The Wall Street Journal - 07.10.2019

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age and expenses for reimburse-

ment and tax deductions, and

offers a free plan. Users of Ameri-

can Express business or corporate

cards can access a free mobile app

called Spend Manager that stores

receipt images and notes.

Writeto Sue Shellenbarger at

[email protected].

Q

Thanksfor your column on

the hazards of hiring for

cultural fit. What are your

thoughts on using written

assessments to figure out whether

an applicant has the personality

and motivation for the job? For

example, wouldn’t you want a

salesperson who is outgoing?—P.L.

A:Pre-hiring assessments can be

helpful if they go beyond analyzing

applicants’ personality to size up

whether their motivations, values

and preferred ways of working

would be a good fit. Personality

alone isn’t a good indicator of suc-

cess in a particular job. Not all

successful salespeople are outgo-

ing, for example. Some introverts

do very well in sales by listening

well, empathizing with customers

and understanding their needs.

Some pre-hiring assessments

for cultural fit force applicants to

choose between alternative moti-

vations, values and working styles.

They might explore whether a can-

didate prefers working alone or

collaborating on teams. They can

explore motivation as well, such as

whether candidates would be fired

up or intimidated by intense inter-

nal competition.

Employers have to define their

culture before they can use such

assessments. This also improves

their odds of hiring people who

will be a good fit. Finding recruits

who sync with a company’s values,

goals and preferred ways of work-

ing doesn’t harm efforts to in-

crease diversity.

People who share the same val-

ues and motivations can still think

differently and bring diverse expe-

riences and skills to bear on their

work—adding to the culture,

rather than just fitting in.

Q

Isaw your column on all the

ways people procrastinate

when filing expense reports

or avoid them altogether.

What are some apps people use to

make the process easier?—A.B.

ThePros and Cons of Written

Assessments for Job Prospects

A:More employ-

ers are using

cloud-based apps

that enable em-

ployees to scan

and store re-

ceipts and track

credit-card trans-

actions from

anywhere. SAP

Concur is a

widely used cor-

porate platform.

Abacus is

another app

gaining favor,

especially among

smaller employ-

ers, for expense

tracking, report-

ing and reim-

bursement.

Expensify is

used by both individuals and com-

panies for managing expenses and

scanning receipts, and offers a

free plan for individuals. Ever-

lance enables users to report mile-

duces users’ exposure to numer-

ous toxic substances present in

combustible tobacco cigarettes.

But other research has raised

questions about the relative safety

of vaping—even beyond the deaths

making headlines. One recent study

that exposed rats to 10 cycles of

two-second aerosol inhalation from

e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes

showed that blood vessel function

was similarly impaired. (The study

isn’t yet published, says principal

investigator Matthew Springer, a

professor in the cardiology division

at UCSF, but has been accepted by

the American Heart Association for

presentation).

Should I go back to cigarettes?

While research is still emerging

on e-cigarettes, the evidence on

smoking spans decades and is

clear: It is the leading cause of

preventable death in the U.S.

Adults who use e-cigarettes be-

cause they have quit smoking

should not return to smoking com-

bustible cigarettes, the CDC says.

OK, so then what?

For people trying to quit smok-

ing, Dr. Gotts says FDA-approved

cessation treatments such as the

patch or gum are better bets than

vaping. But he acknowledged that

those cessation products don’t

provide the same nicotine high.

That is why some doctors worry

that, if the problems turn out to be

largely limited to cannabis, ban-

ning all vaping could shut down a

valuable off-ramp for smokers. “I’m

concerned we will throw the baby

out with the bathwater,” says

Nancy Rigotti, a professor of medi-

cine at Harvard Medical School and

director of the tobacco research

and treatment center at Massachu-

setts General Hospital.

the line is blurring as counterfeit

products make their way into the

market and it becomes harder to

distinguish real from fake. Neal

Benowitz, a medical professor at

the University of California, San

Francisco, has been telling pa-

tients who vape to only buy from

licensed retailers or a manufac-

turer’s website. “But now I’m

even a little nervous about that,”

he says, with new reports from

Oregon Health Authority that the

state’s two vape-related deaths—

both involving cannabis—involved

products purchased from a li-

censed retail store. The state

agency recommends a stop on all

vaping products.

(A Juul spokesman says: “We ap-

preciate the work of the CDC, FDA,

and other public health authorities,

and are confident that they will get

to the bottom of this issue.”)

Is vaping still safer than cigarettes?

Before the recent surge in vap-

ing-related illnesses and deaths, e-

cigarettes were perceived as safer

than regular cigarettes, and a

good option for people who

wanted to quit. There was re-

search to back that up: A 2018 re-

port from the National Academies

of Sciences, Engineering, and

Medicine said that there was “con-

clusive evidence” that completely

substituting e-cigarettes for com-

bustible tobacco cigarettes re-

care at the University of Califor-

nia, San Francisco.

Is it just THC vaping that is the

problem or is it nicotine too?

The CDC cautions that THC-

containing or nicotine-containing

vaping products purchased legally

could contain harmful substances.

It is difficult for consumers to

know what is in these products,

and full ingredient lists are typi-

cally not available.

Electronic cigarettes, also called

vapes, produce an aerosol by heat-

ing a liquid typically containing

nicotine, flavorings and other ad-

ditives. In cannabis vapes, that

liquid often contains THC. It’s un-

A

svaping-related ill-

nesses and deaths

mount, adults who

vape are asking:

What should I do

now?

The question is especially diffi-

cult for people who switched to

vaping as a way to quit smoking.

Once widely seen as safer than

regular cigarettes, vaping is now

spurring new worries. The num-

ber of confirmed and probable

cases of vaping-associated illness

has risen to 1,080 across 48 states

and one U.S. territory, according

to the CDC. Nineteen people

have died.

“It’s been freaking people out,

customers coming in asking, ‘Is it

going to make me sick?’ ” says

Alex Terc, a 25-year-old employee

at The Noon vape shop in Silver

Spring, Md. Mr. Terc says he uses

a Juul e-cigarette regularly. Now,

he says, he wants to get checked

by a doctor.

States, stores and college cam-

puses have set new limits. Massa-

chusetts has implemented a four-

month statewide ban on sales of

all vaping products. Other states

including Rhode Island and Michi-

gan have moved to institute their

own temporary vaping bans on

flavored products. Walmart says

it will no longer sell vaping prod-

ucts. The Texas A&M University

system is instituting its own

broad ban on vaping.

We talked with doctors and reg-

ulators about what adults should

consider.

Is all vaping dangerous?

Doctors still aren’t certain what

is causing vaping-related deaths

and illnesses, so it’s impossible to

know for sure whether any vaping

is safe—even when done with a le-

gally purchased, nicotine-only de-

vice. Many doctors are cautioning

patients to quit vaping or find

other ways of getting off ciga-

rettes. “There is no long-term

safety data for any of these

things,” says Jeffrey Gotts, a pro-

fessor of pulmonary and critical

Asillnesses and deaths mount, people who vape—especially those trying to quit cigarettes—are wondering what to do

BYANNEMARIECHAKER

clearthe precise chemical that is

causing the mystery illness: Most

of the reported cases involved

THC vapes, but there were also

some that reported nicotine.

“People have vaped cannabis oil

for more than 10 years, so the

question is what is new that is

causing this,” says Jeffrey Chen, di-

rector of the UCLA Cannabis Re-

search Initiative. “The difficulty is

that when you don’t know what

you’re looking for, chemical analy-

sis becomes very difficult,” he says.

I thought the problem was vitamin

E additives. What if I just avoid

those?

Initially, doctors suspected vita-

min E oil and other

thickeners might

be the cause of

vaping-related ill-

nesses, but re-

searchers at the

Mayo Clinic have

raised doubts

about that theory.

They suspect dam-

age may be coming

from inhaling a

caustic chemical

fume. They exam-

ined lung-biopsy

tissue from a

group of patients

diagnosed with

vaping-associated

lung injuries. Most

of the patients had

vaped using car-

tridges containing

marijuana or can-

nabis oils.

Are there problems

with the legitimate

store-bought

products?

Experts say that

Doctors still aren’t certain what is causing vaping-related deaths and illnesses. States, stores

and college campuses are setting new limits on vaping.

SEL

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