THE TRUTHS & SCARES OF E-CIGS
A vast amount of disinformation that has been put forth about the Electronic Cigarette and the E-Cigarette industry. For the hundreds of thousands of people who are now using this technology as a logical alternative to tobacco, governmental agencies and anti-tobacco groups who should provide and publish factual information about the E-Cig are not doing so and instead are utilizing their authority for either political advantage or profit, both of which diminish their authority.
Again, good people who are well-intentioned are making the false claims that this technology is potentially dangerous and untested. We want to present to you those erroneous claims that we see as most prevalent and present to you simply the science/data and truth to refute those claims:
“(The) FDA does not seem to have heard about the famous 5 year Lung Study wherein thousands with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) used Nicotine gum, with no increase in hospitalization or mortality. Since then 7.5 additional years of follow up for lung cancer show no added risk for gum users but plenty for smokers. If the FDA needs references for longer term nicotine only effects, Nicotine gum has been used widely in many countries since 1984.”
SCARE #1FACT #1
As one of the Senate’s leaders in protecting Americans from the dangers of smoking, I urge the FDA to take e-cigarettes off the market until they are proven safe.” – Senator Frank Launtenberg, March 2009
and
“There have been no clinical studies to verify the safety of these products or the long-term health effects. To the contrary, FDA’s own laboratory analyses of electronic cigarette samples found them to contain carcinogens and toxins such as antifreeze components. I disagree with the decision in this case and support the FDA’s position that electronic cigarettes are drug-device combinations.” – Senator Frank Lautenberg, February 2010 in a letter written to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg
Senator Lautenberg has the ability to garner from the FDA all data that it has procured in regard to any actual or perceived harm to the public from use of the electronic cigarette due to the FDA asking the public for such data.
SCARE #2FACT #2
“We don’t know how much nicotine is exactly there. We don’t know how much is being delivered. We don’t know the content of the vapor. This has not been studied.” – Doctor Johnathan Whiteson from New York University’s Cardiac and Pulmonary Wellness and Rehabilitation Program on the CBS Morning Show 02/27/09
We do know exactly how much nicotine is in each cartridge and we do know what is being delivered in teh vapor as the FDA’s own study TESTED the exact levels (View Table Here). All 13 ingredients of an E-Cig are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA and have been in the U.S. food supply for generations. SCARE #3FACT #3
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administraion today announced that a laboratory analysis of elctronic cigarette samples has found that they contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.” – FDA Press Release dated July 22, 2009
“The FDA’s actual May 4, 2009 report that originated the July 22, 2009 press release findings verify previous test results (1) that validate that the electronic cigarette is up to 1,400 times safer than the leading brand of cigarettes.” states Professor Michael Siegel, MD, MPH of Boston Univsity’s School of Public Health a tobacco harm reduction researcher for over 20 years.
Previous studies on the E-Cig show that electronic cigarettes contain 8.2ng/g of tobacco-specific nitrosamines versus 11,190ng/g in the leading tobacco cigarette, which the FDA’s own study does not refute.
SCARE #4FACT #4
“It’s my duty to protect the public from products that are falsely advertised as safe” “When products threaten the health and safety of Oregonians, we will take action” – Oregon Attorney General John Kroger and Mary Williams, Deputy Attorney General
Let’s take that comment at face value. If the Oregon Department of Justice has stated that whenever products threaten the health of Oregonians, they will take action, we have to ask why have they not taken action against the leading cause of preventable death in Oregon: tobacco cigarettes, which have been documented to kill more than 5,000 Oregonians each year or against Pfizer’s Chantix which the FDA has documented reports of thousands of adverse effects, including deaths yet Chantix is still on the marketing in Oregon, the Department of Justice has chosen to ban the retail sales of the E-Cig, which has not been documented to pose any health risk to Oregonians, and which is helping to avert significant disease and mortality in the state by keeping many of its residents off of cigarettes.
What the Oregon Department of Justice is saying is that they would rather have Oregonians smoke cigarettes – with their more than 6,000 chemicals and 66 carcinogens and tar, than inhale e-cig vapor, which has not been shown to deliver any of those 6,000 chemicals, 66 carcinogens and tar and the only TSNAs were at very trace levels.
