World Health Organization slammed by fact-checkers for claiming vaping can ... trends now
The World Health Organization was slammed last night for claiming vaping can lead to a seizure within hours.
The global health agency was fact checked on X by users, prompting the social platform to post a Community Note.
The note said: 'This post is based on inconclusive evidence utilizing studies that have not been peer reviewed.
'The claim is based on approximately 120 incidents that occurred since 2019 with an inconclusive outcome.'
The World Health Organization published the above tweet on Monday
X's Community Notes quickly added the claim in WHO's tweet had been called into question by users
Dr Charles Gardner, a Brooklyn-based developmental neurobiologist, tweeted: 'Please provide peer-reviewed evidence for this claim that vaping causes seizures "typically within 24 hours."
'If you cannot do this, then please delete your tweet. NOTE: I have searched the literature and cannot find one study showing higher risk of seizures.'
Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst for Transform Drug Policy Foundation - a drug policy reform organization, said: 'Pretty sure this is nonsense. Why is the WHO's position on vaping so weirdly misaligned?'
Other users called the WHO clowns, liars and claimed it was promoting propaganda.
The fresh wave of criticism comes as the organization is still trying to win back public trust after what many deem was a botched response from the WHO to the Covid pandemic.
It advised against wearing masks for months at the start of the pandemic and numerous scientists have slammed WHO's reluctance to acknowledge Covid was frequently spread in the air and by people without symptoms.
Additionally, WHO released a report in 2021 concluding COVID-19 most likely jumped from animals to humans, dismissing the possibility it originated in a lab, a theory multiple government agencies subscribe to.
But the organization backtracked the following year, saying 'key pieces of data' were still missing and it was premature to rule out Covid might have ties to a lab.
The community note on X included a link to an editorial on vaping and seizures.
The 2020 editorial in the Journal of Adolescent Health critiqued a 2019 study that analyzed a series of 122 seizures and other neurological symptoms among people who had reported vaping in the previous 24 hours.
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