isn’t), if there’s a teen vaping epidemic (there isn’t), and whether the Norwegian health authorities are passive (they aren’t).
Dr Karl Erik Lund’s full article is linked below.
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Photo Credit:
Image by Michael Kopp from Pixabay
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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