October 26, 2019
Earlier this week, the FDA issued its first “modified risk tobacco product” (MRTP) order, allowing Swedish Match to make the following claim in its advertising: “Using General Snus instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.”
Eric Lindblom, Director, Tobacco Control and Food & Drug Law at Georgetown Law, sent me these comments, which I am passing along with his permission. They continue to show a willingness of the FDA to trust the tobacco companies. I am also disappointed that there was not a more explicit engagement with the public comments that we and other public health authorities submitted.
Here are Eric’s comments:
The final order letter seems to include the exact same advertising restrictions placed on IQOS via the PMTA order – basically requiring age and ID verification and the like to prevent social media and electronic advertising from reaching youth, and requiring disclosures of Swedish Match’s sponsorship of any partners, influencers, bloggers or brand ambassadors who push the product on behalf of the company.
However, it also states:
October 26, 2019
One of the problems that we have been facing is the fact that, for the most part, state laws legalizing cannabis have been enacted through the initiative rather than the legislative process and the people writing and passing these initiatives’ main goal is making cannabis as available as possible with little or no attention to the public health implications of these laws.
It is likely that enacting laws through a legislative process (if the health groups actively participate) could yield more balanced public policies.
October 23, 2019
This news article published on October 23, 2019 in Argentina reporta a man 30 years old who is in the hospital with a lung disease similar to the one seen in the US, Britian, Japan and elsewhere: https://www.pagina12.com.ar/226719-cigarrillo-electronico-confirman-el-primer-caso-grave .
The article is in Spanish. Here is the translation from Google translate:
Electronic cigarette: confirm the first serious case
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.