April 9, 2015
The CDC TIPS for former smokers has release an ad warning people who are trying to quit smoking about the dangers of dual use of e-cigarettes and cigarettes. This is an important and timely addition to the Tips from Former Smokers campaign that the CDC has been running.
This is an important message to counter the misinformation that just replacing some cigaretters with e-cigarettes is a good thing.
When people ask me about using e-cigarettes to quit, I tell them that e-cigarettes are not FDA approved for smoking cessation and that there are other products that have been tested and demonstrated to be effective. But if they want to try quitting cigarettes using e-cigarettes, it is very important that they stop smoking cigarettes entirely. (Read more)
You can learn more about Kristy and hear her story in her own words here.
The CDC needs to make this one of their TV and radio ads.
April 5, 2015
A March 31, 2015 “policy analysis,” E-cigarettes Poised to Save Medicaid Billions, prepared by J. Scott Moody, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief economist at the organization State Budget Solutions, has started popping up state legislatures all over the country.
The basic argument in this “policy analysis” is that
April 4, 2015
On March 23, 2015, Dr Richard Cottrell, the Director General of the World Sugar Research Organisation, published comment criticising of the paper, "Sugar Industry Influence on the Scientific Agenda of the National Institute of Dental Research’s 1971 National Caries Program: A Historical Analysis of Internal Documents" Cristin Kearns, Laura Schmidt and I published in PLoS Medicine.
The most interesting thing about Dr. Cottrell's criticisms is that they are all contrdicted by the sugar industry's own internal documents. Here is our response to what he wrote:
The World Sugar Research Organization’s (WSRO) response [1] to our paper Sugar Industry Influence on the Scientific Agenda of the National Institute of Dental Research’s 1971 National Caries Program: A Historical Analysis of Internal Documents [2] illustrates how the sugar industry continues to try to protect itself from potentially damaging research.
None of the criticisms in the WSRO letter contest the substantive results of our analysis of internal sugar industry documents.
March 29, 2015
Julia Belluz of Vox Media published an excellent story summing up the hyper-aggressive social media presence that e-cigarette advocates have mounted against anyone with the temerity to question the unrestricted use of e-cigarettes.
She did a particularly nice job of describing attacks on the California Department of Public Health’s new educational campaign.
No doubt they will be going after the CDC next, as it launches ads warning against dual use of e-cigs and cigarettes.
You can read her story here.
March 29, 2015
E-cigarette enthusiasts, particularly from the UK, have consistently minimized the possibility that e-cigarette use was increasing among kids and that e-cigarette use would predict later smoking.
Graham Moore and colleagues recently published “E-cigarette use and intentions to smoke among 10-11-year-old never-smokers in Wales,” a carefully done survey of 1500 youth that found that