LBC Pushes Lung Lie
The LBC radio station has been misunderstanding figures, facts and repeating the debunked lie that vaping is responsible for a lung disorder
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by Dave Cross
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LBC says: “Concerns have been growing around the increasing number of young people being attracted to e-cigarettes through ‘flashy marketing campaigns’, fruity flavours and colourful packaging.”
Concerns so great that the radio station has decided to play fast and loose with the data from NHS Digital.
In the spreadsheet seen by Planet of the Vapes, a grand total of 4 children up to the age of 19 were admitted to hospital in 2021 with e-cigarettes listed as a primary diagnosis, escalating to 17 in 2022.
This primary diagnosis does not confirm that vaping e-liquids caused a lung disorder as that information is not provided.
LBC’s figures include vaping as a secondary diagnosis, meaning the children were admitted for something, given a primary diagnosis, and also recorded that they happened to vape.
For comparison, NHS Digital says: “In 2021-22 there were 24.4 million attendances in Accident and Emergency.”
Also, “Please note admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period. Additionally, the ICD-10 code for a vaping related disorder can also be used in combination with other codes to indicate the type of condition being treated at the time.”
This means it is impossible to ascertain what type of condition the patients were diagnosed with or how many individuals there were.
Padding out its article, LBC goes on to use a couple of anonymous anecdotes.
“Charlie, from North London” allegedly told the station that her 13yr old sister “had become addicted to vapes.”
The teenager had somehow managed to spend “over £2,000 on vapes” in nine months.
and had a massive collection of them - like every brand, every flavour. Given 3 disposables can be purchased for £10, LBC is expecting its audience to believe this young girl bought over 600 disposable ecigs in this short period of time.
“It got to a point, though, where she had like a 60-year-old smoker’s cough, like that really deep Covid cough. She’s always had really beautiful skin but she started looking a bit grey.”
A deep Covid cough during a period where increased numbers of children were contracting Covid? What on earth could have happened? It must have been the vapes.
The only “expert” LBC approached was Andrew Bush.
He told them: “These things haven’t been around long enough for us to have the long-term data. People my age don’t have to think about what’s going to happen in 30 years' time but somebody who’s a teenager needs to think about 30, 40 ,50 ,60 years’ time.”
Andrew Bush won our nomination for the Worst Published Paper Of 2021. Also, he caught our attention in 2019, 2021, and 2022. He was national media’s go-to for a quote last week when Elf Bar had their products removed from supermarket shelves.
Given that similar stories were being published in other countries at the same time, this smells like a coordinated effort funded by a certain anti-tobacco harm reduction billionaire.
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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