January 20, 2015
The California Department of Public Health recently released a low key brochure on e-cigarettes, Protect Your Family from e-cigarettes, that explained that e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is not harmless, that the aerosol they produce is not water vapor, that they should not be used indoors, and warning people about the dangers of drinking the e-liquid.
This brochure, like effective action by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network to block pro-industry Trojan Horse bills that nominally restrict e-cigarette sales to kids while writing technical protections for industry into law, was attacked by the reliably pro-industry American Council on Science and Health's Dr. Gilbert Ross. I had to chuckle when I read his bio at the end, which said
January 15, 2015
All the criticism of the FDA's application of a "consumer surplus" discount to substantially offset the benefits of reducing smoking because of the lost pleasure of smoking has led the Department of Health and Human Services to convene an expert committee of economists to assess using consume surplus in this way.
While this is a step forward, the fact that the Department has only involved economists in the discussion has excluded a wide range of scientific knowledge and perspectives from this discussion, which seriously biases the outcome of these deliberations in favor of continuing the application of a consumer surplus discount, even though the rate may be moderated.
Anna Song and I recently published a commentary on a paper published in Tobacco Control by a respected group of economists criticizing the FDA addresses this point in Tobacco Control, which is available. It states, in part:
January 13, 2015
In December 2014, the Shasta California County Board of Supervisors moved to amend its smokefree law to add e-cigarettes to the list of covered tobacco products. Prior to the public hearing on Tuesday, December 16, a member of Nor Cal Vape sent the Board of Supervisors a report entitled Smoking Ordinances and Electronic Cigarettes prepared by Wisconsin Smoke-Free Alternatives Coalition with help from the e-cigarette advocacy group Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA) arguing against including e-cigarettes in the county’s ordinance.
The Board unanimously voted (5-0) to amend its comprehensive clean indoor air ordinance to include electronic cigarettes.
Since the arguments in this booklet are likely to appear elsewhere, Rachel Barry, a member of my research team, and I have prepared an analysis of the claims it makes.
"Most of the information provided to lawmakers is from special interests that have a clear agenda against tobacco harm reduction policies."
January 12, 2015
The American Cancer Society has clearly hit a nerve of e-cigarette/tobacco interests by working to block industry Trojan Horse bills that use nominal restrictions on e-cigarette sales to kids to get industry-friendly definitions of e-cigarettes written into law that make it harder to regulate use of and tax e-cigarettes.
The most recent evidence that ACS is doing the right thing is a broadly worded attack in a blog published on The Hill, which is read by DC insiders, by the American Council on Science and Health's Gilbert Ross. Ross complains that, “The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network’s roams the country to wherever a bill is proposed that would ban the sale of ecigs to minors — if such a bill also carves out a non-tobacco-product status for them.”