Smoke versus Vapor

The Tobacco Industry vs the Electronic Cigarette

 


----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Godshall
To: National Smoke Free Housing Listserv
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 5:43 PM
Subject: Re: (SMARTalk)Electronic Cigarette Association now lobbying against smokefree laws


I think it important to caution/warn smokefree advocates that claiming e-cigarettes pose a health hazard to nonusers, trying to redefine smoking to include the use of e-cigarettes, banning the manufacturing/sale of e-cigarettes, and/or including a ban on the use of e-cigarettes in smokefree workplace legislation threatens to discredit the scientific integrity and sincerity of the entire smokefree movement. Unless/until there is clear evidence that e-cigarettes pose a hazard to nonusers (and no such evidence exists), there is no public health benefit (or rationale) for banning their use in workplaces, public places, homes or anywhere else.

Since there is no evidence that e-cigarettes have ever harmed any e-cigarette user, I cannot think of more effective way to destroy the credibility of health organizations and smokefree advocates than to claim that e-cigarettes pose a health hazard to nonusers, and to advocate banning the use of e-cigarettes wherever smoking is banned.

Including a ban on the use of e-cigarettes in smokefree workplace legislation also misleads the public to believe that e-cigarettes are as hazardous as cigarettes and tobacco smoke pollution, and will make it even more difficult to get the legislation enacted (as e-cigarette users will oppose it, while I and other smokefree advocates will urge elected officials to remove e-cigarettes from the legislation by pointing out that there is no evidence that e-cigarettes have ever harmed any user or nonuser).

The primary reason the smokefree movement has been successful during the past three decades is because we've consistently pointed out that we are NOT tobacco/nicotine prohibitionists or slippery slopers (who also want to ban the use of anything else we may dislike). Instead, we repeatedly pointed out that our ONLY goal was to protect nonsmokers from indoor tobacco smoke pollution, which is truly a health hazard.

Following is the portion of public comments I recently submitted to the FDA pertaining to e-cigarettes. I urge everyone to review the available evidence about e-cigarettes, which clearly indicates that banning e-cigarettes and/or banning the use of e-cigarettes indoors doesn't benefit public health, but rather benefits cigarette markets. Instead of opposing e-cigarettes and misleading/scaring the public about the products, smokefree advocates should be collaborating with e-cigarette users and vendors to further reduce cigarette smoking and tobacco smoke pollution.

Bill Godshall

Smokefree Pennsylvania
 smokefree@compuserve.com

 


Public Response


Posted by: Jan | August 20, 2009 at 01:43 AM

I'm not a smoker and I, along with other non-smokers, do not understand the reasoning behind the FDA's actions. Sure I've read the anti ecig reasons and for us they have nothing to do with the Ecig--greed, self-interest, and it's my way or no way.

Around a million people are using the ecig. That means our parents,children, and other family loved ones are off tobacco. It means that our neighbors, our friends, and other loved ones are off tobacco.

For years Americans question why certain products made it to the market that shouldn't but we always made excuses for the FDA because we didn't want to give up trust in them.

This though has stripped so many of any trust. As far as alot of people are concerned there ought to be an investigation into this government agency.

But such an investigation would mean involving government. Our senators and our congressman. So, not too many Americans would have any faith in the outcome because the majority of us don't trust our representatives.


 

FDA Unsure Whether Smoking is Worse Than Not Smoking

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Referring to smokers who switch to electronic cigarettes, FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey tells a St. Louis paper, “We don’t know if this is any better for them.” If the FDA really doesn’t know whether inhaling water vapor containing nicotine is less dangerous than inhaling smoke containing myriad toxins and carcinogens, it cannot be trusted to make scientific judgments about the safety of anything it regulates. But since the FDA has approved various nicotine replacement products (including inhalers!) as safe and effective smoking cessation aids, we have to assume/hope DeLancey is lying, just as FDA spokeswoman Rita Chappelle presumably was lying when she told NPR “some people may mistakenly perceive [e-cigarettes] to be safer alternatives to conventional tobacco use,” thereby asserting that they are not, in fact, safer, even though they do not contain tobacco and do not generate combustion products.

Smoking 2.0 continued

 

The FDA’s Latest Half-Baked Claims on Smoking

The FDA has been a trusted, government-run agency that regulates the health and safety issues of our food, drugs, and insecticides since the beginning of the 20th century. As the link between government and business, the FDA has been granted a great deal of responsibility to deliver to the public the facts about which products are either safe or harmful. We, the public, put a lot of trust into the FDA, but with that trust comes the danger of being deceived. So, is this government run agency using the influence they have for their own benefit?

Well, in the days of late, the FDA has been discouraging us from trying a new product on the market designed to help those who smoke (40 million Americans) find an alternative that’s been proven to be categorically safe by virtually all independent medical reviews of the product EXCEPT those conducted by the FDA.

Continued

 


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Anti-Smoking Groups are Full of Baloney, Claiming that Ban on Flavored Cigarettes Will Break Cycle of Addiction


The Truth: Not a Single Philip Morris or R.J. Reynolds Product Will Be Taken Off the Market Under Flavored Cigarettes Ban

According to statements from a number of anti-smoking groups and advocates in response to yesterday's implementation of the ban on flavored cigarettes under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the ban will break the cycle of addiction for millions of young people who start smoking each year by getting rid of products that are very popular among these kids due to their sweet candy and fruit flavors.

The Department of Health and Human Services was quoted as saying: "Flavored cigarettes attract and allure kids into lifetime addiction. The FDA's ban on these cigarettes will break that cycle for the more than 3,600 young people who start smoking daily."

Continued

 

Negative Reactions Mystify Electronic Cigarette Owners


Posted by Bin Du | September 14th, 2009 at 7:51 pm |

"There is no substantial evidence that these devices do any harm to the user or bystanders around the user," argued Spike Babaian, of Long Island, NY, in a recent press release. "Despite the plethora of evidence provided to the Suffolk County legislature, that shows evidence that these devices are no more harmful than consuming a hot dog, they have determined that the "stress, fear and confusion," which the public could potentially feel due to the presence of the fog, was sufficient reason to force vapers to follow the Suffolk County smoking ordinance and utilize these devices only in areas where smoking is allowed."

"This restriction would push thousands of non-smoking Suffolk County residents who utilize nicotine vaporizers into smoking areas where they would be exposed to the second hand smoke and toxic chemicals that they quit smoking to avoid," continued Babian. "This is a clear violation of the civil rights of non-smokers who wish to avoid the toxic chemicals given off by cigarette smoke. This law was passed based on public fear, rather than fact, and the total disregard for the safety of these former smokers is an unjustifiable disgrace. Suffolk County's Health and Human Services Committee, which is supposed to protect the health of Suffolk County residents, has put "psychological discomfort" of the minority ahead of physical health and that is an unforgivable offense."

Aside from putting electronic cigarette owners back into the toxic cloud produced by tobacco smoke, personal vaporizer owners point out that their vapor doesn't contain the amounts of lethal toxins nor does it behave in the same manner as cigarette smoke. The vapor isn't created unless actively in use, unlike the smoke that continuously comes from a lit cigarette and it doesn't appear to travel more than a couple of feet from the user. It also tends to dissipate more quickly than smoke, making it fairly undetectable and unobtrusive for those nearby, so presenting the two as the same thing is misleading.

Continued



 

Electronic Cigarette Smokers Weigh In on FDA Lawsuit

  • Posted September 10, 2009 at 7:11 pm

On Thursday, September 10, 2009, an ad-hoc group of electronic cigarette users, calling themselves the Alliance of Electronic Smokers, filed an amicus brief in the litigation against the FDA by two electronic cigarette suppliers.

Here is the information regarding their brief:

MOTION OF ALLIANCE OF ELECTRONIC SMOKERS FOR LEAVE TO PARTICIPATE AND FILE BRIEF AS AMICUS CURIAE

The Alliance of Electronic Smokers (AES), as an interested nonparty, respectfully moves the Court for leave to participate and file a brief as amicus curiae in this litigation in support of Plaintiff’s and Intervenor-Plaintiffs’ Motions for Preliminary Injunction.  Continued



 


American Association of Public Health Physicians writes on behalf of Electronic Cigarettes to the Incoming Director of the FDA

  • Posted August 30, 2009 at 4:11 pm

August 29, 2009
Lawrence Deyton, MD
Incoming Director
FDA Center for Tobacco Products
Re: Don’t Write Off Current Smokers

Dear Dr. Deyton:
For the past half century, the American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP) has served as the national voice of physician directors of state and local health departments and other like-minded physicians. We have long been involved with tobacco control, with the singular goal of doing everything in our power to reduce tobacco related illness and death.

As you assume leadership of the new FDA Center for Tobacco Products, we urge you to consider the actions FDA can take, within the powers granted by this new legislation, to rapidly and substantially reduce tobacco related illness and death in current adult smokers.

Unfortunately, FDA has not gotten off to a good start. FDA condemnation of electronic cigarettes, in its July 22 press conference, and FDA insistence that electronic cigarettes should be regulated as a drug/device combination rather than as a tobacco product makes no sense from a public health perspective. It flies in the face of FDA laboratory findings on other products already approved by FDA. If one looks at electronic cigarettes as a sentinel for all tobacco products less hazardous than conventional cigarettes – the outlook for FDA action reducing tobacco-related illness and death among current adult smokers is dismal.

Continued



 


Sunday, August 30, 2009

Electronic Cigarettes vs FDA vs Facts

By Weldon Solis

Things are really heating up with the latest news that The FDA is calling electronic cigarettes dangerous to your health. This undeserved blow comes shortly after the FDA slapped Chantix and Zyban, two drugs already approved by them as Nicotine Replacement Therapies, with a warning label indicating their high risk of suicidal thoughts, aggression, depression, and hostility.

The question then coming into focus is, "Is the FDA really concerned about the public health in this determination?"  ... Continued


 


Dr. Michael Siegel ... a must read for everyone regarding this controversial subject.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Action on Smoking and Health Warns Public of the Dangers of "Secondhand Electronic Cigarette Smoke"

In a news release issued last week, the national anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) warned the public of the dangers not only of electronic cigarette use but also of "secondhand electronic cigarette smoke."

The press release warns the public of the dangers of exposure to carcinogens it alleges are present in the exhaled vapor of electronic cigarette "smoke."

According to the press release: "The FDA recently reported that it found in samples of e-cigarettes a variety Of "toxic and carcinogenic chemicals" including diethylene glycol, "an ingredient used in antifreeze, which is toxic to humans"; "certain tobacco-specific nitrosamines which are human carcinogens"; and that "tobacco-specific impurities suspected of being harmful to humans - anabasine, myosmine, and nicotyrine - were detected in a majority of the samples tested."

"There is every reason to believe that many of these cancer-causing chemicals are also found in the "vapor" given off by e-cigarettes, says Banzhaf, which nonsmokers in the vicinity are then forced to inhale. These secondhand "smokers" may include infants and toddlers, the elderly, and those with pre-existing medical conditions which may make them especially susceptible to exposure to these chemicals." ...

"People seated on airplanes, or in restaurants and other public places where tobacco smoking has been banned, should not be forced to inhale a potentially dangerous mixture of nicotine, propylene glycol, anabasine, myosmine, nicotyrine, certain tobacco-specific nitrosamines which are human carcinogens, and who knows what else, he says. As the Surgeon General has noted, there is no safe lower level of exposure to any known human carcinogen so, as with asbestos, even fleeting exposures should be guarded against. "

 


The Rest of the Story

Let's set a few things straight right away.

First of all, if we are going to guard against fleeting exposure to any known human carcinogen, then we would have to immediately ban nicotine replacement products, such as nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and nicotine inhalers, as these products have been shown to contain the same carcinogens as have been detected in electronic cigarettes. However, ASH does not appear to be calling for a ban on NRT products, despite the fact that "as the Surgeon General has noted, there is no safe lower level of exposure to any known human carcinogen so, as with asbestos, even fleeting exposures should be guarded against."

Second of all, ASH seems to be completely oblivious to the notion that the dose of a chemical exposure is an important factor in its toxicity. Peanut butter contains the potent carcinogen - aflatoxin - but I don't hear ASH calling for peanut butter to be pulled from the market to guard against exposures to this carcinogen, to which the Surgeon General has noted there is no safe level of exposure.

In fact, many foods contain trace levels of carcinogens. The FDA has set maximum levels for these carcinogens. For aflatoxin, the FDA requires that there be no more than 20 parts per trillion present in foods (other than milk, for which the maximum allowable level is 0.5 parts per trillion.

What is laughable about ASH's alarmist claim that the carcinogens in electronic cigarette cartridges pose a hazard to bystanders is that the level of carcinogens detected in the cartridges was miniscule. It was comparable to the levels of the same carcinogens present in nicotine replacement products. If ASH is worried about carcinogenic exposure of bystanders who are in the vicinity of electronic cigarette users, it should also be worried about carcinogenic exposure of bystanders in the vicinity of nicotine inhaler users.

You can find the rest of this story and a great deal of other enlightening information and articles on the controversial electronic cigarette ban, on Dr. Michael Siegel's regularly updated blog ... amid all the misguided notions, FDA hysteria and other naysayers, he remains the Voice of Reason   
Tobacco Analysis Blogspot


 


Cigarette substitute produces no deadly smoke


By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Posted: Thursday, August 6, 2009

EDITORIAL
Publication Date: August 6, 2009

This piece first appeared on August 6, 2009 in the Washington Times:

At a time when the government is ostensibly trying to cut health costs, why is it trying to ban something that might help people quit smoking tobacco, perhaps the most devastating health problem in the U.S.?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a press conference late last month to scare Americans about the so-called "e-cigarette" -- claiming it was loaded with harmful "toxins" and "carcinogens." The agency was implicitly saying: Stay away from these newfangled, untested cigarette substitutes -- better to stick with the real ones, the ones that we are more familiar with, the ones that cause over 450,000 deaths annually in the U.S.

In making its distorted, incomplete and misleading statement, FDA was violating its long-cherished tradition of sticking to sound science as the basis for its policies. And in doing so, it is putting the lives and health of millions of Americans at risk.
Continued

Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health.

 


Dr. Michael Siegel: Electronic Cigarettes

The Rest of the Story 
tobaccoanalysis.blogspot

What kind of absurdity is this? The major anti-smoking groups would much rather that smokers smoke tobacco cigarettes than that they quit smoking and use electronic cigarettes, even though the tobacco cigarettes have been shown to contain at least 57 known carcinogens at significant levels while the electronic cigarettes have not been shown to contain any carcinogens at more than trace levels.

Are the anti-smoking groups actually telling smokers that they would be better off smoking a product which is known to expose them to 57 carcinogens than to smoke a product which exposes them to 0 identified carcinogens?

Actually, that's exactly what they are telling smokers.

The anti-smoking groups have thick ideological blinders on which are unfortunately precluding these groups from having any sense of public health perspective. They are living in a fantasy land in which they have convinced themselves that electronic cigarettes pose a greater threat to the public's health than conventional cigarettes.

The rest of the story is that electronic cigarettes are not what are killing people. It's the damn real ones.

And it's a tragedy that these anti-smoking groups would rather condemn smokers to the most toxic known consumer product, rather than tolerate the fact that the use of this much safer product involves a smoking-like behavior. It is that smoking-like behavior which is driving the anti-smoking groups nuts. They simply cannot tolerate that. No matter how many lives it might save.


 


Comparison of Carcinogen Levels Shows that Electronic Cigarettes are Much Safer Than Conventional Ones

Thursday, July 30, 2009

The FDA last week condemned electronic cigarettes on the basis that an FDA laboratory detected carcinogens (tobacco-specific nitrosamines) in the cartridges of several electronic cigarette manufacturers. The FDA held a press conference in which it attempted to scare electronic cigarette users into discontinuing e-cigarette use (and therefore a return to conventional cigarette smoking). In addition, a number of anti-smoking groups, including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and American Lung Association, have called for a ban on these products due to this carcinogen scare.

The FDA (and the anti-smoking groups), however, failed to do three important things:

First, they failed to disclose the levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines that were detected in the electronic cigarette cartridges.

Second, they failed to test the control product (a nicotine inhaler) to determine the carcinogen level in that product.

Third, they failed to report the tobacco-specific nitrosamine levels in conventional tobacco products, including cigarettes.

Continued

 



Prominent Public Health Physicians and Tobacco Researchers Expose Double Standard in the FDA's Recent Study of Electronic Cigarettes and Challenge the FDA's Alarmist Attitude Toward the Devices

Contact:  Thomas R. Kiklas, Director of Media, inLife LLC, 949-250-9600 ext 108, tkiklas@myinlife.com
 
BOSTON, July 27 /Standard Newswire/ -- The FDA recently went public with misleading information about the safety of electronic cigarettes and the marketing of the devices, not only using its clout but recruiting other prominent organizations to demonize a product that has great public health benefit potential.
 
 A group of prominent doctors and tobacco researchers, including Dr. Michael Siegel at the Boston University School of Public Health, Dr. Joel Nitzkin of the AAPHP Tobacco Control Task Force, and Dr. Brad Rodu, Endowed Chair, Tobacco Harm Reduction Research University of Louisville, challenge the FDA to provide the full quantitative data of the study upon which the FDA has based its warning against electronic cigarettes. They are concerned that the FDA's disingenuous targeting of electronic cigarettes through a biased presentation of the scientific data has had significant negative impact upon the public perception of electronic cigarettes, when the best available evidence suggests that these have shown that the devices offer great potential to reduce serious health issues among traditional tobacco smokers.

Continued

 


Tobacco Taxation = Government Incentive

Many governments have introduced excise taxes on cigarettes in order to reduce the consumption of cigarettes. Money collected from the cigarette taxes are frequently used to pay for tobacco use prevention programs, therefore making it a method of internalizing external costs.

In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States costs the nation more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity. That's over $2000 per year/smoker. Another study by a team of health economists finds the combined price paid by their families and society is about $41 per pack of cigarettes.

Substantial scientific evidence shows that higher cigarette prices result in lower overall cigarette consumption. Most studies indicate that a 10% increase in price will reduce overall cigarette consumption by 3% to 5%. Youth, minorities, and low-income smokers are two to three times more likely to quit or smoke less than other smokers in response to price increases. Smoking is often cited as an example of an inelastic good, however, i.e. a large rise in price will only result in a small decrease in consumption.

Many nations have implemented some form of tobacco taxation. As of 1997, Denmark had the highest cigarette tax burden of $4.02 per pack. Taiwan only had a tax burden of $0.62 per pack. Currently, the average price and excise tax on cigarettes in the United States is well below those in many other industrialized nations.

Cigarette taxes vary widely from state to state in the United States. For example, South Carolina has a cigarette tax of only 7 cents per pack, the nation's lowest, while New Jersey has the highest cigarette tax in the U.S.: $2.575 per pack. In Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, New York City, Tennessee, and Virginia, counties and cities may impose an additional limited tax on the price of cigarettes. Due to the high tax rate, the price of an average pack of cigarettes in New Jersey is $6.45, which is still less than the approximated external cost of a pack of cigarettes.

In Canada, cigarette taxes have raised prices of the more expensive brands to upwards of ten CAD$.

In the United Kingdom, a packet of cigarettes typically costs between £4.25 and £5.50 ($8.50/$11.00) depending on the brand purchased and where the purchase was made. The UK has a strong black market for cigarettes which has formed as a result of the high taxation, and it is estimated 27% of cigarette and 68% of hand rolling tobacco consumption was non-UK duty paid (NUKDP)

More information  

 


Clearing The Air

Private pharmaceutical nicotine entities (RWJF / Johnson & Johnson Co.) fund the smoking ban movement in order to promote their financial interests...
Name: marcus aurelius
Location: Minnesota, United States

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Why is a pharmaceutical company funding smoking bans all around the country?

You guessed it, it's all about the money they'll make in return.....selling alternative nicotine products.

Update: The latest RWJF grants to finance smoking bans, are found here, and here.

Meanwhile our politicians are duped, wittingly or not, and thousands of people are put out of jobs, by the exaggerations from the non-profits; American Lung, American Cancer, American Non-Smokers Rights Foundation, American Medical Association; nearly every university in the country including the U of M, etc.; all of whom have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying money from the very same pharmaceutical nicotine affiliated Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

While the reality about secondhand smoke has been proven by a local health department to be 150 times safer than OSHA regulations require.

As I have stated in an earlier post, the founder of RWJF (the source of hundreds of millions of dollars for smoking bans) was none other than the founder of Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical; but the ties to the pharmaceutical industry don't end there.

Continued


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