October 22, 2019
I must admit to have been underwhelmed by California Governor Gavin Newsom's executive order to deal with the epidemic of severe lung disease and death in people vaping THC and nicotine.
But now the California Department of Public Health has launched a stunning campaign, "Outbreak," of video and radio ads warning kids and their parents as well as young adults to stop vaping everything. It points people to the Department's VapeOutbreak.org website for more details.
The ads are careful to remain true to the CDC's recommendation that people stop all vaping because, as of this date, the specific causes of the severe lung disease are not know.
October 20, 2019
The fact that e-cigarettes deliver substantially lower levels of tobacco specific nitrosamines that cigarettes has been the basis for the assumption that e-cigarettes pose much lower cancer risk. A new mouse study shows that, despite delivering lower levels of TSNAs, e-cigarettes still cause cancer.
Moon-shong Tang and colleagues at NYU exposed mice to e-cigarette aerosol for 4 hours per day 5 days a week for 54 weeks and found lung cancers in 22.5% and bladder hyperplasia in 57.5% of the mice. Exposing the mice to nicotine-free aerosol (i.e., PG/VG alone) did not increase cancer incidence.
October 17, 2019
I was just putting something together on this, but Ronin Koval from Truth said it all (below). The one thing I would add is that when other flavors were pulled, many kids just went to menthol.
Statement from Truth Initiative CEO & President Robin Koval on JUUL announcement to pull all non-menthol flavors
JUUL deserves no congratulations for its announcement today that it will cease to sell flavored e-cigarettes other than mint and menthol. We, and JUUL, know that mint and menthol are among the most popular flavors for youth, with 64% of high school e-cigarette users using those flavors. We also know, as does the tobacco industry, that menthol has been and continues to be the starter flavor of choice for young cigarette users. Without question, this is a calculated move by JUUL's new tobacco industry leadership to forestall the Trump administration’s promise to remove all flavored e-cigarettes from the market. The administration should not be influenced and should immediately put its plan in place to remove all flavored e-cigarettes, including mint and menthol, from the market and put an end to the youth e-cigarette epidemic and this giant chemistry on our kids that has put the health of America's young people at great risk.
October 17, 2019
In a pre-emptive move serving the commercial interests of Hollywood studios already heavily subsidized by Toronto, Ontario’s government has killed off its decades-old provincial film rating service.
October 14, 2019
Jeff Gotts, Sven-Eric Jordt, Rob McConnell, and Robert Tarran recently published “What are the respiratory effects of e-cigarettes?” in BMJ. This article provides an extensive (and readable) comprehensive assessment of the evidence on the pulmonary effects of e-cigarettes, covering the population, clinical, animal, and cellular evidence on the effects of e-cigarettes. (The paper has 193 citations.) While dealing with technical matters, the authors do a remarkably good job of explaining their findings in a way that normal people can understand.
Everyone one following the e-cigarette debate should read this paper, especially the FDA and other regulatory authorities because it shows that the situation is a lot more complex than the idea that getting rid of combustion is all that is needed to make a product that is substantially safer than a cigarette.
Another favor that the authors do for readers (and regulators) is to include the tobacco industry-funded studies and make the point that most of the industry studies – unlike the rest of the literature – do not find lung problems with e-cigs.
Here is the abstract: