E-cigarettes remain controversial. They are frequently offered as an effective bridge to smoking cessation. But that path may be harder than we anticipated.
e-cigarettes
The CDC says "tobacco use by youth is rising." If that were to be true, it'd be horrible -- but it's not. Cigarette use is down. The only reason the CDC can make this claim is because the agency considers e-cigarettes and vaping devices -- which only contain nicotine -- to be tobacco products. This is misleading and undermines public health.
If smokers follow the advice of Glantz, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco, they will die. It's that simple.
Not all vices are equally bad. In a perfect world, our kids never do anything stupid or rebellious. But we don't live in that kind of world, do we? The principle of harm reduction acknowledges that reality, which means that teen vapers are preferable to teen smokers.
U.S. public health agencies struggle to endorse an obvious solution to a true public health menace. Hopefully, the UK Parliament will provide a much-needed boost to the forces of common sense.
The Guardian's health page is scaremongering about e-cigarettes and pushing bizarre solutions to obesity. This is what happens when political activists write about public health.
Why do smokers find such solace in cigarettes? It may be the nicotine, and as a study explains those who have a hard time controlling their emotions may turn to smoking as a way to self-medicate. New CDC data completely supports that assertion.
Partisanship is a terrible development for our culture. But it's even worse for areas such as public health, because people die when we implement bad, partisan ideas.
In service of their ideological agenda, the "abstinence-only" nicotine religion is perfectly happy to withhold potentially life-saving e-cigarettes from smokers. If a few million smokers have to die along the way, those are casualties they're willing to accept in pursuit of their nicotine-free utopia.
Commissioner Scott Gottlieb believes that his FDA should be in the business of getting smokers to transition away from cigarettes, to something less harmful like e-cigarettes or other products. That's similar to the policy taken by the UK's National Health Service, and it's precisely in line with ACSH's policy stance of harm reduction.
New research finds no significant health differences between vapers and non-vapers. However, the sample size was very small, so the results should be considered preliminary.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed legislation banning the use of electronic cigarettes indoors. It's a move that ensures his position as being pro-cancer and anti-science.