This morning's New York Times business section features what I'd call a style story entitled, "E-Cigarettes Are in Vogue and at a Crossroads," by Liz Alderman. It's a story about a new fashion, which might be more at home in the living section than in the business pages. But wherever it shows up, and whatever its approach, it owes readers a fair and full accounting of its subject, just as it would be obliged to tell us about the comfort and durability of a new line of jeans or men's suits.
The key questions about electronic cigarettes, in my view, are: Do they cut the increased risks of cancer, heart disease, and many other ailments associated with smoking? And do they help people quit?
What we learn from Alderman's story is that e-cigarettes are now trendy in Paris, where one can walk into a store and purchase "more than 60 flavors of nicotine liquid, including Marlboro and Lucky Strike flavors–and in varying strengths and arranged in color-coded rows."
What's bringing people into the store, she writes, "is a desire shared by many: they want to give up smoking tobacco but don’t want to kick the smoking habit." Really? Most references I've seen to e-cigarettes are about people using them to quit smoking altogether, not to swap one inhalant for another. How many people, we should ask Alderman, want to give up smoking tobacco and switch to smoking nicotine?
We don't know; her lede mentions one.
I readily admit that I don't know how many people are using e-cigs as a bridge toward quitting; but I didn't write a story about it. If I had, I would have looked for stats to back up my anecdote. And if they were not there, I would have said so.
Alderman does give us some help on my question about the risks of e-cigs. She quotes an FDA spokeswoman, who says, in a statement, "Further research is needed to assess the potential public health benefits and risks of electronic cigarettes and other novel tobacco products." That's nice, but Alderman might have spoken to one or two scientists who study this question to get a fuller and more authoritative answer about the health risks, and an independent view of the FDA's response so far.
Later in the story, Alderman again uses anecdote to substitute for fact. Sean Parker, the co-founded of Napster, has donated to cancer research, she writes, but is now investing in e-cigarettes, because he is "said to view the electronic devices as a safe alternative." Here she use a single person–not a doctor or scientist–to comment on the safety of e-cigs. If that were not bad enough, but she doesn't even talk to him. Hence the construction he "is said to view…" How about asking him directly what his view is, rather using an unidentified reference?
Near the end of the story, after she has written at length about the fortune to be made in e-cigs, Alderman quotes the Royal College of Physicians in Britain, which "has said the devices can lure people away from traditional cigarettes." There is that construction again–"has said"–which means she didn't talk to anyone there.
She writes that retailers are fighting regulations "because they don't market e-cigarettes to help smokers quit." To underscore the point, she quotes Katherine Devlin, who tells Alderman, "No one is claiming it’s medicine. It allows you to keep smoking." And who is Devlin? The president of the London-based Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association.
Whatever e-cig makers call it, it's a drug. If it were not, it wouldn't be in vogue.
-Paul Raeburn
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