In an article published on New Year’s Eve in the Philadelphia Inquirer, a physician from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine tackles what should have been a very simple question: “Are e-cigarettes any safer for my child than tobacco?”The actual answer, based on the scientific evidence, is unequivocally “Yes.” However, that’s not her answer.The Rest of the StoryInstead of simply …
You Can’t Identify Potential Benefits of E-Cigarettes if You Only Look for the Risks: The Flaw in Current E-Cigarette Research
A new paper published online ahead of print in the journal Preventive Medicine finds that telling smokers that vaping is safer than smoking may lead them to try vaping. In the study, smokers randomized into groups that were either told that cigarettes contain many more toxic chemicals than e-cigarettes or that cigarettes and e-cigarettes contain an equal number of toxic …
Switching to Vaping Improves Health of Smokers with COPD
A new study by Dr. Riccardo Polosa and colleagues, published in the journal Respiratory Research, finds that smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who switch to electronic cigarettes experience an improvement in their symptoms and have fewer COPD exacerbations.(See: Polosa R, et al. Evidence for harm reduction in COPD smokers who switch to electronic cigarettes. Respiratory Research. Published online …
Finalists Announced for 2016 Lie of the Year Award
Today, I am announcing the finalists for the 2016 Lie of the Year Award. This award will be given to the health agency or organization which has lied most egregiously to the public about smoking and/or vaping in 2016. Feel free to cast your ballot in the comment section. Readers’ votes will be taken into consideration in making the final …
D.C. District Court Should Issue an Immediate Injunction Against Enforcement of FDA Deeming Regulations
According to an ABC News story, a Connecticut man was injured when an electronic cigarette exploded in his mouth. The problem, according to the local Deputy Fire Marshal, is that “cheaply made aftermarket batteries can short circuit in milliseconds.” The article reports that there have been at least 92 other documented explosions.There seems to be a simple solution to the …
Lying for Money: Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Solicitation is Fundamentally Dishonest
This Monday, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids sent out a solicitation for donations that stated: “The tobacco industry spends $9.1 billion a year on marketing in the U.S. alone. That’s over $1 million every hour! And much of it is aimed at kids. The industry needs kids as “replacements” for the nearly half a million Americans killed by smoking each …
Claims that Youth E-Cigarette Use Leads to Smoking are Destroyed; 2016 Monitoring the Future Survey Shows Steep Decline in Smoking
The claims of anti-tobacco groups and health agencies — including the Surgeon General’s Office — that youth e-cigarette experimentation leads to smoking have been essentially destroyed after this morning’s release of results from the 2016 Monitoring the Future Survey.The 2016 survey finds that from 2015 to 2016, current cigarette smoking among 8th and 10th grade students dropped by the greatest …
Arizona Health Department: Vaping is as Dangerous as Smoking; When Will the Lies Stop?
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, vaping is just as dangerous as smoking. The state health department has initiated a campaign entitled “Vape is a Lie” to teach kids about the dangers of vaping and nicotine use. The director of the state agency describes the primary purpose of the campaign as follows:“We did research this year with several …
Youth Vaping Plummets in Wake of Surgeon General’s Report
A survey conducted by the Pew Foundation this past weekend found that self-reported rates of youth vaping have dropped sharply following Thursday’s release of the Surgeon General’s report on e-cigarette use, which, after a 263-page review of the scientific evidence, warned that vaping is “not harmless” and that e-cigarette aerosol is not “just water vapor.”Foundation president Robert J. Pew said …
Tobacco Industry Unveils New Ad Campaign: “Any Form of Tobacco Use is Harmful, So You Might as Well Smoke”
A major tobacco company today announced a new, national advertising campaign that is based on the primary message that since the Surgeon General has declared that any form of tobacco use is harmful, people might as well smoke since it provides the best “nicotine hit” of any tobacco product currently on the market. The campaign will roll out over the …