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Annotated Bibliography

Are Electronic Cigarettes a Safer Alternative to Traditional Cigarettes?

Jeffrey Chan

Professor Malcom Campbell

UWRT 1104

March 14, 2017

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Annotated Bibliography

De Bravo, Brandel France, MPH, Sarah Miller, Jessica Becker, and Laura Gottschalk, PhD. Are

E-Cigarettes Safer Than Regular Cigarettes? Stop Cancer Fund. Cancer Prevention and

Treatment Fund, 02 Feb. 2017. Web. 2 Mar. 2017.

This webpage article served to prove whether or not electronic cigarettes are actually

safer that traditional cigarettes. Inside the article, the author emphasized that just because

electronic cigarettes arent burning actual tobacco, doesnt mean that there arent any

carcinogenic compounds that are introduced to your body. Based on the FDAs studies,

they were able to detect a toxic ingredient found in antifreeze, tobacco-specific

carcinogenic compounds, and other harmful compounds such as formaldehyde. In

addition to the harmful compounds detected, the author stated that there arent any long-

term studies that are available yet because electronic cigarettes have only been released to

the general population for only a short period of time. Because electronic cigarettes are

relatively new, it is almost impossible for researchers to see if electronic cigarettes cause

cancer. The earliest long term study that will accurately show if electronic cigarettes

causes cancer will take around fifteen to twenty years to develop because cancer happens

over a long period of time. I find this webpage article to be a credible source because it

was written by people who have a reputable background such France Brandel De Bravo,

who is the master of public health.

Persoskie, Alexander, Anh B. Nguyen, Anette R. Kaufman, and Cindy Tworek. Criterion

validity of measure of perceived relative harm of e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco

compared to cigarettes. Addictive Behaviors. Elsevier Ltd., 4 Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Mar.

2017.
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This scholarly journal studies peoples general perception to the amount of harm from

smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes compared to traditional cigarettes. In order to

conduct a study that accurately represented the general population, the researchers

gathered people to take a survey that measured direct and indirect perceptions of harm.

The survey had five main choices which were much less harmful, less harmful, just as

harmful, more harmful, and much more harmful. In order to stray from bias, the

researchers used direct and indirect questions, for example, when being direct, the

researchers asked compared to smoking cigarettes, would you say that electronic

cigarettes are. . .. When the researchers were being indirect, they asked questions that

were more broad without a direct comparison such as, how harmful do you think each of

the following is to a persons health? The study concluded that only 26% of adults when

asked directly, rated electronic cigarettes as less harmful than traditional cigarettes. This

study proved how a great percentage of the adult population, around 74%, have the

incorrect perception about electronic cigarettes thus causing many people to stray from

using electronic cigarettes as a mean of quitting. This scholarly journal will also be a

good source to use because it wasnt biased and only contained facts based off of

statistical evidence.

Schwartz, Robert, PhD. Vaping Better than smoking, but still bad. PressReader.com-

Connecting People Through News. Press Reader, 16 Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Mar. 2017.

This was a newspaper article by Dr. Robert Schwartz from the University of Toronto. He

is currently the executive director at the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and the senior

scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental health. Schwartz used wrote this article

as a warning for non-current smokers to stray away from electronic cigarettes because
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nicotine is a harmful substance and to tell current smokers to start using electronic

cigarettes. He tells the reader that nicotine is a harmful and extremely addictive substance

that can hinder fetal development and also potentially cause cancer. However, if you are a

current smoker, Schwartz recommends you to switch over from traditional cigarettes to

electronic cigarettes because the known harms of electronic cigarettes are much less

harmful. Although electronic cigarette use is currently a heavily debated subject,

researchers took data from other studies and concluded that electronic cigarettes are

around 95% safer than cigarettes. There is also a lack in knowledge that electronic

cigarettes are supposed to be used as a smoking cessation tool and that should be the one

and only reason people should start to use them. Schwartz also suggested making tobacco

cigarettes more expensive and harder to obtain than electronic cigarettes essentially

forcing people to at least give electronic cigarettes a chance. I think that this newspaper

article reliable because it doesnt show any biased forms of information and instead of

bashing either side of the electronic cigarette versus traditional cigarette debate, he

instead offers a solution to the problem.

Wheeler, Regina Boyle. The Vape Debate: What You Need to Know. Smoking Cessation

Health Center. Ed. Laura J. Martin. WebMD, n.d. Web. 5 Mar. 2017.

This was a debate by many reputable people that wanted to see what the others thought

about electronic cigarette usage. Dr. Neal Benowitz, started off this debate by stating that

electronic cigarettes arent 100% safe, but because electronic cigarettes dont have

combustion actual tobacco, users are exposed to less toxins. One counter to this argument

was in the flavorings that are used in electronic cigarettes. In some electronic cigarette

juices, there is a chemical called diacetyl which is very dangerous when inhaled. It has
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been linked to cause a lung disease called popcorn lung. Another point that people

brought up was that electronic cigarettes are enticing to children with the many

assortments of different flavors. The CDC came out with data that backed up this claim,

teenage use of electronic cigarettes spiked up to 24% in 2015 however, cigarette usage

dropped to a historic low, which was just below 11%. Cigarette usage dropped to a

historic low because more children are using electronic cigarettes instead of smoking

traditional cigarettes. This can be both good and bad because although more children are

using electronic cigarettes, less children are going to be smoking traditional cigarettes

which is a lot worse for their health. I find that this debate is worthy source to use

because both sides brought up great arguments and only used facts rather than biased

opinions.