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Cancer Doc Lies about Ecigs

Despicable pronouncement by an American doctor draws condemnation.

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"E-cigarettes will raise your risk for lung cancer but also other cancers, like liver cancer," says Doctor Margaret Cuomo. No evidence, no moral compass – just a tirade based on lies that places smokers in danger by painting vaping as a dangerous alternative rather than 95% safer than smoking.

The doctor acts in an advisory role for the Huffington Post, called “a wretched hive of scum and quackery” in a science blog. If you are in calm place, they post a video of her saying the following:

“Because of their chemical composition, e-cigarettes are at least as harmful to your health as regular tobacco cigarettes are. These cigarettes contain many harmful chemicals that tobacco cigarettes do not contain, such as formaldehyde, benzene, propylene glycol and metals such as cadmium nickel and zinc. These are, in many cases, cancer-causing agents.

E-cigarettes will raise your risk for lung cancer – but also other cancers like liver cancer. The aerosol that is produced by the e-cigarettes, it is sensitising the lungs to asthma and other diseases.

From 2013 to 2014, the sale of e-cigarettes to children aged 11-17 tripled. There are over two million high school students using e-cigarettes every year and about half a million middle school students using. They’re being, erm, marketed with flavours like Cap’n Crunch, Fruit Loops, Gummy Bears, Bubblegum – you name it.

The FDA is considering the regulation of e-cigarettes, and has been doing so for a number of years, but currently there is no regulation on a federal level of e-cigarettes. Forty-eight states have taken the initiative to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. We hope the FDA will issue clear warning s on the packages, the same way they do for tobacco cigarettes, and they will be prohibited from marketing directly to children.”

It’s a truly sickening distortion of the truth leading some to wonder if it is nothing more than an effort to gain publicity for her book.

Michael Siegel writes: “this video is characteristic of the lies and deception about the hazards of smoking that the tobacco industry of old used to disseminate to the public. The three major claims that Dr. Cuomo makes are either: (1) completely unsupported by scientific evidence; (2) contradicted by scientific evidence; or (3) an outright lie.”

“E-cigarettes are at least as harmful”

There are no by-products of tobacco combustion like tar. It has been documented that even toxins present in vape are orders of magnitude less than that found in cigarette smoke.

“E-cigarettes will raise your risk for lung cancer”

There has been no research carried out to support the allegation that vaping raises the risks of cancer. The claim is baseless and unsupported by evidence.

“(E-cigarettes) contain many harmful chemicals that tobacco cigarettes do not contain”

This is nothing less than a vicious, dishonest and corrupt distortion of the truth - “It’s appalling and it’s ignorant,” Yale’s Sally Satel is reported as saying.

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 vape companies to develop content for their websites.

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