ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan comes to the defense of actress Katherine Heigl s decision to use e-cigarettes as a safer, more effective method of kicking her smoking habit for good. In her op-ed published Saturday in The Daily Caller, Dr. Whelan underscores the stagnant rate of smoking among adults over the last five years and emphasizes how e-cigarettes provide a safer alternative to the harmful combustion products of real cigarettes:
There s no reason to think e-cigarettes present the same risks, since there s no combustion ¦Alternatives for addicted smokers, such as e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products, need to be taken seriously.
The sad truth is that the approved cessation methods have an abysmal one-year success rate, so alternative methods need to be explored, added Dr. Whelan. Unfortunately, many in the anti-smoking community won t even discuss anything that contains, or is derived from, tobacco. Such an attitude consigns millions of addicted smokers to premature disease and death.