Plus the FDA Supports the Notion Of Big Pharma Made E-Cigs On Prescription and Classed As Drugs
He’s a champion of the health benefits of vaping and now Professor Michael Siegel has warned the current sway of e-liquid flavour bans sweeping across America is putting people’s lives at risk.
Meanwhile the FDA has given the green light to Big Pharma companies to jump on the vaping bandwagon and begin producing their own e-cigarettes to be marketed in America as ‘drugs’ – more on that later.
In a hard hitting editorial written for the Inside Sources website Professor Siegel says the whole point of flavoured e-liquids is to help smokers:
…get away from the taste of, and dependence on tobacco.
He points out the ridiculous rules and bans the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] are currently enforcing or considering and slams state and local level legislation removing flavoured e-liquids from sale calling it:
…the definition of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
His comments back up a study published last spring – Changing patterns of first e-cigarette flavor used and current flavors used by 20,836 adult frequent e-cigarette users in the USA that categorically concluded:
Adult frequent e-cigarette users in the USA who have completely switched from smoking cigarettes to using e-cigarettes are increasingly likely to have initiated e-cigarette use with non-tobacco flavors and to have transitioned from tobacco to non-tobacco flavors over time.
Restricting access to non-tobacco e-cigarette flavors may discourage smokers from attempting to switch to e-cigarettes.
That last line should be sent to every politician and anti vape soccer mom group in America and written on a billboard outside the FDA!
As I’ve reported often lol the current ‘war on vaping‘ across the pond is to say the least gathering momentum with state after state and towns and cities outright banning or planning to ban all flavoured e-liquids except menthol and tobacco!
Professor Siegel points out these FDA backed bans also includes the removal of menthol flavoured lit cigarettes and asks the simple question:
Why should it be easier for a youth to obtain a Marlboro than a cherry vape?
Why indeed…answers on a postcard!
Vaping Twice As Effective as Patches and Gums
He also makes it clear the now dated nicotine replacement therapies [NRTs] are not as effective as e-cigarettes when it comes to quitting smoking – a point I wrote about in the Weekly Vaping News at the start of February.
Public health laws, by definition, must have the effect of protecting the public’s health and saving lives — and they must not be arbitrary. These flavor ban laws will actually harm the public’s health, and they are arbitrary because they regulate cigarette brands differently with no valid health justification. They will make it harder for ex-smokers to choose a less harmful option.
While e-cigarettes may not be a perfect product, the research consistently shows that they are far safer than traditional cigarettes. And a clinical trial published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that vaping products are not only helping smokers quit, but they are twice as effective as the nicotine patch.
Once again he nails it with little or no new regulation on lit tobacco – apart from the mental menthol ban – remember as we keep on saying it’s the combustion and smoke that kills NOT the nicotine or the flavourings! And as I also keep saying – the only winners here will be Big Tobacco and Pharma.
Read Professor Siegel superb article: E-Cigarette Flavor Bans Will Drive More People Back to Smoking and post it far and wide!
Gottlieb Looks To Big Pharma For New Novel NRTs
The emergence of Big Pharma as an e-cig manufacturer became even more apparent this week as the ‘anti-vape Christ’ figure of FDA supremo Scott Gottlieb made very clear.
Whilst he continues on his crusade to ‘ban all the vaping things‘ he gave a begrudging nod to the effectiveness of e-cigs as a tool to quit smoking but clouded the positives out with a bigger nod towards Big Pharma – albeit in guarded ambiguity…he his, let’s face it, to all intents and purposes a politician pandering to soccer moms and lobbyists first…ooo slap my wrist!
In a press release titled: …on additional steps by the agency to support the development of safe and effective novel nicotine replacement therapies to help smokers quit cigarettes – he says:
NRT products, which are designed to safely reduce withdrawal symptoms, including the nicotine craving associated with quitting smoking, are generally considered to double the likelihood of a successful quit attempt. Quitting smoking can lower a person’s chances of having lung disease, heart disease or getting certain types of cancer.
Most existing NRTs such as gums, patches and lozenges have been approved for more than 30 years. They have played an important role in providing adults with tools to help quit smoking, in a manner that doesn’t require cutting themselves off immediately and entirely from nicotine.
Now, we have an opportunity to build on these NRTs, with novel products that may provide an opportunity to save even more lives by empowering adults to safely and effectively quit smoking.
Huh? Maybe e-cigarettes proven to be 95% safer than smoking and twice as likely to help smokers quit might be worth a try rather than trying to shackle the thriving innovative life saving industry…just a thought…
And hey hang on wait what? Patches and gums ‘double’ the chances of a smoker quitting? I think the anti-vape crusader needs to do his research because the very latest and peer reviewed study shows it’s e-cigarettes and vaping that’s ‘twice as likely’ to help smokers quit!
The anti vape scene really is a white is black and black is white kind of place…
And as I showed in the article Nicotine Patches and Gums Don’t Work smokers know this from experience and failed attempts – and indeed Big Pharma AND Big Tobacco has known it for years!
But hey don’t let the facts get in the way of the pro ban all things vape argument…*rolls eyes* [it’s less painful than banging my head on the desk 😉
BTW that last linked article may have been linked to ‘disgraced‘ anti vape scientist Stanton Glantz – but it shows collusion between Big Tobacco and Big Pharma in that they knew very well the old school patches and gums didn’t work and instead saw it as a ‘business opportunity.
So it’s more than a bit rich that Gottlieb refers to ’30 years’ of FDA approval whilst attacking e-cigs that DO work…and BTW don’t try to tell me they ‘all’ didn’t know those phony NRTs sucked [pun intended].
Big Pharma E-Cigarettes On Prescription In the USA?
I said this was a ‘guarded and ambiguous’ policy statement or at least a thought process on how the FDA goes forward on all things NRT including e-cigs. This quote in particular had me scratching my head for a wee while:
Novel products with different characteristics or routes of nicotine delivery have the potential to offer additional opportunities for health-concerned smokers interested in quitting. This could also include products such as electronic nicotine delivery systems like electronic cigarettes, but which would need to be proven safe and effective for smoking cessation and regulated as a drug product.
This would allow them to be marketed as a prescription or over-the-counter drug products with medical claims for smoking cessation or related indications – ultimately reducing the likelihood of someone continuing to suffer the clinical consequences of smoking.
This is different from our regulation of e-cigarettes as tobacco products.
Then it hit me like a vape on a mech mod with 18mg nicotine…apart that is as a definite case of ‘one rule for them and one for us…’
I’m pretty sure Gottlieb is acknowledging that e-cigarettes are safe AND more importantly effective at helping people quit smoking. HOWEVER he’s opening the door for Big Pharma to join Big Tobacco in the booming vape industry and treating those products as approved FDA drugs!
For goodness sake [I did originally use a stronger term…] you can’t demonize e-cigarettes containing nicotine and then suggest Big Pharma manufactured devices – in effect the exact same thing – should be the way forward?!? Isn’t that the first steps towards a monopoly?
Once again I use the phrase Cui bono? As in who benefits? Certainly NOT the smokers looking to quit or indeed the vapers who enjoy a healthier life including flavoured e-liquids…but Big Pharma.
And as I keep on saying the ‘war on vaping’ over in the US is NOTHING to do with nicotine or indeed the nation’s health but EVERYTHING to do with money.
Convince the public vaping and nicotine is bad – but push the exact same products from pharmaceutical companies and keep those election and donation coffers stuffed to the gills with cash.
Makes me sicker than chewing on those disgusting nicotine gums or spraying that ‘flavoured’ nic spray onto my tongue…indeed you could say the whole thing leaves a very bad taste in my mouth…
