November 27, 2014
November 26, 2014
In a comment on another post on this blog Jon Krueger reminded me that in 2010 Rebecca Schane, Pam Ling, and I published "Health Effects of Light and Intermittent Smoking" in Circulation. It concluded:
November 26, 2014
One reason that has been offered as to why e-cigarettes have not been effective at helping people stop smoking is that the e-cigarettes were "first generation" that worked at relatively low voltages and had other design features that made them less than optimal from the perspective of delivering an adequate dose of nicotine to users. Two small studies were recently published presenting data that these "second generation" e-cigarettes are more effective at delivering nicotine.
November 25, 2014
The investment firm Morgan Stanley has looked at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans and sees no action on menthol planned.
Here is what they say:
Menthol Risk Recedes; FTC Risk Accruing Largely to LO [Lorillard]
The release of OMB’s unified agenda (no menthol mentions) further reduces FDA-related transaction risk. However, LO shares still offer balanced riskreward & OMB yesterday published its unified fall agenda (the administration’s list of planned NTM regulation), which encouragingly includes no mention of menthol regulation. While L-T risk remains, this suggests an increasingly low probability of menthol “news” prior to the expected 1H15 transaction closure. Note that that spring agenda has in recent years been issued during late May or early June.
November 25, 2014
This comment was just submitted to FDA. The tracking number is 1jy-8fp5-z353
Swedish Match’s claim that perceptions of health risks of snus are exaggerated
is likely incorrect
Docket ID: FDA-2014-N-1051
Lucy Popova, PhD & Pamela M. Ling, MD, MPH
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
University of California San Francisco
November 24, 2014
The petitioners claim that “adults generally, and smokers in particular, had an exaggerated perception of the health risks related to snus use” (p. 688). In support of this claim, they cite five studies with adults and one with youth that measured perceptions of relative risk, all done in Scandinavia.
Leaving aside the issue whether the Scandinavian data on harm perceptions are applicable to the US case, there is another serious problem with this claim. This issue is detailed in our attached paper, “Perceptions of Relative Risk of Snus and Cigarettes Among US Smokers” (American Journal of Public Health 2013;103:e21–e23. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301547).