Possible FDA Ban on E-Cigarettes is Wrong Move
by Hans Bader
The FDA is now moving towards banning a smoking alternative that could save many lives. Every year, millions of smokers like my wife try and fail to quit, because they are nicotine addicts. Many later die of smoking-related illnesses, which are caused by the smoke, not the nicotine. The obvious solution is to give smokers access to less hazardous products that provide the nicotine they crave without the deadly smoke, like chewing tobacco, or, better yet, electronic cigarettes or snus. (Electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes, deliver nicotine in a vapor instead of much more harmful tobacco smoke).
The FDA is now moving towards banning e-cigarettes, reports syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum. Cigarettes, which contain lots of toxins and cancer-causing agents, aren’t banned, but the FDA wants to ban e-cigarettes, which contain infinitely-smaller amounts of carcinogens, complaining that e-cigarettes contain “detectable levels of known carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users could potentially be exposed” (emphasis added).”
As public-health expert, and tobacco-industry critic, Michael Siegel notes, this is terrible reasoning by the FDA, since all tobacco replacement products now on the market contain small but “detectable” amounts of known carcinogens. The FDA used to be more reluctant to block smoking alternatives that have small or imaginary risks, but that seems to be changing over the last year.
A bill supported by the nation’s largest cigarette maker that was signed into law earlier this year by Obama will keep producers of smokeless tobacco from truthfully telling smokers about the fact that smoking is more dangerous to their health than smokeless tobacco. That will harm public health, as advocates like Bill Godshall of Smoke Free Pennsylvania have noted.
Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) wants to ban E-cigarettes even if the FDA does not. Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, ;is appalled: “This is about as idiotic and irrational an approach as I have ever seen in my 22 years in tobacco control and public health,” he wrote on his blog. “A public policy maker who touts himself as being a champion of the public’s health [is] demanding that we ban what is clearly a much safer cigarette than those on the market, but that we allow, protect, approve, and institutionalize the really toxic ones.”
This isn’t the only thing bad happening on the public-health front. The opportunity for meaningful health-care reform is being squandered.
One of Obama’s own advisers says the Obama Administration’s health-care plan will harm people with insurance while raising their taxes. CNN says Obamacare will take away 5 freedoms. It will also destroy many affordable health-care plans while breaking Obama’s campaign promises.
The health-care “reform” bills backed by the Administration perversely exempt illegal aliens from the health-insurance taxes and obligations imposed on citizens, effectively giving them preferential treatment. The bills’ drafters do not deny that they would exempt illegal aliens from such taxes and obligations. However, they do claim that illegal aliens also would also not be eligible for the bills’ “public option” health-coverage plan. That reassurance is illusory, since the bills’ drafters blocked the only effective means of verifying whether beneficiaries are in fact illegal aliens. Even the liberal Houston Chronicle has noted the “lack of a mechanism for verifying” eligibility by illegal aliens.
While America’s health-care system is very expensive, it is much better at treating and detecting several common forms of cancer than many European health-care systems. The Administration’s health-care proposals put these successes in jeopardy, yet they would increase health-care costs even further, while failing to provide health-care coverage as cheap or as universal as in Europe.
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Here is an article I found that explains why once again big business gets to fleece the American public.
Four Members of FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee Have Received Pharmaceutical Money; Influence of Industry on FDA Grows
Pfizer and Nabi Pharmaceuticals Also Given a Seat at the Table
Yesterday, I reported that the FDA has appointed GlaxoSmithKline to sit on its Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, by virtue of its appointment of a Glaxo consultant and expert witness to the panel.
Today, I report that the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on FDA policy will be even greater than I suggested yesterday, because three additional members of the Committee have also received pharmaceutical money.
First, the chair of the Committee - Dr. Jonathan Samet - has received grant support from GlaxoSmithKline. In addition, the organization that he directed - the Institute for Global Tobacco Control - is funded by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.
Second, an additional panel member - Dr. Dorothy Hatsukami - has received grant support from a pharmaceutical company to study the nicotine vaccine for use in smoking cessation.
Third, an additional panel member - Dr. Neal Benowitz - co-authored a study on the use of Chantix in smoking cessation which was funded by Pfizer and has also served as a Pfizer consultant. In particular, Dr. Benowitz served as a Pfizer consultant on how to develop a scientific base to support the use of Chantix in smoking cessation. Benowitz has also consulted for GlaxoSmithKline and Nabi Pharmaceuticals.
The Rest of the Story
The FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Panel is a virtual smorgasbord of tobacco and pharmaceutical financial interests. This is hardly what I imagine President Obama had in mind when in his inaugural address he called for " science to be restored to its rightful place."
The FDA has now given a seat on the panel to GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and Nabi Pharmaceuticals, alongside the tobacco companies, through their paid consultants or grantees.
There is no way this panel can objectively consider tobacco product regulation and policy - based purely on the science - in the midst of such a potpourri of pharmaceutical financial interests and conflicts of interest.
The conflicts of interest of two of the panel members were highlighted in an article in today's Wall Street Journal.
Given that the FDA has already been under siege for complaints about the undue influence of politics over science, due to the influence of industry, it is unclear why the Agency would want to compound the problem by crafting a highly conflicted panel to advise it on tobacco issues. There is enough bias in this field to begin with; we don't need to add to it by appointing a panel with numerous members who have severe, personal financial conflicts of interest.
The rest of the story is that by virtue of its appointment of numerous members with financial conflicts of interest with Big Pharma, the FDA Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee has now become a literal extension of pharmaceutical company financial interests. These companies have been given the gift of a seat at the table (actually, four seats).
This means that 7 of the 12 seats on the panel are now industry seats:
Big Tobacco: 3
Big Pharma: 4
Total Industry Seats: 7
The tobacco and pharmaceutical industries must be laughing all the way to the bank. There's nothing like sitting on the panel of the Agency that regulates your products or makes decisions about the regulation of the products of your chief competitors.
We need to vote both sides of the aisle out of office.
I agree and The Proof is in the Pudding (video)
Many want to know the truth about the FDA, however, most really don't want to hear it because it can be overwhelming.
Video: Listen to the entire interview
Secrets of the FDA: Suppressed Information
Drug Industry, FDA and Health Issues
Jonathan W. Emord
Only attorney in history who has defeated the FDA 7 times 6 times on First Amendment grounds
http://tinyurl.com/36pefvb
This is a load of hooey. The FDA used a nicotrol inhaler as the test control. If they compared an e-cig w/ a normal cig, the results would've been totally different.
I smoked for more than 10 years & now I’ve completely stopped smoking normal cigarettes . I can breathe easier & no longer cough. I’ve tried patches, nicotine gum, you name it! I started w/ disposable units that were cheap but they provided no throat hit, I thought, is that it? So I did my research.
After researching online for various companies & prices, I found Freshsmoking . com They’ve got the best prices, their starter kits start at only $45 dollars & the rest of their accessories are much cheaper than anywhere else I’ve seen. The best part about it is that their units provide a strong throat hit & a great battery & cartridge life. I’ve had my unit now for more than a month & it’s still going strong! Also, their customer service was great & I received my package in just 2 days! I highly recommend them!
So FDA has done testing without providing actual reports to the public, what else is new? And they have found e- cigarettes to contain chemicals which have been known to cause cancer . I have read the chemicals in question are Ethylene glycol and Nitrosamine's.
So we are safe to assume these toxic chemicals are far worse for us then say:
Carbon Monoxide
Nitrogen Oxides (NOx)
Hydrogen Cyanide
Formaldehyde
Acrolein
Acetaldehyde
Ammonia
Hydrazine
Vinyl Chloride
Urethane
2-Nitropropane
Quinoline
Benzo[a]pyrene
Dibenz[a,h]anthracene
Benzo[b]fluoranthene
Benzo[j]fluoranthene
Dibenzo[a,h]pyrene
Dibenzo[a,i]pyrene
Dibenz[a,j]acridine
Indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene
Benzo[c]phenanthrene
Benz[a]anthracene
Benzo[e]pyrene
Chrysene
Methylchrysene
Mehtylfluoranthene
Dibenz[a,c]anthracene
Dibenz[a,h]acridine
Dibenzo[c,g]carbazole
Mehtylnaphtalenes
1-Methylindoles
Dichlorostilbene
Catechol
3-Methycatechol
4-Methycatechol
4-Ethycatechol
4-n-Propylcatechol
Nitrosodimethylamine
Nitrosoethymethylamine
Nitrosodiethylamine
Nitrosodi-n-propylamine
Nitrosodi-n-butylamine
Nitrosopyrrolidine
Nitrosopiperidine
Nitrosomorpholine
N'-Nitrosonornicotine
4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone
N'-Nitrosoanabasine
N'-Nitrosoanatabine
Aromatic Amines
Aromatic Nitrohydrocarbons
Polonium-210
Nickel
Arsenic
Cadmium
AND those are just the carcinogenic ones (60), there are still like 4000 more.
If you really think this is about the FDA caring for people's health , you are all being taken for a nice ride!
The FDA found diethylene glycol or DEG in 1 of the 18 cartridges they tested in a miniscule amount. DEG is used in numerous products such as inhalers, hand-sanitizer, medical aerosols, etc. It is also considered a replacement for ethylene glycol to prevent accidental exposure to humans.
But I agree with your sentiment and the author's point of view. This endeavor by the FDA and other groups is not about health ...it must be about something else.