Nicotine vapes contain no tobacco but are routinely called “tobacco products.”
A 2019 lung disease outbreak is still known as “EVALI” (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury), when nicotine vapes had nothing to do with it.
The war of disinformation against tobacco harm reduction relies on a host of inaccurate and outright misleading terms that leave the public asking, “Make it make sense.”
So it’s welcome that a group of researchers from the UK, led by Dr. Sharon Cox, have created an initial version of an ontology of tobacco, nicotine and vaping products with the aim of reducing ambiguity and confusion in the field. “Ontology” means the attempt to categorize things by their nature and properties.
The misunderstandings are on an international scale. Dr. Cox explained on a podcast, “People are using the same terms to refer to different things or using different terms to mean the same thing.” With funding from Cancer Research UK, the group is developing an E-Cigarette Ontology (E-CigO) to include tobacco, nicotine and vaping products.
Helen Redmond – Filter- 2022-10-12.
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