Dr. Michael Cummings, a tobacco researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina’sHollingsCancerCenter, says e-cigarettes could be an effective product to help people quit smoking, but that research hasn’t proven the product’s safety or efficacy, according to a WCBD-TV2 report.
“It could absolutely be a tool, but I think we need good studies to evaluate the claims,” said Cummings, who added that current products such as nicotine patches, gums and lozenges had relatively low quit rates.
Cummings said the effectiveness of e-cigarettes was inhalation – the most efficient form of delivering a drug to the brain. It was the same reason smoking was so addictive, whether it was in relation to nicotine or other drugs.
But Cummings and some other health advocates are worried about what they see as the unknowns of e-cigarettes. Earlier tests by the FDA, he said, had found chemicals similar to those used in car washes.
And he is worried about the ‘metal tubings’, which he says ‘potentially could contain lead’. The metal could leach into the inhaled vapor and be dangerous for the smoker and bystanders, he said.
However, he said that vaping e-cigarettes was clearly less dangerous than was smoking a cigarette because you could hardly get more dangerous than smoking a cigarette.