Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal • Hacker News Board

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#211

Post by sarsway » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #196

smeej wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: Why is there talk about banning Juul from selling its products in the U.S. entirely, but no such conversation about banning any of the big tobacco companies from selling theirs? It's all about power. There are so many things it would be useful to quantify and compare: Does anybody know the difference between the percentage of non-nicotine users who begin smoking cigarettes and the percentage who begin vaping…

> How much more dangerous is nicotine than alcohol? If you divorce nicotine from its problematic delivery systems, nicotine itself is a pretty good drug (albeit very addictive). It's potentially protective against diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, it's associated with weight loss, and it improves short term memory and attention. It's also great in combination with caffeine, and it speeds up caffeine metaboli…

Wouldn't be so sure about that. Nicotine alone has problematic effects on the heart and vascular system, especially since the addictiveness leads to constant admission. Vaping isn't all that great delivery system either.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#212

Post by thebean11 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #198

egeozcan wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthier substitute to smoking practically means a smoking cessation product. Impossible meat, likewise, is a meat "cessation" product. If impossible meat makes vegans start eating burgers, you can't just argue "well, it's still better than meat". > I'm definitely against marketing vaping to non-smokers. But this is the whole point, they do attract non-smokers. They should explicitly detract them instead.

I suppose in a very literal sense, if you replace addiction A with addiction B, you could say that B is an A cessation product. But by that logic, smoking could be called a weight loss product. Other people have a more complex definition, which precludes cigarettes from being considered a health product, despite their appetite-suppressing properties.

> smoking could be called a weight loss product

And it was! The difference is that smoking isn't really healthier than obesity, so it's not a very good way to lose weight overall.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#213

Post by fnord77 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

has anyone worked on nicotine-analogues that might be less addictive?

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#214

Post by elif » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

jasonhansel wrote: post #166

pope_meat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, if you claim to be a smoking cessation product you get the FDA at your door going "oh, so this is a medical product" and you're now obligated to prove that your product works as a medical cessation product, and requires a doctor's note to pick up. You can't market yourself as a smoking cessation product without getting the hounds of hell being unleashed on you by the regulators.

> you're now obligated to prove that your product works And that's a bad thing?

See marijuana if you believe regulators will actually listen to a preponderance of evidence. FDA/pharma executives are a revolving door, and therefore concerned chiefly with the health of pharma rather than humans.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#215

Post by Judgmentality » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #133

Judgmentality wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would like someone to do a "Years of life saved" calculation that tallies the expected years save by switching smokers to vaping balanced against those who were attracted by vaping who eventually went to smoking. My guess is even with the new entrants the years of life saved would be extraordinary. My understanding is entire high schools are getting addicted to vaping, where before smoking was a relatively minor…

So what's the harm of vaping? As far as I know, there is some evidence of harm, but it compares very favorably to smoking. It's a different class. To talk about "years of life lost" is quite off from what I know about it. And I never vaped, just smoked.

We don't have as much data on vaping as we do for smoking, but this reminds me of what cigarette companies said for decades: "where is the data showing our products are harmful?"

We already know vaping causes popcorn lung. I suspect 1:1 between vaping and smoking that vaping is safer, but who knows? We won't know until we have decades of data about mortality related to vaping. It seems plausible that it increases lung cancer rates and we just don't have enough data to know yet.

https://www.cancertherapyadvisor.com/home/cancer-topics/lung...

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#216

Post by acituan » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

theli0nheart wrote: post #193

jasonhansel wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're now obligated to prove that your product works And that's a bad thing?

> And that's a bad thing? If your product causes harm in any way—regardless of the benefits—you're going to have a difficult time getting regulatory approval. It will also greatly affect access to the product, as not everyone has access to good doctors, and most items that are FDA-regulated requires prescriptions. For a product which is a superior, healthier option to cigarettes, it's a massive regulatory burden that…

> If your product causes harm in any way—regardless of the benefits—you're going to have a difficult time getting regulatory approval

Question stands, is that a bad thing?

Besides not everything FDA approved becomes a prescription medication. On topic; nicotine gums and patches as smoke cessation products are widely available as OTC.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#217

Post by beiller » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

irthomasthomas wrote: post #118

So Marlboro buys 35% of Juul and now Juul is advertising recklessly and inviting an e-cig ban or heavy regulation. Interesting Well here are some fun facts about the ingredients in tobacco, for comparison... The main* reason smoking causes cancer is the high amount of polonium 210, yeah, that same stuff they used to murder Litvenchenko. The reason for the presence of polonium 210 is flavour. Truly. It sounds far fetc…

How much polonium in cigarette smoke versus a campfire? It says polonium occurs naturally in the soil and air. How much polonium then is taken in as a baseline? Other commenters mention radiation is not the factor that causes cancer in smoking so why does this CDC article even exist?

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#218

Post by wccrawford » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #35

wccrawford wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not who you replied to, but I've experienced this with some of my friends. Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science. For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know peop…

>For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, You mean Newton's Law of gravity [1]? I'm not sure where you get the idea there are "theories" and "laws" in science and science moves things from one category to the other. The closest I can find is this distinction: "Scientific theories explain why something happens, whereas scientific law describes what happens." [2] By this description,…

https://ncse.ngo/gravity-its-only-theory

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#219

Post by CaveTech » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #197

We spent decades trying to get rid of cigarettes and it worked and now we let this fucking Juul through the front door. It’s as if we haven’t learned a fucking thing in decades, and the fact that this founder is celebrated in Silicon Valley sickens me. He just found another opportunity to hook kids on nicotine for another few generations and now he’s a fucking billionaire. Fuck that guy.

When exactly do you think we got rid of cigarettes?

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#220

Post by Barrin92 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

ud_0 wrote: post #10

blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

Dividing the world into alleged institutions that produce facts, and institutions that don't is exactly what scientism is.

Querying public opinion is a method of determining facts, even special interests provide facts. 'Scientism' consists of what Feyerabend called 'methodological monism', believing in the notion that there is any privileged authority to 'speak facts'.

Someone who properly understands 'science' understands that the processes to produce knowledge are as dynamic as facts themselves. All efforts to produce some sort of privileged methodology produce bureaucracy and standardization that closes science off from avenues that can produce knowledge. Elevating this bureaucratic caste of scientists to political authority is scientism.