It's a drive to end tobacco smoking. New nicotine delivery systems from the FDA's "low to no" nicotine cigarettes, as well as JUUL's nicotine vaporizers, are getting a lot of media attention. As a physician, I use the scientific evidence and my experience in counseling my patients. Here's what you should consider.
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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.
Although you might think that living in an urban setting is worse for your lungs, recent data from the CDC point out that there's more Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in rural areas. Why? Possible reasons include a higher smoking rate as well as more environmental exposures.
Like a series of bad sequels, the media is back with yet another terribly botched story. This time, the claim is that using household cleaning sprays is like smoking 20 cigarettes per day. Wrong again.
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.
A traveler who smokes should be able to wait to light up until he, or she, gets home. But if that's not possible, the nicotine craving can be satisfied with a layover in Europe or Asia.
Over-the-top rhetoric is not only prevalent in our political dialogue, it is also commonly adopted by epidemiologists and journalists. Instead of Hitler, they compare anything they dislike to smoking.
E-cigarettes are "effective in helping people quit smoking" and "95% safer than smoking."* Additionally, there are "no health risks to bystanders."
What evil, conniving, greedy, Big Tobacco-loving, propaganda-spewing group of shills says that? The UK's National Health Service (NHS).
The King County Health Department, which serves mostly the city of Seattle and its suburbs, has recently earned a reputation for being driven by politics rather than by evidence-based medicine or common sense.
The number of teenage smokers has declined from last year, and e-cigarettes are declining also, indicating they are not a gateway to smoking.
Beginning in May of this year, all cigarettes sold in the UK must be packaged to standards regulating material, size, shape, opening mechanism and more importantly with plain packaging.
And by plain packaging, I mean a "mud-green box" stripped of all branding. Like this:
The tobacco companies argued that plain packaging was ineffectual. But as the Financial Times notes
Once again, the echo-chamber nature of press releases serves to promote misleading science and internet "health news" clickbait. This time, it's with headlines claiming that tobacco – not marijuana – boosts early stroke risk. So is this fact or fiction? Let's take a look.