July 23, 2014
Monique Muggli, Howard Crystal, and Kim Klauser just published an excellent paper in Tobacco Control outlining the recent history of keeping the tobacco industry documents flowing into public view, including listing some of the improvements to the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library that will be released for public use in September, including:
July 23, 2014
Maya Ben-Efraim and Robert Jackler from Stanford just submitted this comment to the FDA on the deeming rule:
“Super High” Nicotine Youth Appealing Electronic Cigarette Flavors
Electronic cigarette liquid (ejuice) is available in a variety of nicotine strengths ranging as high as 36 mg/ml and even 54 mg/ml. Nicotine levels of 16mg/ml are usually advertised by the electronic cigarette industry as “full flavored” while nicotine levels of 36 mg/ml are described as “super high” or “unfiltered”.
Super high nicotine concentrations are available in youth appealing flavors such as Peppermint Party, Banana Split, Marshmallow, Tutti Fruti Gumballs, My Birthday Cake, Carnival Cotton Candy, Totally Toffee, Strawberrylicious, Chocolate, and Energy Drink. These e-liquids are marketed online with bright and colorful images (see accompanying Powerpoint) and dispensed in similarly colorful bottles. It is quite evident that these are designed to appeal to teens. The numerous sweet flavored variety are also attractive to younger children.
As measured by Calafat and co-workers, Marlboro has 0.92 mg nicotine per cigarette. A 10 cc bottle of 36mg/ml chocolate e-liquid has the nicotine equivalent of 391 cigarettes.
July 22, 2014
July 23, 2014
Docket No. FDA-2014-N-0189
On July 15, 2014, the New York Times published the attached article, "E-Cigarette Makers Are in an Arms Race for Exotic Vapor Flavors," that documents the importance of flavored e-cigarettes, particularly in attracting youth to the use of nicotine.
The FDA should seriously consider this information, particularly the change in NJOY's assessment of the effects of flavors on youth between when it was not using flavors to when it decided to start using flavors to maintain its market share, and prohibit the use of flavors in e-cigarettes as part of the current rulemaking (and not delay action to a subsequent rule making).
The e-cigarette companies state that flavors are important for attracting not only youth but also adults to their products. The FDA needs to resist the urge to focus entirely on youth and consider these effects on adults, because the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act requires the FDA to apply a population public health standard to the entire population not just to youth.
Stanton A. Glantz, PhD
Professor and Director
July 22, 2014
We just submitted this comment to FDA on the deeming rule.
FDA Should Not Exclude Accessories from the Scope of the Deeming Rule
Docket No. FDA-2014-N-0189
July 22, 2014
Matthew Farrelly and collaegaues at RTI and the CDC Office on smoking an health recently published a nice paper, "Are tobacco control policies effective in reducing young adult smoking?" in Journal of Adolescent Health that shows that spending on state tobacco control programs and clean indoor air laws are associated with less young adult smoking.
Here is the abstract:
PURPOSE:
We examined the influence of tobacco control program funding, smoke-free air laws, and cigarette prices on young adult smoking outcomes.
METHODS: