Why is Wikipedia suppressing the health benefits of e-cigarettes?

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Jake Is A Sellout
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Why is Wikipedia suppressing the health benefits of e-cigarettes?

Post by Jake Is A Sellout » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:37 am

Electronic cigarettes have one clear and obvious health benefit - helping existing smokers for whom other methods just haven't worked, to quit smoking.

Now, naturally, people shouldn't take my word for it that this health benefit is real, they should naturally listen to the science.

But, well, what if Wikipedia is the gateway to science for most people? What are they seeing.......

I'll fucking tell you what those sociopaths are doing.

This is the current state of the Wikipedia article on e-cigarettes.

Please note that under the section 3.3., Health Effects - Smoking Cessation, this is what it says.....
As of January 2018, systematic reviews collectively agreed that there is insufficient evidence to unequivocally determine whether vaping helped people abstain from smoking.[150] A 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis of 64 studies found that on the whole as consumer products e-cigarettes do not increase quitting smoking.[151]
To the average retard, which naturally describes anyone who uses Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, that makes it sound like the science is settled, right?

Wikipedia is telling you not to use e-cigarettes, as they probably won't help you quit smoking.

A little further up the section, the very first line infact, they're quite clear on this.....
The use of e-cigarettes for quitting smoking is controversial.[142] Limited evidence suggests that e‐cigarettes probably do help people to stop smoking.[18]
Use of code words like "controversial" and "limited evidence" will naturally persuade most people to just not to try it, lest they be another thalidamide case, even though the alternative is a high likelihood of cancer and a horrible painful death.

But let's do what most people still don't understand is the correct way of reading Wikipedia. Examine the sources provided.

Source [150] is a book, and by the sounds of it, a book not likely to be available in your local library, and also a book that it likely to already be out of date, for reasons explained in source [151].....
Since 2017, the number of studies reporting on the association between e-cigarette use and smoking behavior has continued to accumulate......The number and quality of the RCTs evaluating the effects of e-cigarettes on smoking cessation have also increased. The richness of these data prompted this meta-analysis, in which we summarize the state of the current scientific knowledge on the effect of e-cigarette use on cigarette smoking cessation.
Source [151] is clearly the killer here. It is obviously the most up to date and most persuasive science based conclusion on the health benefits of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool.

And so, it was not really surprising to me, that a crucial part of that source, has just, somehow, been left on the cutting room floor.

Here is the reliably sourced information the Wikishits are trying to suppress....
Results........The RCTs that compared quitting among smokers who were provided e-cigarettes to smokers with conventional therapy found e-cigarette use was associated with more quitting (relative risk = 1.555; 95% CI = 1.173, 2.061).

Conclusions. As consumer products, in observational studies, e-cigarettes were not associated with increased smoking cessation in the adult population. In RCTs, provision of free e-cigarettes as a therapeutic intervention was associated with increased smoking cessation.

Public Health Implications. E-cigarettes should not be approved as consumer products but may warrant consideration as a prescription therapy.
In layman's terms, this shows that while general public use of e-cigarettes probably has no benefits as a smoking cessation aid, when they are proscribed by medical professionals, they are more effective than conventional therapies. The science is settled.

This isn't surprising. Anyone who knows smokers, knows there are some for whom the dual addiction of both the nicotine and the socio-therapeutic act of smoking, is just too strong. Nothing works.

It is easy to see why e-cigarettes work for such people. I can haz device that can give you all the benefits while reducing most of the health risks of smoking, and for free? Sign me up!

Addressing the nicotine addiction is easier then, given you have more ways to conceptualize and reduce the dosage. Addressing the socio-habitual problem was also easier, until governments, with Wikipedia's help no doubt, started unwisely treating vaping as if it were no different to smoking.

For as long as I can remember, the Wikishits have been quite happy to play up the potential risks of e-cigarettes, and play down their rather obvious benefits. Why? Who knows. Wikipedia editors are sociopaths, is my best guess. It probably also has something to do with their dislike of Big Tobacco, as they probably see this as a way to ensure those evil corporations don't get a second wind as e-cig manufacturers, even if it does mean millions of smokers have to die horrible painful deaths to achieve that goal.

As always, I am grateful I am British, and therefore, we have trustworthy and accurate knowledge at our fingertips, via outletss like the BBC. As they have been reporting for a while, according to the science, e-cigarettes do have a role to play in smoking cessation. A role well worth pursuing and promoting, with public funds.

Unsurprisingly, the big gulf between public policy in this area, appears to be because Americans and Brits have different views on the benefits and risks of ecigs. And unsurprisingly, it is the American view that dominates on Wikipedia.

Naturally, Wikipediocracy has never shown any interest in what is arguably the best example of real, actual, public harm done by Wikipedia, on a mass scale.

You could probably attribute thousands of needless deaths to Wikipedia preferring to continue to downplay the benefits of ecigs as a smoking cessation aid. Not on their radar, not on a site that is run for senior Wikipedia editors.

It is certainly to be expected from a site where people like Poetlister are part of the furniture. Someone who, I shit you not, has argued many times, that Wikipedia is better off with medical professionals like James Heilman being a core part of their community. He has never offered any evidence for this surprising claim, of course, and any he could find, would of course likely have originated from Wikipedia's own press department, citing studies directly authored by one James Heilman.

I'll give you one guess as to who has been sitting on the e-cigarette article for years, frustrating anyone and everyone who wants it to say something other than his preferred text, even though he is not remotely what anyone would describe as an expert in public health.

He's simply an ER doctor, and not a very remarkable one at that either. During the down time on his shifts, rather than pondering on how best he can serve his patients, he edits Wikipedia. He is arguably, addicted to Wikipedia, ironically.

As befits the doctor stereotype, he is someone whose manner of communication with his fellow editors is often so weirdly counterfactual, many people have asked the question, is he even reading what others say? It is perhaps their attempt to not ask themselves, is he deliberately being a cunt?

Because they wouldn't be a good look would it? Having a Wikipedia Board Member, a Community Representative member no less, being a certified cunt.

They have lived with this reality for years, the Wikipedia community. That the nearest thing they have to a medical expert in their ranks, and a prominent advocate for the alleged health benefits of Wikipedia, is probably a cunt.

Not for nothing do I so often seem to conclude from knowledge like this, that the terms Wikipedia editor and sociopath, are likely synonyms.

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