May 30, 2018
The biological and clinical evidence that e-cigarettes are really bad for lungs has been rapidly piling up; now the first evidence linking e-cigarette use with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been presented. At the American Thoracic Society meeting in May 2018, Mario Perez and colleagues presented an analysis of the NIDA/FDA PATH study and found a strong link between e-cigarette use and COPD.
They compared having been told they were diagnosed with COPD (including COPD, chronic bronchitis, or emphysema) among current (some day or every day) with people who did not use e-cigarettes. They controlled for other tobacco product usage and secondhand smoke exposure using a technique called propensity score matching. Accounting for matched propensities, there were 1321 e-cigarette users and 1321 nonusers. E-cigarette users were about twice as likely to have COPD (odds ratio, 1.86; 95% CI, 1.22-2.83).
May 30, 2018
My colleagues and I just submitted this public comment to the FDA. The tracking number is 1k2-93fq-mfpc. A PDF (including all the footnotes) is here.
To minimize illicit tobacco trade, FDA should reject any partnership with the tobacco industry, reject industry estimates and exaggeration of illicit trade, and use the FCTC Protocol on Illicit Trade as a model to counter the supply side of illicit trade
May 24, 2018
In the battle over the future of San Francisco’s law ending the sale of flavored tobacco products (no all tobacco products, as the RJ Reynolds tobacco company campaign claims), RJR’s NO on Prop E campaign continues to talk about freedom and the health groups’ Yes on Prop E campaign talks about flavors attracting kids.
May 23, 2018
My colleagues and I just submitted this public comment to the FDA. The tracking number on Regulations.gov is 1k2-93bc-raaf and a PDF of the comment (which has all the footnotes) is available here.
FDA should implement its proposed rule that manufacturers must present scientific evidence demonstrating that any flavored tobacco product is appropriate for the protection of the public health before receiving marketing authorization to use that flavor
May 10, 2018
We have published research (study 1, study 2, study 3) describing how existing laws legalizing recreational marijuana – including California Proposition 64 -- do not prioritize public health. Several people have pointed out to me that, to date, most of the legislation has been drafted by marijuana legalization advocates who were prioritizing business interests over public health and that they have been dominating the discussion because there have not been analyses and models of how to write marijuana legislation that prioritized health.
Dan Orenstein and I have tried to contribute to this discussion with our new report, Public Health Language for Recreational Cannabis Laws, which lays out the evidence basis for regulations based on public health best practices from tobacco and alcohol and provides some specific implementing language. The full report is available on the University of California eScholarship site at https://escholarship.org/uc/item/05d5g5db .