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Safety of e-cigarette vapors questioned

, Buffalo Business First Reporter-Business First
It’s been years since viewers have sat through a cigarette commercial during the Super Bowl, with commercials for beer and cars dominating advertising.
But this weekend’s game included for the second consecutive year an ad for NJOY King, an electronic cigarette, with a theme of friends helping friends.
The response has been mixed from health advocates. While some say inhaling vapors or “vaping” is safer than smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes, others insist quitting entirely is the healthiest course of action. And it turns out vaping also exposes non-users to nicotine in the same way secondhand smoke affects those who spend time around smokers, though at much lower levels.
That’s according to research by Maciej Goniewicz, an assistant professor of oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute’sDepartment of Health Behavior, published by the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
Goniewicz and his team studied vapor from three different brands of e-cigarettes, as well as secondhand smoke exposure of vapors and tobacco smoke generated by dual users. The results showed the e-cigarettes emit nicotine at levels of about 10 times less than conventional tobacco cigarettes, though they did not emit substantial amounts of carbon monoxide and toxic volatile organic compounds.
The study was a collaboration between Roswell Park and researchers at the Medical University of Silesia in Poland.
Though exposure to toxins is substantially lower, there’s still no definitive data on short and longterm health: The U.S. Surgeon General has not yet evaluated the short and longterm health risk from secondhand exposure to vapors.
“We don’t know yet the longterm affects of using these products,” Goniewicz said. “We know there are some traces of some potentially dangerous chemicals in the vapor. We don’t know what will happen after 10-20 years of inhaling this vapor.”
Still, vaping is considerably less dangerous than regular cigarettes, since users and those around them are exposed to significantly less toxins.
“The clear conclusion is that these products are safer than tobacco cigarettes. When you compare them, we believe these products are safer than tobacco cigarettes, but there is no doubt for smokers that quitting is the best way,” he said.
The other growing issue is how to handle vaping indoors, including in public places, restaurants and the workplace. The Food & Drug Administration and individual states place limits on advertising and how and where tobacco cigarettes are sold, but there have not yet been any rulings on exactly whether e-cigarettes fall into the same category.
A number of companies have already taken steps to limit vaping in the workplace, while in other places, it’s the state or municipality making the rules: New York City Council in December voted to ban the use of e-cigarettes in all places where smoking is prohibited. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is now considering a ban on its transit vehicles and within its properties.
Goniewicz said he believes vaping should be limited as well to protect non-users, but it’s a difficult question.
“The main reason we have the indoor smoke-free law is to protect non smokers from being exposed to tobacco smoke,” he said. “We should protect these people from being exposed to vapor. But some people also believe that since we know this product is safer for smokers and it has the potential to save the lives of smokers, how can we encourage smokers to use electronic cigarettes instead of smoking? Any regulation should balance between the potential benefits and harm from the products.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/health_matters/2014/02/safety-of-e-cigarette-vapors-questioned.html

Altria Acquires E-Cig Maker Green Smoke for $110M

RICHMOND, Va. February 3, 2014 (AP)

Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc. says it is buying electronic cigarette company Green Smoke Inc. for about $110 million.

The Richmond, Va.-based owner of Philip Morris USA said Monday that the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter.

Read more:  http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/altria-acquires-cig-maker-green-smoke-110m-22344353

Public hearing scheduled on proposed e-cigarette ban

By LeAnn Eckroth, Bismarck Tribune
BISMARCK, N.D. –A Feb. 11 public hearing is scheduled on a proposed Bismarck ordinance that bans selling e-cigarettes to minors.
The Bismarck City Commission set the hearing date Tuesday. Under the ordinance, those providing or selling e-cigarettes to people under age 18 could be fined up to $500. Minors found possessing or using the product could be fined up to $70.
The proposal also states that devices marketed and sold as e-cigars and e-pipes cannot be sold or provided to minors, and that minors cannot possess or use them. Commissioners did not comment about the ordinance at the meeting.
The Bismarck ordinance also would bar minors from having or using electronic oral devices with a heating element — battery or electric circuit — to inhale as if smoking cigarettes. They include devices that both contain nicotine or simulate cigarette use.
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/public-hearing-scheduled-on-proposed-e-cigarette-ban/article_c777742a-8882-11e3-b9e4-0019bb2963f4.html

Bismarck mulls age limits on e-cigarette users

By LeAnn Eckroth, Bismarck Tribune
BISMARCK, N.D. —The Bismarck City Commission might crack down on the sale of e-cigarettes to minors under age 18. Minors found having or using the products also would be fined under the proposed ordinance.
Commissioners will review the first reading of the proposal today for a possible February hearing, City Attorney Charlie Whitman said.
Those selling or furnishing electronic cigarettes to minors could face up to a $500 fine under the proposed ordinance, Whitman said, and minors possessing or using the devices could pay up to a $70 fine.
E-cigarettes were banned in or near public places by the Legislature. State law also requires no vapors be emitted by e-cigarettes inside or 20 feet from public places.
The Bismarck ordinance would ban minors’ use of electronic oral devices with a heating element — battery or electric circuit — that provides nicotine or any other substance to be inhaled to simulate smoking.
The ordinance states devices marketed and sold as e-cigarettes, e-cigars and e-pipes cannot be sold or provided to minors, and that minors cannot possess or use them.
Pat McGeary, coordinator for the Bismarck Tobacco Free Coalition, said Monday that the group requested that Bismarck include the ordinance because the devices have not been proven safe. She said the electronic cigarettes are not controlled by the Federal Drug Administration. “There is no scientific evidence of the safety of e-cigarettes. The FDA has done preliminary testing that detected cancer-causing material in them and traces of nicotine,” she said.
“Our concern is that American tobacco companies have bought the e-cigarette companies and marketing it ‘kid friendly,'” she said. “They sell it in flavors like chocolate. We also are looking at e-cigarettes as a possible gateway drug.”
She said a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey showed that the use of e-cigarettes by minors has jumped from 4 percent in 2011 to 10 percent in 2012 nationwide.
“These are not FDA-regulated,” McGeary said. “These products have emerged more frequently in the last two years and (their companies) seem to be marketing more aggressively to the youth,” she said.
She said the FDA does not now control the levels of nicotine in the e-cigarette products. “(The levels) are all over the board, according to a preliminary study by the FDA,” she said. “The e-cigarettes have not been found to be safe. It’s not established.”
The Federal Drug Administration found that cartridges labeled as containing no nicotine contained nicotine and that three different electronic cigarette cartridges with the same label emitted a markedly different amount of nicotine, according to the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy.
“I think it’s a natural and reasonable restriction,” Bismarck City Commissioner Josh Askvig said. “If the city won’t allow the sale of tobacco products and nicotine to minors, the same argument stands for this product.
“My personal opinion is this is a loophole into (minors) smoking that we can control before they get hooked on it before they are of legal age,” he added.
“I’m OK with the ordinance,” Bismarck Commissioner Mike Seminary said. “I don’t think we should encourage minors to smoke anything.”
The Tribune contacted some stores Monday that sell e-cigarettes and they assured that they already set limits on who buys the product.
“We only sell to those over 18,” said Chris Pribyl, manager of Tobacco Row.
“Minors cannot come through our doors. We card everyone who looks under age 27,” said Suzanne Willis, manager of Discount Smoke. “It says right on the package: ‘Not for sale for minors.'”
Sara Lang, manager of Red Carpet Car Wash, said employees card buyers of the product to ensure they are eligible. “We treat it like we were selling tobacco,” she said.
The proposed e-cigarette ordinance mirrors two passed by the Fargo City Commission on Jan. 6. The ordinances both prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes to minors and the use and possession by minors. Minors who violate the Fargo law will pay a $25 fine and complete a tobacco education program.
Under the Fargo law, a clerk who sells e-cigarettes to a person under age 18 will pay a $50 fine. A business that sells e-cigarettes to a minor will get a warning for the first sale in 12 months, have its tobacco license suspended for the second violation in a year and have its tobacco license suspended for 10 days for the third illegal sale within 12 months.
Whitman said Bismarck’s ordinance wording does not mention suspension of tobacco licenses because it would not affect stores that do not sell tobacco, but sell e-cigarettes.
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/bismarck-mulls-age-limits-on-e-cigarette-users/article_201fa2e8-87aa-11e3-9659-001a4bcf887a.html

E-Cigarette Makers Give Public the Finger

Rob Waters, Contributor, Forbes
With Sarah Mittermaier and Lily Swartz
In 1964, smoking was everywhere: on television, on airplanes, in workplaces and movie theatres, college campuses, doctors’ offices, restaurants and bars. In the 50 years since the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health was released, smoking has gradually faded to the margins of public life. TheMarlboro man was bounced from the airwaves, comprehensive smoking bans were passed in hundreds of cities and 28 states, and smoking rates were cut almost in half. The struggle to protect the public’s health is far from over—and shocking disparities in tobacco use and exposure to tobacco marketing remain—but we’re now reaping some rewards, with eight million lives saved over the past half-century.
But now a new threat is emerging. The use of e-cigarettes is rising rapidly, with teenagers a key target of marketing efforts. “Vaping” is making smoking acceptable—even cool—once again as the tobacco industry returns to its old ways, putting e-cigarette commercials back on the airwaves for the first time since the 1970s.

Right now, e-cigarettes exist in what tobacco control researcher Stanton Glanz calls a regulatory “Wild West,” with no federal regulation of the manufacturing, marketing and sales of these products. This regulatory vacuum threatens to undo the hard-won victories of the past 50 years in tobacco control.
E-cigarette companies are taking a page right out of Big Tobacco’s old-school playbook: marketing their products with sex appeal, celebrity endorsements, even cartoons. The companies argue that “vaping” is safer than traditional smoking and that may or may not be true—there are far too few studies to back up that claim or refute it. But it’s also a smokescreen.
The tobacco industry is out to hook kids, and it’s working. E-cigarettes come in an array of kid-friendly flavors, from“Cherry Crush” to “Coca Cola.” And unlike conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes can legally be sold to kids in most US states. Data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that e-cigarette use more than doubled among middle and high school students in the previous year. For 20 percent of the middle schoolers, e-cigarettes were their first experience with smoking, raising concerns that e-cigarettes may act as a gateway to the use of other tobacco products.
E-cigarettes also threaten to reintroduce smoking to workplaces, restaurants, bars and other public spaces where hard-fought public health campaigns have succeeded in banning cigarettes. These policies have changed our communities from the ground up, creating new expectations and norms around smoking. The science is still out on whether e-cigarettes threaten non-smokers with toxic exposure, but their use in public legitimizes their use, making them seem acceptable, even Golden Globes-glamorous. We can’t let e-cigarettes undo the hard work tobacco control advocates have achieved over the past 50 years.
Some cities and states are pushing back against e-cigarettes, taking steps to regulate the sale and public use of e-cigarettes. Over the past few months, New York and Chicago city councils voted to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, extending existing smoking bans to cover vaping. The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to regulate the sales of e-cigarettes. Boston has banned e-cigarette smoking in workplaces. States such as Utah, New Jersey, and North Dakota ban the use of e-cigarettes in indoor public spaces.
These local and state efforts should be followed—and strengthened—by federal action. Attorneys general from 40 states have called on the Food and Drug Administration to regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products, a move that would give the FDA the power to impose age restrictions and limit marketing of e-cigarettes. Proposed rules drafted by the agency have not yet been released publicly.
We can’t wait years for scientists to conduct new studies on the health risks of vaping before we take action. We know better than to trust the tobacco industry’s health claims about their products—or to trust the industry with our children’s future. The time for action is now. To paraphrase one anti-cigarette commercial in California: “Some people will say anything to sell (e-) cigarettes.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robwaters/2014/01/27/e-cigarette-makers-give-public-the-finger/

Jury is out on health effects of e-cigarettes

By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times
Electronic cigarettes are either a potent weapon in the war against tobacco, or they are an insidious menace that threatens to get kids hooked on nicotine and make smoking socially acceptable again.

There are health experts who back each point of view. But they do agree that the empirical evidence that will tell them who is right will not be in for several years.
“There are a few studies out there right now, but scientists like to have a gazillion,” said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control at UC San Francisco.
Among the most pressing questions for researchers: What are the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes on users and people around them? Do e-cigarettes help people kick the smoking habit, or do they actually make it harder? If kids start smoking e-cigarettes, are they likely to graduate to regular cigarettes?
“My big question with e-cigarettes is whether it puts youth on a pathway to smoking,” said acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak, who will join other U.S. health officials Friday at the White House to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the surgeon general’s first report on the hazards of smoking.
When that landmark report was released in 1964, the proportion of U.S. adults who smoked was at an all-time high of 43%. By 2012, that figure had dropped to 18%. But without a renewed focus on the campaign against tobacco, the U.S. will miss its goal of reducing the national smoking rate to 12% by the end of the decade.
E-cigarettes are uniquely positioned to undo recent public health gains, Lushniak and others fear.
The battery-operated devices heat nicotine, propylene glycol and glycerin into a vapor, which is inhaled by the user. Unlike conventional tobacco-burning cigarettes, e-cigarettes do not deliver poisonous tars or carbon monoxide.
Currently, the devices are regulated only by a smattering of local governments who have passed laws concerning their sale and use. The Food and Drug Administration has the legal authority to regulate e-cigarettes as a tobacco product, but has not yet done so. In the meantime, e-cigarettes have grown to become a $2-billion industry with no federal oversight.
Though the FDA says propylene glycol and glycerin food additives are “generally regarded as safe,” the long-term effects of inhaling the substances are unknown. The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products has begun collecting reports of adverse effects from e-cigarettes, and those complaints include claims of eye irritation, headaches and coughing.
E-cigarette backers say the health effects of the key component — nicotine — are well established and minimal for most everyone except pregnant mothers. They note that nicotine gum and patches have been used as smoking cessation tools for many years.
“It’s not the nicotine that’s the real enemy; it’s the way it’s burned and delivered in cigarettes,” said psychologist David Abrams, executive director of the American Legacy Foundation’s Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies in Washington. “In reasonable doses, and assuming good quality control, nicotine might raise your heart rate two or three beats per minute, but it really has few adverse effects.”
Yet that might not be true for teens. A surgeon general’s report released Friday says evidence now suggests that nicotine exposure during adolescence “may have lasting adverse consequences for brain development.”
And then there are the potential health effects on bystanders, who are also exposed to nicotine and propylene glycol emitted by the e-cigarette and its user.
Studies performed on e-cigarette vapor have detected heavy metals and volatile compounds such as formaldehyde, but the concentration and threat they pose has been hotly debated.
In a review of studies that examined e-cigarette mist, Drexel University environmental and occupational health expert Igor Burstyn concluded that “while these compounds are present, they have been detected at problematic levels only in a few studies that apparently were based on unrealistic levels of heating.”
Abrams took heart in that assessment, though he acknowledged that the vapor was not benign. Even so, the bystander effects are “almost immeasurable compared to the toxins in secondhand cigarette smoke,” he said.
That assessment may change when several studies examining fine particulate matter from e-cigarette vapor and their effects on the cardiovascular system are completed, Glantz said.
The burning question for most experts is whether e-cigarettes actually help people to quit smoking.
Researchers have conducted surveys that give them a “snapshot” of smoker behavior at a particular moment, but not over an extended period. Some results suggest e-cigarette users are continuing to smoke conventional cigarettes and relying on the electronic substitutes to satisfy nicotine cravings in the workplace, restaurants and other places where cigarettes are forbidden.
Another study published in the journal Lancet compared the effectiveness of e-cigarettes to nicotine patches and gum. Researchers said they expected e-cigarettes to be the clear winner, but it was a tie.
Now experts are looking toward long-term behavioral studies that will reveal how smokers actually use e-cigarettes. One such analysis by the FDA is set to begin field work this year, and will track about 60,000 smokers and nonsmokers for two years.
“It should tell us if people are using them for cessation, or as a gateway to traditional tobacco use,” said Brian King, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-e-cigarettes-science-20140117,0,7562029.story#ixzz2qh59hXu7

City looks at e-cigarettes

By: Eric Killelea, Williston Herald
The Upper Missouri District Health Unit wants the Williston City Commission to amend its codes to include restrictions on the purchase of electronic cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 years old.
On Tuesday, Chelsea Bryant, tobacco prevention specialist, requested support from the commission.
North Dakota currently lacks a law or ordinance to restrict purchase of e-cigarettes, Bryant said. Fargo is the only city to have changed its codes in similar efforts to that of Upper Missouri District, having done so Jan. 7.
To read more, visit http://www.willistonherald.com/news/city-looks-at-e-cigarettes/article_35168482-7ec7-11e3-b508-0019bb2963f4.html

U.S. senators slam 'glamorization' of e-cigarettes at Golden Globes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of U.S. senators is taking the Golden Globes to task for showing celebrities puffing on electronic cigarettes at this year’s awards show, complaining such depictions glamorize smoking.
“The Golden Globes celebrates entertainers who are an influence on young fans,” the four Democratic senators wrote on Tuesday. “We ask the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and NBC Universal to take actions to ensure that future broadcasts of the Golden Globes do not intentionally feature images of e-cigarettes.”
“Such action would help to avoid the glamorization of smoking and protect the health of young fans,” said the letter signed by Dick Durbin of Illinois, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Edward Markey of Massachusetts.”
The Golden Globes ceremony that aired on Comcast Corp-owned NBC on Sunday night showed actor Leonardo DiCaprio smoking an e-cigarette during the broadcast, as well as nominee Julia Louis-Dreyfus puffing on one as part of an opening skit.
The Golden Globes, which honor achievement in film and television, are handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The show drew its best television audience in a decade.
E-cigarettes are battery-powered metal tubes that turn nicotine-laced liquid into vapor. Some analysts predict that the fast-growing market for the product could outpace that of conventional cigarettes within a decade.
Regulators are agonizing over whether to restrict the product as a “gateway” to nicotine addiction and tobacco smoking, or to embrace them as treatments for would-be quitters.
NBC Universal and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Writing by Peter Cooney; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-rt-us-goldenglobes-ecigarettes-20140114,0,981972.story

Local doctor’s view e-cigarettes

By Diane Miller, High Plains Reader, Fargo
Sales of electronic cigarettes are expected to reach $1.7 billion this year. Many smokers are turning to this odor-free, vapor-releasing instrument as a safer alternative to cigarettes, but many health experts are skeptical.
HPR turned to local e-cig expert Dr. Brody Maack from Family HealthCare to answer a few questions this new product.
HPR: Why are the FDA and health experts so concerned about a product that seems like a much safer alternative to cigarettes?
Dr. Brody Maack: The main concern revolves around the fact that e-cigarettes currently have no manufacturing standards and are unregulated. This means that there have been no well done, long term safety studies in which the products are tested to see if there are any harmful effects.
Also, as far back as 2009, the FDA did laboratory analysis of some e-cigarettes, which showed that they contained carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) as well as diethylene glycol (which is found in anti-freeze).
The FDA also found that quality control in manufacturing the e-cigarettes is either poor or non-existent in laboratory studies.
It is also unknown as to the risks of inhaling the “vapor” which is let off by the products, and we don’t know if there is a risk for second-hand exposure to the vapor. Because e-cigarettes all contain different amounts of their ingredients, including nicotine, in addition to these other safety concerns, we cannot say that they are “safer” than cigarettes.
Another concern is that we are seeing a rapid increase in the use of e-cigarettes in our youth, due to various flavors which are attractive to a younger crowd, and intensive marketing of the products. Also, there is no restriction to e-cigarette sales to minors in North Dakota. Minnesota, however, does prohibit the sale and possession of e-cigarettes to minors.
HPR: What would be your response to this statement made by Craig Youngblood, president of the InLife e-cigarette company:
In our product you have nicotine or no nicotine, PEG, and some flavoring. In cigarettes you have nicotine, PEG, and 4,000 chemicals and 43 carcinogens. There are 45 to 50 million people already addicted to nicotine.
Should they have the choice to satisfy their addiction by other means? … I am a proponent of harm reduction. People have rights and choices and should be allowed to make them.
BM: Mr. Youngblood states that his product contains various ingredients (i.e. “nicotine or no nicotine”), also admitting that his product includes “some flavoring.” As I stated before, there are no e-cigarette manufacturers that are currently being held to any manufacturing standards or regulations, so the InLife product, like other e-cigarette products, may contain various amounts of its stated ingredients.
Also, the fact that InLife is promoting its product as containing flavoring may be increasing exposure of this product with unknown safety to our youth. This is why the FDA has banned flavoring in cigarettes. The CDC released data in October of this year which showed that 40 percent of middle and high schoolers who smoke, smoke flavored tobacco products.
I agree with Mr. Youngblood when he states that “people have rights and choices and should be allowed to make them,” but I believe that people’s decisions should therefore be well-informed, and not subject them, or their children, to potential health risk. Also, the issue of “harm reduction” is typically promoted by tobacco product supporters, however it is felt by most of the tobacco cessation expert community that complete abstinence from tobacco is the only way to reduce the number of people who will die in the next 100 years from tobacco related disease, which is expected to be 1 billion!
HPR: Many community citizens are upset that the city of Fargo banned the use of e-cigs in indoor public places. Do you foresee this rule changing and why?
BM: The banning of e-cigarettes in Fargo is actually a statewide law, which went into effect December 6, 2012. I don’t see this changing, simply because of concerns we have discussed—lack of manufacturing standards, lack of safety proof, potentially harmful ingredients and concerns for turning our youth on to tobacco products. Considering that e-cigarettes look similar to regular cigarettes, prohibiting their use indoors also eliminates any confusion about what’s acceptable under the statewide law.
HPR: In your opinion, what is the best method to quitting smoking?
BM: The best method of quitting smoking has been proven countless times to be a method which includes behavioral counseling along with medications, such as the nicotine patches, gum or lozenges. This method is recommended by the US Public Health Service, and is available in many communities through doctors’ offices, pharmacies and through state telephone quitline services, such as ND Quits (1-800-QUIT-NOW) or internet quit services. Many of these programs are free!
HPR: Anything you’d like to add?
BM: As of right now, e-cigarettes are too much of an “unknown” with regards to safety and whether or not they help people to quit smoking, and with concerns for the products being a gateway to youth tobacco use, they simply cannot be recommended for use. There have been no respectable studies showing that e-cigarettes are better, or safer, than any of our seven FDA-approved medications for quitting smoking.
We have a large amount of safety data and data to show that the FDA-approved options work very well to help people quit tobacco. These options include three over-the-counter options (nicotine patches, gum and lozenges), and four prescription products (Chantix, Zyban, nicotine inhaler and nicotine nasal spray). In fact, the nicotine inhaler is a proven, safe option for people who want to quit in a similar way as e-cigarettes, without the unknown risks of “vapor” exposure and other potentially harmful ingredients.
Also, the nicotine inhaler, along with the other FDA-approved options, is legal to use in any indoor space in North Dakota. I personally recommend this option for patients of mine who show interest in e-cigarette products as a safe alternative to e-cigarettes.
Brody Maack, PharmD, CTTS, is a clinical pharmacist who provides medication management services, including tobacco cessation, at Family HealthCare in Fargo. He also serves as Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at the NDSU College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Allied Sciences, where he teaches the subjects of heart and lung diseases, which includes tobacco related disease, prevention and cessation.
http://hpr1.com/wellness/article/local_doctors_view_e-cigarettes/

Are e-cigarettes dangerous?

By Harold P. Wimmer
Editor’s note: Harold P. Wimmer is the president and CEO of the American Lung Association.
(CNN) — For the makers of electronic cigarettes, today we are living in the Wild West — a lawless frontier where they can say or do whatever they want, no matter what the consequences. They are free to make unsubstantiated therapeutic claims and include myriad chemicals and additives in e-cigarettes.
Big Tobacco desperately needs new nicotine addicts and is up to its old tricks to make sure it gets them. E-cigarettes are being aggressively marketed to children with flavors like Bazooka Bubble Gum, Cap’n Crunch and Cotton Candy. Joe Camel was killed in the 1990s, but cartoon characters are back promoting e-cigarettes.
Many e-cigarettes look like Marlboro or Camel cigarettes. Like their old-Hollywood counterparts, glamorous and attractive celebrities are appearing on TV promoting specific e-cigarette brands. Free samples are even being handed out on street corners.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the promotion of e-cigarettes is reaching our children with alarming success. In just one year, e-cigarette use doubled among high school and middle school students, and 1 in 10 high school students have used an e-cigarette. Altogether, 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide use e-cigarettes.

The three largest cigarette companies are all selling e-cigarettes. Because tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people each year and thousands more successfully quit, the industry needs to attract and addict thousands of children each day, as well as keep adults dependent to maintain its huge profits.
Nicotine is a highly addictive substance, whether delivered in a conventional cigarette or their electronic counterparts. The potential harm from exposure to secondhand emissions from e-cigarettes is unknown. Two initial studies have found formaldehyde, benzene and tobacco-specific nitrosamines (a well-known carcinogen) coming from those secondhand emissions. We commend New York City recently for banning the use of e-cigarettes indoors.
No e-cigarette has been approved by the FDA as a safe and effective product to help people quit smoking. Yet many companies are making claims that e-cigarettes help smokers quit. When smokers are ready to quit, they should call 1-800-QUIT NOW or talk with their doctors about using one of the seven FDA-approved medications proven to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit.
According to one study, there are 250 different e-cigarette brands for sale in the U.S. today. With so many brands, there is likely to be wide variation in the chemicals — intended and unintended — that each contain.
In 2009, lab tests conducted by the FDA found detectable levels of toxic cancer-causing chemicals — including an ingredient used in anti-freeze — in two leading brands of e-cigarettes and 18 various e-cigarette cartridges.
There is no safe form of tobacco. Right now, the public health and medical community or consumers have no way of knowing what chemicals are contained in an e-cigarette or what the short and long term health implications might be.
Commonsense regulation of e-cigarettes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is urgently needed. In the absence of meaningful oversight, the tobacco industry has free rein to promote their products as “safe” without any proof.
A proposal to regulate e-cigarettes and other tobacco products has been under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget since October 1, 2013. The Obama administration must move forward with these rules to protect the health of everyone, especially our children.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Harold P. Wimmer.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/06/opinion/wimmer-ecigarette-danger/