Vaping Digest October 14th
Monday’s News at a glance:
Research published today shows alarming perceptions of risk among French adults – Harry’s blog 94: Extinguish Rebellion – Vaping illness, deaths likely very rare beyond U.S. – Vaping In The News – October 12th – First Vape PMTA Has Been Submitted – The Vaping Crisis Is a Moral Panic – CDC’s Lack of Clarity – Vape Ad Ban Threats – New Man for FDA – House Bill Would Limit Nicotine Content – Vaping: Crisis or Lost Opportunity? – END of ENDS – Regulators urged to ease rules – Scott Gottlieb says he is ‘skeptical’ – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest
Alarming perceptions of risk
ETHRA
Research commissioned by SOVAPE reveals that a staggering 45% of French adults think that vaping is as dangerous as smoking and 80% believe that nicotine is carcinogenic.
The survey was undertaken by BVA for ETHRA partner SOVAPE and will be published at the Sommet de la Vape today.
PRESS RELEASE: Les français vont-ils se priver du vapotage pour arrêter de fumer?
SURVEY REPORT: Sondage sur le vapotage
Harry’s blog 94: Extinguish Rebellion
Harry Shapiro
There is a new tobacco harm reduction (THR) activist group that has started up called ETHRA – European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates, currently with fifteen partners – https://twitter.com/europethra. This is the latest THR advocacy group following in the footsteps of groups now spanning the globe, in Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, India, Canada, USA, Asia and Africa, as well as other European-based organisations and the international agency INNCO.
They campaign, make representations to politicians, run websites, social media, exchange and provide information and are support networks for people wanting to make the switch away from smoking.
Deaths likely very rare beyond U.S.
Kate Kelland
E-cigarette or vaping-linked lung injuries that have killed 29 and sickened more than 1,000 people in the United States are likely to be rare in Britain and other countries where the suspect products are not widely used, specialists said on Monday.
Experts in toxicology and addiction said they are sure that the 1,299 confirmed and probable American cases of serious lung injuries linked to vaping are “a U.S.-specific phenomenon,” and there is no evidence of a similar pattern of illness in Britain or elsewhere.
Vaping In The News – October 12th
Kevin Crowley, Vaping Links
Changes in E-Cigarette Use Behaviors and Dependence in Long-term E-Cigarette Users ~ A Randomized Trial of E-Cigarettes versus Nicotine-Replacement Therapy ~ The CDC and Vaping: A Perfect Storm ~ CDC Recognizes THC in Lung Injury Outbreak, But Teen Marijuana Use Ignored ~ US lawmaker introduces bill cutting nicotine in e-cigarettes amid teen vaping epidemic ~ #Hashtag Alert ~ Promoting the rule of law through improved agency guidance documents ~ Ecig vapour and cancer in mice ~ Marewa Glover Gets an Apology ~ Understanding A “Temporary” Vaping Ban ~ Hamilton vape shop owner promises legal action over governor’s ban on flavored e-cigarettes
First Vape PMTA Has Been Submitted
Jim McDonald, Vaping 360
The first premarket tobacco application (PMTA) for an e-liquid-based vaping product has finally been submitted to the FDA. As expected, the application comes from a tobacco company, Reynolds American Inc. (RAI, best known as RJ Reynolds).
The application covers “multiple individual products, including several flavors, in the VUSE Solo category,” according to an email from an RAI spokesperson. The Solo is the oldest Vuse product, a cigalike device that uses prefilled cartomizers (“cartridges”).
Jessica Harding, consumer advocate from @NNAlliance, highlights the rapid decline in smoking in the UK since 2011 when vaping took off. This is coz UK govt and leading medical bodies and NGOs of country back switching smokers to vaping. @THRadvocacy @ICMRDELHI pic.twitter.com/2l268fVtyZ
— AVI (@vapeindia) October 13, 2019
The Vaping Crisis Is a Moral Panic..
Led by Anti-Smoking Crusaders – Jacob Grier
You have probably heard about a so-called “vaping health crisis,” complete with “horror stories” that are growing worse and worse. Over the past few months, more than 1,200 people have become sick and 29 have died from a mysterious acute lung disease. This has led national, state, and local politicians to demand bans on e-cigarettes to protect public health, often invoking emergency powers to implement them.
It has become increasingly clear that the wave of respiratory illnesses alarming health authorities is linked primarily to black market cartridges delivering THC…
Like the Telephone Game-
CDC’s Lack of Clarity is Becoming Completely False Facts at the Local Level
Michael Siegel, The Rest Of The Story
Do you recall the telephone game? Players sit in a circle and the first person whispers a phrase into the ear of the second person, who whispers it to the third person, and so forth, until it gets to the last player, who then repeats the phrase that they heard. Typically, the phrase changes substantially from the beginning because a series of small, progressive changes add up to a completely different phrase at the end.
The only way to prevent this is for the first person to deliver such a clear message that it cannot be mistaken.
Two from Dave Cross, Planet of the Vapes
Vape Ad Ban Threats
The Scottish National Party (SNP) has said that it is looking into the possibility of banning vape ads in Scotland. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has reported an increase in complaints across the UK, mainly related to tobacco company pod devices, and said it’s launching an investigation into vape product marketing.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has jumped onto the ‘vape death’ hype train and shouted out of the window that Scotland will now look at the evidence supporting a ban on advertising for electronic cigarettes and vape products.
New Man for FDA
Scott Gottlieb left the post of Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April. He was replaced by Acting-Commissioner Ned Sharpless, and many hoped Sharpless would prove to be an upgrade. The disappointment in him appears to be shared by those in the White House as it is ignoring the advice of four former FDA commissioners and an array of advocacy organisations and looking to appoint Stephen Hahn.
Scott Gottlieb resigned from the FDA after just two years in the job, giving the reason that he wanted to “spend more time with the family” – traditionally a euphemism used by politicians after they’ve been sacked or been revealed to be indulging in extra-marital affairs.
House Bill Would Limit Nicotine Content
Jim McDonald, Vaping 360
A bill has been introduced in Congress to limit nicotine strength in vaping products. The bill is sponsored by Democratic Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi.
The END ENDS Act—which stands for Ending Nicotine Dependence From Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems—has been designated HR 4624. It would cap the nicotine in bottled e-liquid and prefilled devices at 20 mg/mL.
The idea comes from the European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), which adopted that standard supposedly to protect children who might drink e-liquid. That’s not why Krishnamoorthi wants a limit though; he believes it will prevent youth use.
There’s a simple way to curb youth vaping – Katherine Ellen Foley
Vaping: Crisis or Lost Opportunity?
Zella Hanson
Whether you’re doing vape tricks for YouTube views or kicking yourself for not realizing that “USB” was actually your teenager’s Juul, you know vaping is all the rage right now. You probably also know that President Trump has called on the FDA to ban all flavored e-cigarettes to combat youth vaping. This comes in reaction to the mysterious lung illness that has affected 1,080 people to date. 18 of them have died.
At Duke Law School’s “Vaping: Crisis or Lost Opportunity” panel last Wednesday, three experts shared their views.
Second-hand smoke from e-cigarettes
Poses NO risk to the public and banning vaping indoors in 2015 was pointless
There is no evidence that inhaling second-hand vape smoke poses a risk to your health, experts have claimed. And forcing users to go outside with traditional tobacco smokers only encourages them to switch back to normal cigarettes, they said.
Professor John Britton, a consultant in respiratory medicine at the University of Nottingham, suggested the 2015 ban on vaping indoors was pointless. He said: ‘Vaping in an enclosed space… is a courtesy issue. There’s no evidence of harm to other people. Most of what comes out in the vapour is water.
END of ENDS:
Union Health Ministry places bill in Public Domain
New Delhi: Making strides in ending the use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) in the country, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) has now put the bill in public domain for comments
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that calling for total prohibition of such systems, the Government of India promulgated an Ordinance namely ‘Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes (Production, Manufacture, Import, Export, Transport, Sale, Distribution, Storage and Advertisement) Ordinance, 2019” on 18th September 2019.
Regulators urged to ease rules
On smoke-free nicotine products
Public-health advocates who met in Australia urged international health bodies and government regulators to ease the restrictive rules against noncombustible, smoke-free nicotine products that are regarded as much safer alternatives to cigarette smoking.
“We have the evidence that harm reduction products—snus, vapes and heat-not-burn tobacco—are at least 90 percent safer,” said Dr. Colin Mendelsohn, a tobacco treatment specialist and conjoint associate professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, during the Ninth International City Health Conference held in Melbourne, Australia, early this month.
How Public Health Researchers..
Are Making the Great Vape Crisis Worse – Chris Roberts
Whether vaping nicotine or e-juices is indeed safer than smoking tobacco products—or just a technique to cause different, but no less grievous, harm to your lungs—can depend on whom you ask (and what answer you’re looking for).
But whenever public health or elected officials treat all vapes the same—as Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and other elected officials are doing by banning all vaporizer or e-cigarette sales—they’re both misleading the public and making the crisis worse, one prominent expert told Observer on Friday.
Scott Gottlieb says he is ‘skeptical’
That vaping nicotine causes lung cancer
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC he isn’t convinced that vaping nicotine is carcinogenic, calling out a study that pointed toward the opposite conclusion.
“I’m skeptical that nicotine causes cancer,” Gottlieb, a trained physician, said Monday on “Squawk Box.” “It might be a tumor promoter, [researchers] have said that there’s a potential that nicotine is a tumor promoter, but it doesn’t cause cancer.”
Two probable cases of vaping-related lung illness reported in N.B.
Statement from the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health on vaping in Canada
On this Day…2018
A look back at how things have moved on or otherwise….
E-cigarettes should be used more actively
University of Exeter
“Ongoing nervousness” about the use of e-cigarettes in stop-smoking services can be a “significant” barrier to people finding support, research revealed during “Stoptober” shows.
New research by the University of Exeter and University of Melbourne, funded by Cancer Research UK, suggests stop smoking services which are e-cigarette friendly should advertise this more openly, and says greater use of e-cigarettes has the potential to make considerable impact in helping people give up smoking.
Nicotine is a healthier habit than tobacco
John Gapper – FT.com
Inventing a product that is wildly popular is not usually a setback for a technology company. But that is the difficulty facing Juul Labs, the San Francisco start-up behind the best-selling US ecigarette.
Juul is the Nespresso of vaping — a sleek device that works with a collection of flavoured pods, including mango and cucumber, to deliver an intense hit of nicotine in a cloud of vapour.
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