September 21, 2019
Michelle Manderski, Binu Singh, and Cristine Delnevo wrote a letter to American Journal of Preventive Medicine criticizing the paper that Talal Alzahrani and I published using the 2014 and 2016 National Health Interview Survey to demonstrate a cross-sectional association between using e-cigarettes and having had a heart attack on the grounds that we did not include the 2015 data.
As we pointed out in our response, “Adding Data From 2015 Strengthens the Association Between E-Cigarette Use and Myocardial Infarction.” The reason that we did not include 2015 in the original paper is that we did not realize that the 2015 survey asked about e-cigarettes because the question was in a supplement not the main survey. In any event, adding the new data made the association between nondaily e-cig user and MI significant, something that we did not find in our original study. Daily e-cig use was statistically significant in both the original study and with the 2015 data added.
September 21, 2019
The Government of India has stopped the sale of e-cigarettes (and other electronic nicotine delivery systems [ENDS], including PMI’s IQOS heated tobacco product) through emergency legislation (called an “ordinance”), in which the president issues an order on behalf of the Cabinet when the Parliament is not in session. The Ordinance will be considered by Parliament when it returns in December, which can overturn it or enact it into permanent law. Because India has a parliamentary system, the ordinance is likely to be passed into law.
September 21, 2019
The San Francisco Chronicle just published a great story on a complaint that SF Supervisor Shamann Walton filed with the FDA reporting that Juul was making illegal therapeutic (cessation) and modified risk claims as part of its campaign for its Proposition C initiative that would overturn existing regulations of e-cigs in San Francisco.
As Catherine Ho reported in her story, “Under federal law, tobacco manufacturers including Juul and other e-cigarette makers cannot claim their products are less harmful than cigarettes, or claim that they help people quit cigarettes, unless the FDA has granted them permission after reviewing scientific evidence showing the claims are true. The agency ordered Juul on Sept. 9 to immediately stop making unproven safety claims or face civil penalties or seizure of its products.”
September 20, 2019
Marketplace did a good story on Juul trying to give its money to scientists. My favorite line is when Nashville tobacco prevention coordinator Lillian Maddox-Whitehead at a recent meeting organized by black public health activists on Meharry’s campus, said “I just want to say that if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” You can listen to the story here.
September 20, 2019
Dharma Bhatta, Stella Bialous, Eric Crosbie, and I just published "Exceeding FCTC obligations: Nepal overcoming tobacco industry interference to enact a comprehensive tobacco control policy" in Nicotine and Tobacco Research. As the title suggests, this paper describes how tobacco control advocates in Nepal, with collaboration from international partners, overcame industry opposition to enact strong tobacco control legislation. They made particularly creative use of litigation -- something the tobacco companies do -- to move tobacco control forward. This paper is the sequel to our earlier paper, "Tobacco control in Nepal during a time of government turmoil (1960-2006)."
Here is the abstract: