Vaping Digest January 29th

Wednesday’s News at a glance:

Peak Australian GP body supports vaping ~ GPs cautiously recommend e-cigarettes to help smokers give up ~ World Health Organisation put in their place by leading health experts ~ E-cigarette use or vaping: reporting suspected adverse reactions, including lung injury ~ Dangerously Inaccurate Reporting on Vaping-Linked Outbreak Persists ~ MHRA urges GPs to be vigilant in new advice on identifying vaping-related lung injury ~ ‘I still feel like it had something to do with THC vaping:’ UWM teen’s cause of death ‘undetermined’ ~ The Surprising Reasons Vaping Bans Draw Pushback ~ Parents who vape stop the ‘transmission’ of smoking down the generations ~ Canada Docs Hate Vaping ~ A New “E-Vape device” ~ The USSG Isn’t Helping ~ We CDC You ~ Vapers to Trump: Hands off our vapes or lose the election ~ The New Federal Minimum Vaping Age Won’t Protect Young People ~ Policy Tip Sheet: Tobacco Harm Reduction 101: Utah ~ E-cigarettes, vaping haram, says Indonesian Muslim organisation ~

Peak Australian GP body supports vaping

Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association

IN A MAJOR POLICY SHIFT, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has supported vaping nicotine as an option for some Australian smokers in the latest national smoking cessation guidelines published today.

The peak GP organisation has carefully reviewed all the evidence on the effectiveness and safety of vaping and has determined that it is a legitimate quitting aid for adult smokers.

GPs cautiously recommend e-cigarettes to help smokers give up

Rachel Clun, The Sydney Morning Herald

The use of nicotine-based e-cigarettes has been cautiously recommended as a potential second-line aid for people who want to quit smoking.

In an updated guide on supporting smokers to stop, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) also said prescribing options for nicotine replacement therapies should be widened.

Related: Vaping ‘another option’ to quit smoking, expert says

World Health Organisation put in their place by leading health experts

Public health experts have responded rapidly and assertively to unfounded claims about vaping from the World Health Organisation (WHO). Just days after WHO claimed that ‘e-cigarettes are not safe’ scientists have responded to put things right.

WHO famously holds a firm anti-vaping stance. The organisation’s recent outbursts are all too familiar and follow a pattern of spreading misinformation about e-cigarettes.

E-cigarette use or vaping: reporting suspected adverse reactions, including lung injury

GOV.UK

Be vigilant for any suspected adverse reactions associated with use of e-cigarettes or vaping (including lung injury) and report them to the MHRA via the Yellow Card Scheme. In this article we provide UK case definitions of e-cigarette or vaping associated lung injury (EVALI) to facilitate identification.

Nicotine Expert: Vaping is Unlikely to Cause Seizures

Jim McDonald, Vaping 360

Early last spring, on his way out the door at FDA, then-commissioner Scott Gottlieb spent some of his remaining credibility to warn America that vaping might cause seizures. He based his alert on 35 self-reported incidents over a 10-year-period from FDA’s Safety Reporting Portal.

Yes, you read that right: 35 events in 10 years.

Dangerously Inaccurate Reporting on Vaping-Linked Outbreak Persists

Michelle Minton, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Coverage of the outbreak of illness linked to “vaping” has been handled poorly in general, but Bernadette Hogan’s recent article in the New York Post is especially egregious. Not once does her article mention that illicit marijuana vapes—not nicotine e-cigarettes—are the products linked to the outbreak. That’s something even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has finally—albeit, tacitly—admitted over the last month. Her article also failed to note the role of vitamin E acetate, the contaminant most likely responsible for the pneumonia-like illnesses and found in THC vaping products linked to every single patient in New York.

MHRA urges GPs to be vigilant in new advice on identifying vaping-related lung injury

Isobel Sims, Pulse Today

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has released a drug safety update warning doctors to have a high index of suspicion for lung injury in patients with respiratory symptoms who also vape.

‘I still feel like it had something to do with THC vaping:’ UWM teen’s cause of death ‘undetermined’

Tom Durian, TMJ4 Milwaukee

A Walworth County family is looking for answers after the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death of 19-year-old Logan Tomasello as an “undetermined” cause. A Walworth County family is looking for answers after the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death of 19-year-old Logan Tomasello as an “undetermined” cause.

Tomasello died on October 31st after vaping THC and nicotine, according to his family. Toxicology reports found non-lethal amounts of THC and other substances in Logan’s body but still could not find a cause of death.

The Surprising Reasons Vaping Bans Draw Pushback

Christine Vestal, The Pew Charitable Trust

Geoffrey Gibson, owner of Capital Vape Supply, watched his thriving, 7-year-old business wither last summer when vaping-related deaths started making headlines.

It picked up again after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in December that the lung illness that has killed at least 60 people and injured more than 2,600 was primarily caused by cartridges containing THC (the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana), not nicotine.

Parents who vape stop the ‘transmission’ of smoking down the generations

Vape Business

Switching from tobacco to e-cigarettes can help parents underline the negative impact of tobacco and stop the passing on of tobacco smoking to their children, a Welsh study shows.

Anti-vaping groups have consistently claimed vaping normalises smoking among young people, but the report – published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health – contradicts this.

The authors found: “no evidence to support a view that if parent figures fully switch from tobacco smoking to e-cigarettes, the use of devices which ‘mimic’ the act of smoking will maintain positive perceptions of smoking among their children.”

The New Federal Minimum Vaping Age Won’t Protect Young People

Kevin Garcia, Filter

President Donald Trump signed legislation in December 2019 to amend the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by raising the federal minimum age of sale for tobacco products from 18 to 21. “Tobacco products,” in this case, includes both smoked and smokeless tobacco, but also nicotine vaping products.

Protecting young people’s health was the rationale. But will raising the age of sale actually reduce harms for 18 to 20-year-olds?

Policy Tip Sheet: Tobacco Harm Reduction 101: Utah

Lindsey Stroud, The Heartland Institute

Analysis of the vaping industry in Utah, including economic data, state health department findings on vaping-related lung illnesses, youth e-cigarette use, tobacco retail compliance checks, and state funding dedicated to tobacco control programs.

Since their introduction to the U.S. market in 2007, e-cigarettes and vaping devices—tobacco harm reduction products that are 95 percent safer than combustible cigarettes—have helped more than three million American adults quit smoking.

The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network

Muhammadiyah has declared electronic cigarettes and vaping as haram in a fatwa issued recently by the second biggest Muslim organisation in the country.

The organisation’s central executive board’s tarjih (lawmaking) and tadjid (reform) council outlined the fatwa in a decree on e-cigarettes issued on Jan. 14 in Yogyakarta.