BBC Breakfast later featured a three minute video slot - unhelpfully not embeddable, as usual - followed by conversation between Susanna Reid and reporter Graham Satchell (I can't remember the other presenter's name for obvious reasons) during which he volunteered an interesting revelation.
Graham Satchell on Breakfast says use of E-cigs is allowed in BBC buildings :)
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) February 11, 2013
Both articles did, sadly though, feature serial prohibitionist Vivienne Nathanson of the BMA spouting her usual nonsense ...
"I would either take them off the shelves or I would very heavily regulate them so that we know the contents of each e-cigarette were very fixed," says Dr Nathanson.... which Jay has rightly called out as 'evil'. This, remember, from a woman who has already been caught out blatantly lying on the BBC in the past.
However, despite the inclusion of Nathanson, the BBC deserve a rare pat on the back for raising the issue so prominently. Perhaps, since Mondays are generally slow for news, it will be swiftly forgotten tomorrow now they can get their salaried secularists onto the Pope resigning, but a pat on the back is still perfectly in order nonetheless.
What is baffling me, though, is why? Why did the BBC feel that this was an issue deserving of such coverage? What's the angle?
As we know, their standard for health articles is to pick a press release and paraphrase it. But there doesn't appear to have been one in this case.
If Satchell had linked it in to the appalling Tobacco Products Directive and the resignation of John Dalli, it would make more sense, but he didn't. There was not a mention of Dalli's absurd proposals or of what is promising to be a Europe-wide campaign against them.
Perhaps it was just an excellent - and far too rare - piece of observational health journalism from Graham Satchell, I dunno. The BBC is the stopped clock that is sometimes accurate when wound by the right people, after all.
But, sadly, I'm wondering if it all might be far more depressingly simple. It was only last month that ASH produced an updated press briefing on e-cigs [opens in pdf] which was largely positive, and its contents are uncannily similar to the points raised in the BBC's coverage, as well as the comments made by Satchell in BBC Breakfast's studio this morning.
While it is great that the BBC are reporting on e-cigs - and also commendable that ASH UK are not replicating the fuckwittery towards them exhibited by their counterparts in other nations - a marshalling of the state-funded media by state-funded anti-smokers would still seem to be the status quo.
18 comments:
If you're in the UK, listen to Pat Nurse admirably defending e-cigs in between two professional anti-smokers paid by government to say "ooh, be careful".
It's from 1:03:11 in here.
Cool, ecigs allowed in bbc buildings, can't wait for Sean Lock to use one right slap bang in the middle of an episode of Mock the Week :)
Anyone got his e-mail? ;)
This looks like some simple planning ahead from ASHs main sponsors in the Pharmaceutical industry. They have basically got ASH and their mates trying to co-op e-Cigs from the current manufacturers so they can make them themselves. It would be counter productive to go around demonising the things all the time if
they plan to sell them later. A far better way is to get keep people liking the idea of them, but being scared of who it making them (and lobbying the competition to death via ASH / the BBC / the Government as big business usually do).
Dear Mr Puddlecote
Perhaps the BBC and ASH are playing velvet glove to the EU's iron fist.
Catchy title for a book, don't you think?
DP
Dick, the video is available here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21408502
I hadn't seen that ASH press release. In the 2010 consultation, ASH UK wanted effectively a ban following a year's grace. ASH Wales wanted an immediate ban, along with the drug companies. A few months ago, Deborah Arnott was videoed in a very anti ecig speech suggesting ecigs exploded in people's faces because they were made in China. Now ASH appears to support the sale of ecigs with light regulation. What is going on? They will lose all their indirect support from drug companies - those 5* smoking cessation conferences. Is ASH UK preparing to cease operations? Their daily propaganda stopped several months ago.
For the Buddha “paradox”, see comment by Shadow Guest at:
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/american-lung-association-protests.html
For the Buddha “paradox”, see comment by Shadow Guest at:
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/american-lung-association-protests.html
Thanks, Steve. It is linked to above but the ability to embed BBC vids is very rare, sadly.
I was at the venue (Guildhall) when Arnott made that speech and she wasn't actually negative about e-cigs, in fact quite the opposite. The China reference was bizarre, it's true, but IIRC it was designed to make the case for heavy regulation (despite Clive Bates's regular mantra that tough EU standards on general products, including batteries, are quite sufficient).
That's a very good observation and may have some truth in it. At the panel discussion mentioned in my reply to Jonathan Bagley, Arnott made the point quite bluntly that she was generally in favour of e-cigs ... but that tobacco companies are not to be trusted to make or administer them.
http://www.offthekerb.co.uk/ seems to be his management but I can only find contact details for corporate engagements
Dick, yes, she is (was?) definitely in favour of heavy regulation. How is that not negative? At the very least it would include a ban on ecig flavours and probably a limit on strength, a ban on mix your own, huge fees paid to some regulatory body which would cut out small companies and innovation and raise prices. The whole stance of anti tobacco is a nonsense. NicQuit mist is an unpleasant and expensive type of ecig, containing the same ingredients and with the same capacity to poison, or not poison, children.
I can't remember the panel discussion on the video, but she can hardly selectively ban manufacturers and distributors. Does she trust my vendor, JacVapour to distribute them? Who knows? If she is willing to let her personal vendetta against tobacco companies increase the possibility of regulations or a ban, she is no better than those tobacco companies in terms of harm. And it's ridiculous not to trust a particular sector with ecigs. They are simple devices filled with simple liquid and every aspect can be easily tested.
It would be quite easy to ban selective manufacturers and distributors from selling e-cigs. Get the things classed as a 'medical device' and only those on the approved pharmaceutical company list can make and sell them in the UK.
Remember that this is all about money, not health. If it was about health they would have left e-cigs alone from the outset as they are already covered by the general chemical regulations both us and the EU use.
By 'heavy', I meant more than just general regulations as Clive Bates advocates. She did say that she wasn't in favour of e-cigs being regulated as a pharmaceutical product, which would be the worst outcome (and what the EU seem to be driving at).
CW, I agree. However it seems she doesn't want to get them sold only by drug companies and, if that's true, it's difficult to envisage any other way of partitioning companies into the "good" and the "bad". And I know it's all about drug company products and it makes me very angry having to engage in an artificial debate with the anti ecig campaigners. Everyone knows they are harmless. In any sane situation, nobody would be talking about them. Where's the debate about Red Bull? Occasionally someone questions the wisdom of living on it, but BBC reporters don't go round clubs filming them doing it..
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