WHO - Designed To Kill
The World Health Organization has been at it again – this time the ‘public health’ organisation has said that vapes are “designed to kill”
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by Dave Cross
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The World Health Organization (WHO) has been on a phenomenal run of being publicly corrected. As detailed the other month, the WHO published a succession of posts on its Twitter/X account that resulted in Community Notes being appended to each one, correcting the misinformation. Now it has declared that vapes are “designed to kill” – to which it received yet another Community Note.
The World Health Organization, posting on its @WHO Twitter/X account, wrote:
“Q: What looks cute, smells good, but is designed to kill?
A: A vape!
The tobacco industry spends tons of money designing their products to look appealing, but it's time we expose the truth and protect young people from the harmful effects of tobacco. 🚭🚭🚭”
In April, the World Health Organization posted to the social media site that vaping increases the risk of heart seizures. The organisation’s @WHO_Europe account joined in with the posting of absolute nonsense but went one step further, it actively blocked any member of the public who had the temerity to point out the serious scientific flaws.
Twitter/X explains: “Community Notes aim to create a better informed world by empowering people on X to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading posts. Contributors can leave notes on any post and if enough contributors from different points of view rate that note as helpful, the note will be publicly shown on a post.”
Vapes are recognised by the UK government, the NHS, the UK Health Security Agency (previously Public Health England), the Royal College of Physicians, Cancer Research UK and Action on Smoking and Health (among many others) as being a reduced harm product that help smokers to quit smoking and improve their health.
Shortly after claiming that vapes are “designed to kill”, the WHO received yet another Community Note, saying: “Readers added a Community Note to a post to which you replied, Liked or reposted. 1 brand doesn't represent the market. Evidence is insufficient/unavailable for the effects of nicotine on brain development/neurological conditions.”
The note listed off the following sources of evidence:
Smoking doesn't, implausible vaping would
- https://cot.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2020-09/COT%20E%28N%29NDS%20statement%202020-04.pdf
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399912000918
- https://ash.org.uk/resources/view/addressing-common-myths-about-vaping-putting-the-evidence-in-context
WHO considers nicotine safe ages 12+
- https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-MHP-HPS-EML-2021.02
- Vaping less harmful than smoking https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/WHO-EURO-2020-4572-44335-62638
- https://cancer-code-europe.iarc.fr/index.php/en/ecac-12-ways/tobacco/247-are-e-cigarettes-less-harmful-than-conventional-cigarettes
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update
- https://www.rcp.ac.uk/policy-and-campaigns/policy-documents/e-cigarettes-and-harm-reduction-an-evidence-review/
Vapes were designed as a smoking cessation device and are vastly safer than smoking. Banning vapes increases smoking rates.
Safer than smoking:
- cochrane.org/CD010216/TOBAC…
- ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.210…
- health.belgium.be/nl/beter-vapen…
- academie-medecine.fr/lacademie-nati…
- e-cancer.fr/Comprendre-pre…
- bfr.bund.de/cm/343/gesundh…
- dgsps.de/images/files/P…
- canada.ca/en/health-cana…
- canada.ca/en/health-cana…
- health.govt.nz/our-work/preve…
- vapingfacts.health.nz/our-position-o…
- global-uploads.webflow.com/5e332a62c703f6…
- gov.uk/government/pub…
- ash.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
- ncsct.co.uk/usr/pub/NCSCT%…
Including by the WHO themselves:
Banning vapes increases smoking and black markets:
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
- reason.org/commentary/cig…
- theguardian.com/society/2024/j…
- news.yale.edu/2021/05/25/ban…
- theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
- observatoireprevention.org/en/2021/09/27/…
- jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
Despite the Community Note, the WHO has not made a correcting tweet or taken down its post.
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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