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NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

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Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#51

Post by echoangle »

CamelCaseCondo wrote: post #47

So one thing that always strikes me about vaping is that we ignore the metal heater. It’ a coil of metal that glows, during which it will boil off metal atoms. After a while it has lost so much material that is breaks and needs to be replaced. That metal went into your lungs.

Does the heater really break by becoming so thin that it mechanically disconnects? I don’t use a vape but from coil replacement guides it sounds like people replace the coil because it begins to taste bad due to the burned stuff sticking to it.

Probably not much more healthy but I don’t really see how you would be ingesting much more metal from that compared to your metal frying pan for example.

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#52

Post by static_motion »

CamelCaseCondo wrote: post #47

So one thing that always strikes me about vaping is that we ignore the metal heater. It’ a coil of metal that glows, during which it will boil off metal atoms. After a while it has lost so much material that is breaks and needs to be replaced. That metal went into your lungs.

What are you on about? Your premise is pure bunk. The metal doesn't glow in normal usage. Speaking from experience: if that happens, it's a terribly painful experience and nobody would enjoy it. Vape coils usually heat to under 205°C/400°F, enough to transform the liquid into vapor but far below the glow point of the metal alloy typically used (kanthal/FeCrAl or nichrome/NiCr). Replacement is necessary due to residue buildup from the liquid, not because the metal has become degraded.

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#53

Post by bonsai_spool »

pram wrote: post #43
Calvin02 wrote: post #11

This doesn't surprise me. I grew up reading NYTimes on the weekend with my parents. I held them in extreme high regard when it came to their news and journalistic integrity. Over the years, I've shifted to think of them as another data point. For the industries that I'm most familiar with (Tech, Finance, and Pharma), I find their reporting often shallow, lacking in nuance, or intentional/unintentional misreporting. A…

The NYT (and Judith Miller) was one of the most shameless shills of the Iraq War, laundering complete bullshit and lies. It’s not completely bad, there have been outstanding individuals, and the election coverage is still the best imo, but there is no reason to believe the organization has higher integrity than the rest of the MSM.

> The NYT (and Judith Miller) was one of the most shameless shills of the Iraq War, laundering complete bullshit and lies. It’s not completely bad, there have been outstanding individuals, and the election coverage is still the best imo, but there is no reason to believe the organization has higher integrity than the rest of the MSM.

Very respectfully, as pre-teen at the time, I recognized that there was no real reason for going from 9/11 to Afghanistan or Iraq... based on my then daily reading of NYT. And I am sure there were opinion articles in that same paper that said we were rushing towards something that demanded deeper reflection.

Fundamentally, I don't think the job of a newspaper is to think for us.

All the absurdities of that time were, in fact, news. What wasn't present at the time was a link to justify the inane war we began. And that link is still absent, which we are all collectively realizing.

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#54

Post by pandaman »

beloch wrote: post #20

Ironically, this article is guilty of the same thing it rails against. No evidence is provided for the safety of THC vaping products. An NYT article that was clearly biased against THC was picked apart instead. The clear implication is that THC vapes were unjustly targeted and readers should assume the contrary of the dishonest NYT article. i.e. That THC vapes are safe. Yet, no direct evidence of that is provided. A…

Neither of two articles is about THC. The blog article is analyzing a NYC article that attacks nicotine vapes (and using the case of THC vapes related deaths in 2019 as one of the arguments against nicotine vapes).

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#55

Post by trixn »

static_motion wrote: post #52
CamelCaseCondo wrote: post #47

So one thing that always strikes me about vaping is that we ignore the metal heater. It’ a coil of metal that glows, during which it will boil off metal atoms. After a while it has lost so much material that is breaks and needs to be replaced. That metal went into your lungs.

What are you on about? Your premise is pure bunk. The metal doesn't glow in normal usage. Speaking from experience: if that happens, it's a terribly painful experience and nobody would enjoy it. Vape coils usually heat to under 205°C/400°F, enough to transform the liquid into vapor but far below the glow point of the metal alloy typically used (kanthal/FeCrAl or nichrome/NiCr). Replacement is necessary due to residue…

That's correct, in normal use the coil (the term used for the metal) never glows, it's not even close to glow. This is because it is surrounded by cotton soaked in the liquid which always cools the coil and which produces the desired vapor. If the coil would ever start to glow this is called a "dry hit" and it usually happens if you failed to monitor there's enough liquid in the tank. In this case the cotton immediately starts to burn and believe me inhaling that is disgusting and you would immediately stop. In fact you even stop before that because if the cotton gets dry it stops tasting any good.

Vaping is (compared to actually smoking tabacco) definitely harm reduction and significantly less harmful (which doesn't mean its healthy and you should do it). Yet it is treated like smoking cigarettes by law. For example in Germany you have to pay tabacco tax on the base liquid (which doesn't even contain nicotine) if it is intended to be used in a vape (17 cents per milliliter) which increased the price of the base liquid from around 10€ to 170€. But the base liquid only consists of two things (propylene glycol and glycerol) and both those substances you can by cheaply in a vet doctors online shop for maybe 5€ each liter. It's ridiculous.

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#56

Post by quickthrowman »

CamelCaseCondo wrote: post #47

So one thing that always strikes me about vaping is that we ignore the metal heater. It’ a coil of metal that glows, during which it will boil off metal atoms. After a while it has lost so much material that is breaks and needs to be replaced. That metal went into your lungs.

You do understand it’s a resistive heating element just like an electric baseboard heater or space heater? There’s no “metal atoms boiling off”, a typical alloy used for vape coils is Kanthal, which is iron/chromium/nickel which melts at 2,500F

You are not heating up the atomizer anywhere near that temperature with (2) 18650 cells. Coils are replaced when the cotton that surrounds them gets dirty and the vapor starts tasting bad.

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#57

Post by trixn »

jmull wrote: post #23

Let's not forget: the vaping business model is to turn kids into addicts and then keep selling them the drug. I'm not exactly going to get outraged at the NYT's rhetorical tactics against vaping.

While that might be true there is still a point to be considered regarding vaping which is that it is an order of magnitute less harmful than smoking tabacco cigarettes because nothing is burned in a vape and the "burning stuff" is what makes normal smoking so harmful. Therefore I'd argue it should definitely be available for smokers at a price tag lower than cigarettes if they can't quit smoking to reduce harm. This would massively decrease the huge costs for health care.

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#58

Post by bonsai_spool »

I am in medicine and have found that Gwern's articles in this area are at least heterodox if not outright incorrect. Before starting in medicine, I also found the style of writing persuasive but I think essays in this vein reflect a cultural difference and are not, as they purport, uncovering deep conspiracy. Fundamentally, it is hard to know things in medicine, though we are rightfully all entitled to our opinion. This is because good studies are hard to do, and often we need several studies to be confident that we understand a mechanism fully.

Here, the crux is whether we assume that Gwern's uncited Vitamin E Acetate reference is true (i.e., nicotine vapes are fine since they don't have this compound) without any evidence outside a link to wikipedia. I do not [see for example ref 1, with the caveat that we can't really tell if VEA is in use illegally]. We also are four years out from the NYT article and comfortably looking back with knowledge unavailable at the time (to wit, Gwern's assertion that EVALI has fallen with the reduction in VEA use).

I accept the point that the NYT article in question[2] may be wrong in equating damage linked to THC vapes and nicotine vapes. However, what should we do when a new recreational drug category is associated with disease? Accept manufacturer-provided explanations ("Well, this opioid is actually less addictive than others and shouldn't be regulated the same!")? Or take categorical action while awaiting new information? Medicine takes the latter approach. I accept that we should all be able to do what we wish to our bodies, but reject that the State should abet us in these efforts.

As an aside, teens falling ill (the subject of the original article) leads to a lot more social impact than would occur if an adult takes up a recreational drug. There's the actual illness, lost education, potential developmental delay, impacts on the teen's friend group, moral injury to the medical team, and likely more. This would be a separate reason to be more strident in regulating new recreational drugs targeted at minors.

1. https://www.trillianthealth.com/market-research/studies/eval...

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/health/vaping-fda-nicotin...

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#59

Post by quickthrowman »

trixn wrote: post #55
static_motion wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you on about? Your premise is pure bunk. The metal doesn't glow in normal usage. Speaking from experience: if that happens, it's a terribly painful experience and nobody would enjoy it. Vape coils usually heat to under 205°C/400°F, enough to transform the liquid into vapor but far below the glow point of the metal alloy typically used (kanthal/FeCrAl or nichrome/NiCr). Replacement is necessary due to residue…

That's correct, in normal use the coil (the term used for the metal) never glows, it's not even close to glow. This is because it is surrounded by cotton soaked in the liquid which always cools the coil and which produces the desired vapor. If the coil would ever start to glow this is called a "dry hit" and it usually happens if you failed to monitor there's enough liquid in the tank. In this case the cotton immediat…

That’s a pretty ridiculous tax for something that is far safer than smoking, I pay $20/100ml of juice in the US.

Re: NYT and vaping: How to lie by saying only true things (2022)

#60

Post by bonsai_spool »

cyanydeez wrote: post #46
beloch wrote: post #20

Ironically, this article is guilty of the same thing it rails against. No evidence is provided for the safety of THC vaping products. An NYT article that was clearly biased against THC was picked apart instead. The clear implication is that THC vapes were unjustly targeted and readers should assume the contrary of the dishonest NYT article. i.e. That THC vapes are safe. Yet, no direct evidence of that is provided. A…

you missed the critique entirely. The critique isn't "THC vaping is safe to the contrary" or "Nicotine vaping is fine". The critique is: "This article uses a rhetorical device (THC vapes with vitamin E acetate are harmful) to suggest that nicotine vapes are harmful, when there's nothing in common other than being a vape product" It's goal isn't to refute the evidence, but to suggest the editors and writers of the art…

> That is to say, no evidence by NYT is presented that some other substance in a vape is equally harmful.

> So perhaps the article needed to present the basic facts about vapes.

The whole last third of the NYT article is about how we don't (or did not at the time) know what substances may be at play, with several specific agents called out.

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