June 9, 2014
Clive Bates, a private consultant and well-established e-cigarette advocate, has organized a remarkable letter to WHO Director General on 26 May 2014 signed by 53 public health specialists criticising WHO for not enthusiastically embracing e-cigarettes as a harm reduction technique.[1]
The most notable thing about the letter, which contains several sweeping scientific statements, is that it does not contain a single reference to the scientific literature, particularly the substantial literature that does not support the political position the letter advocates.
Here are a few broad reactions before getting in to the specifics:
June 8, 2014
Randy Uang, Richard Barnes, and I have just completed your state report on Illinois, Tobacco Policymaking in Illinois, 1965-2014: Gaining Ground in a Short Time, which can be downloaded for free here.
Here is the Executive Summary:
Health and Budgetary Costs of Tobacco Use in Illinois
- Tobacco-induced diseases cost $785 million in state Medicaid expenditures in 2005; over1 percent of the state budget in the 2010s went to treating the health effects of tobacco.
Tobacco Industry Influence
June 8, 2014
My colleague Suzaynn Schick and some others just submitted this public comment to FDA.
The FDA should not exempt “premium” cigars from regulation (i.e., reject "Option 2) and should include the fifth FTC warning (Tobacco Use Increases the Risk of Infertility, Stillbirth and Low Birth Weight) on the packaging of all cigars.
Although large, expensive cigars may be used differently by different sectors of society, there are still plenty of people in the U.S. who can afford to smoke them regularly. Premium cigar smokers should neither be excluded from the education that health warnings provide, nor spared the emotional distress the warnings may provoke. All tobacco and nicotine deliver products need to be labeled clearly and consistently. Failure to do so creates the false impression that products without health warnings are less risky to use than labeled products. In the case of premium cigars, this is certainly not true.
June 6, 2014
Lauren Dutra and I just submitted this public comment to the FDA on the deeming rule (PDF version):
The Proposed Two Year Phase in for Requiring Premarket Approval of Newly Deemed Tobacco Products is Too Long; 6 Months Would be More Appropriate
Docket No. FDA-2014-N-0189
Lauren M Dutra, ScD
Stanton A Glantz, PhD
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
University of California San Francisco
June 6, 2014
The FDA has proposed a 2-year delay in implementing the premarket approval provisions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act for newly deemed products. Products would be allowed to remain on the market, and the FDA would not “initiate enforcement action against the product for failing to have an FDA marketing authorization unless and until FDA issues an order denying the PMTA [premarket tobacco applications] under 910(c)” (p. 23176). The FDA also asked for public comment on the possibility of “extending the compliance period” for small manufacturers (p. 23177).
June 4, 2014
A group of scientists from UCSF and Stanford (Ganna Kostygina, PhD, Elizabeth Couch, RDH, MS, Margaret Walsh, Ed.D., Rachel Grana, MPH, PhD, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, FSAHM,*Lauren K. Lempert, JD, MPH, Pamela M. Ling, MPH, MD) have submitted an extensive public comment to FDA on the issue of flavored tobacco products.
The full comment is 13 pages long and available as a PDF here.
Here is the first two paragrpahs oft he comment: