December 16, 2013
Today the New York Times published its second editorial calling on President Obama to support language clearly exempting tobacco from the corporate protections that are included in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty that he is negotiating.
This editorial follows an excellent story in the Times on December 12 on how the tobacco companies have been using existing trade agreements to bully low and middle income countries to block tobacco control policies.
Despite these clean calls to adopt unequivocal language to "carve out" tobacco from the TPP, as proposed a few months ago by Malaysia, the Obama Administration keeps tap dancing around the issue. The problem is that some finely crated technical language will just mean that Big Tobacco's lawyers will earn a little more money beating up smaller countries.
December 13, 2013
The research group at Roswell Park Cancer Center has just published a nice paper in which they measure the amount of nicotine, fine particles, and several other toxins in the air around someone using e-cigarettes. They also collected the same information for conventional cigarettes.
It is also consistent with work showing that passive vapers absorb nicotine.
The e-cigarettes were used for 5 minutes and, separately, two cigarettes were smoked during a 30 minute period.
There were significant increases in nicotine and ultrafine particles following use of both products, with the cigarettes producing about 10 times as much nicotine and 7 times as much particulate matter as the e-cigarettes.
Bottom line: For a given level of consumption, e-cigarettes pollute the air less than conventional cigarettes.
But they pollute the air than nonsmokers are breathing,
December 12, 2013
As part of the process of issuing regulations, the FDA (or any other agency) conducts a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed regulation to make sure it is worth doing. The FDA's ill-fated regulation on graphic warning labels was no exception. The Agency's cost-benefit analysis did find a very small net benefit, but that small showing was not enough to convince the courts that the warning label rule was legal in the face of a constitutional challenge.
Last month Jidong Huang, Frank Chaloupka, and Geoff Fong published an excellent paper showing that the FDA gross underestimated the benefits that graphic warning labels would have on cigarette consumption and made the point that this severe underestimation undermined the FDA's ability to defend the warning labels in court as necessary.
Today we published a paper in American Journal of Public Health that shows how the FDA grossly overestimated the costs of reducing smoking by counting, as a substantial cost, the lost pleasure people would experience if they were not smoking.
December 10, 2013
Here are the Union's recommendations. The full document is available here.
• The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) has issued this position statement based on a careful review of the scientific evidence; the position statement will be reviewed by mid-2015.
• The safety of electronic cigarettes (ECs) or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) has not been scientifically demonstrated.
• Adverse health effects for third parties exposed (second-hand exposure) cannot be excluded because the use of electronic cigarettes leads to emission
of fi ne and ultrafine inhalable liquid particles, nicotine and cancer-causing substances into indoor air.
• The benefits of e-cigarettes have not been scientifically proven. To date, very few studies have assessed ECs/ENDS as a harm reduction and cessation aid, with conflicting findings.
• The Union is concerned that the marketing, awareness and use of ECs or ENDS is growing rapidly.
• A range of current and proposed legislative and regulatory options exists; some countries (such as Brazil, Norway, and Singapore) have banned ECs/
ENDS completely.
December 10, 2013
The Kentucky Regional Poison Control Center of Kosair Children’s Hospital has received 39 calls about e-cigarettes so far this year, a 333-percent increase from nine calls received in 2012. Nationally, poison control centers have seen a 161 percent increase in calls from people with concerns about these devices. With sales of e-cigarettes doubling to $1.5 billion in the past year, the calls are likely to increase.
Details here.