Category: News This Week

U.S. National Park Service (NPS) director Jonathan Jarvis on Sept. 14 issued a policy memorandum prohibiting the use of electronic smoking devices in all places where the use of traditional tobacco products is already prohibited in national parks. The policy is effective immediately.

“Protecting the health and safety of our visitors and employees is one of the most critical duties of the National Park Service,” said Jarvis. “We are therefore extending the restrictions currently in place protecting visitors and employees from exposure to tobacco smoke to include exposure to vapor from electronic smoking devices.”

The new NPS policy bans the use of electronic smoking devices within all facilities and vehicles that are government-owned or leased, and within all national park concessions facilities.

The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) has released its new code of standards for the advertising and marketing of e-cigarettes. The code—which is due to come into force in March 2016—stipulates that e-cigarette companies must refrain from making health or medical claims about their products and cannot glamorize e-cigarettes in any way, encourage nonsmokers to vape or associate their vapor products with brands of tobacco products.

Although advertisements can present e-cigarettes as an alternative to traditional tobacco products, advertisers are prohibited from undermining the message that quitting tobacco use altogether is the best option for an individual’s health.

E-cigarettes are already covered by ASAI’s general rules; however, the regulatory body created a specific code of standards for the products because of their “increased visibility,” according to ASAI’s assistant chief executive Orla Tworney. ASAI is funded by the advertising industry, and advertisers are obligated to withdraw any advertisements that are found to be in breach of the agency’s code.

The Obama administration has failed to finalize federal regulations of electronic cigarettes nearly a year and a half after a proposed rule was issued, according to a story by Robert King for the Washington DC Examiner.

Health campaigners are said to be clamoring for a decision to rein in the growing industry, but the electronic cigarette industry is said to believe that the delay is due to legal issues surrounding whether the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate these products.

The FDA issued a proposed rule in late April 2014 outlining several regulations that might be applied to the electronic cigarette or vaping industry. The regulations include a ban on sales to minors and a requirement that would subject new tobacco products to FDA review. Electronic cigarette suppliers would have to register with the agency and back up any health claims they made.

The FDA has no update on when the final rule will be released, but said that it would be subject to further review because of its significance.

Rulemaking was a complex process, agency spokesperson Michael Felberbaum was quoted as saying. And adding to the complexity were the more than 135,000 public comments that the agency had to review.

Normally, the agency would review the rule and then put out a final one, he said. However, the electronic cigarette rule was deemed ‘significant’ by the federal government. That meant the White House’s Office of Management and Budget had to review the rule before it was published.

But for some, the coming into force of FDA electronic cigarette regulations – as they currently stand – is not something that should be brought forward quickly. In an opinion piece on the dailycaller.com, Jan Verleur, the CEO of V2, said that if the rules went into effect as proposed, electronic cigarette manufacturers would have to submit applications for all products, even those on the market for the past eight years. The rules would require a multimillion dollar expenditure that would essentially put small, independent electronic cigarette manufacturers – not to mention countless sellers across the country – out of business.

‘Should the FDA e-cigarette rules take effect as written, there would only be one winner: Big Tobacco,’ Verleur said.

The Examiner story can be found here. Read Verleur’s piece here.

Wales’ proposed ban on the use of electronic cigarettes in public places could prove to be a costly exercise, according to a report by the Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association.

The association is concerned that such a ban would force vapers out into smoking areas. ‘This risks many of Wales’s 33,600 non-smoking vapers falsely believing that the harm from e-cigarettes is the same as tobacco, and bowing to peer pressure to return to cigarettes,’ it said in a press note.

Using government figures, the association has calculated that each vaper who relapsed to smoking as a consequence of the ban would lose an average of between 0.99 and 2.58 Quality Adjusted Life Years. So if 20 percent of vapers relapsed, between 6,586 and 17,338 quality adjusted years of life would be lost. (Quality Adjusted Life Years – QALYs – are years of life, adjusted for quality, such that 10 years of life in perfect health equates to 10 QALYs while the same 10 years of life at 50% quality of life would equate to 5 QALYs.)

The cost to Welsh society as a whole would amount to almost 84,000 years of life and the equivalent of more than £5 billion, the association said.

“The science is clear that vaping is 95 percent safer than smoking, so the risks of treating them the same are enormous,” Tom Pruen, chief scientific officer for the association was quoted as saying. “This data from the Welsh government shows that if people are put off e-cigarettes, it will cost lives and damage the Welsh NHS [National Health Service].”

The full report, which also considers the consequences of the ban for Wales’s 514,500 existing smokers who would otherwise is available here.

The US non-profit health watchdog, Center for Environmental Health (CEH), said yesterday that the majority of the 97 electronic cigarettes and other vaping products tested had produced high levels of the cancer-causing chemicals formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, in violation of California safety standards.

The independent laboratory testing of products from two dozen electronic cigarette manufacturers were said to have found that 90 percent of the companies had at least one product that produced levels of one or both chemicals that were above the state’s safety limit.

One electronic cigarette had been found to produce a level of formaldehyde more than 470 times higher than the California safety standard.

The CEH report, ‘A Smoking Gun: Cancer Causing Chemicals in E-cigarettes,’ is said to outline the first-ever large sampling of ‘actual e-cigarettes and vaping products tested simulating real-world use of the products’.

It said that the tests had demonstrated ‘that the majority of e-cigarettes tested pose a serious cancer risk’

CEH said it was initiating legal action against the companies producing ‘the cancer-causing products’ for failing to warn consumers, as was required under California’s consumer protection law known as Proposition 65.

This follows CEH’s legal action earlier this year against e-cigarette makers for failing to warn consumers about the ‘risks from nicotine in e-cigarettes’.

“For decades, the tobacco industry mounted a campaign of lies about cigarettes, and now these same companies claim that their e-cigarettes are harmless,” said Michael Green, executive director of CEH.

“Anyone who thinks that vaping is harmless needs to know that our testing unequivocally shows that it’s not safe to vape.

“This is especially troubling given the reckless marketing practices of the e-cigarette industry, which targets teens and young people, and deceives the public with unfounded health and safety claims.

“Our legal action aims to force the industry to comply with the law and create pressure to end their most abusive practices.”

Full story here.

Consumers looking to try out electronic cigarettes need to be wary of the ‘flood of questionable ad claims on the Internet,’ according to the advertising watchdog, truthinadvertising.org (TINA.org).

In a pres note issued through PRNewswire, TINA.org said that it had examined more than 150 electronic cigarette sites, including those operated by wholesalers, retailers of major and minor brands, and independents.

Its review found that nearly two-thirds of the sites made one or more of the following ‘problematic claims’: the use of vaping products is safer than is smoking tobacco products; vaping products can be smoked anywhere; vaping products can help smokers quit their habit; and vaping products are cheaper than are traditional cigarettes.

“Consumers need to do their own independent research and not simply rely on the marketing claims made by these companies on their websites,” said TINA.org executive director Bonnie Patten.

TINA.org said its review came as the US Food and Drug Administration was finalizing regulations for the industry. ‘Last year, the agency indicated it would be extending its oversight of tobacco products to e-cigarettes,’ the watchdog said in its press note. ‘Many online e-cigarette companies, however, are taking advantage of the regulatory gap to market their wares with a variety of suspect claims.

‘Half of the sites analyzed mention a health benefit even though the FDA maintains that the risks associated with e-cigarettes have not been fully studied. In addition, key reports have found the presence of harmful chemicals.’

TINA.org’s review found that 41 percent of the sites marketed e-liquids in ‘kid-friendly’ flavors such as ‘gummy bear,’ ‘fruit hoops,’ and ‘Bubble Yum’.

Electronic cigarette use among adults in Alaska is on the rise as tobacco use is falling, according to a story by Suzanna Caldwell for Anchorage Daily News citing state Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) data.

An Alaska Division of Epidemiology bulletin released last week said that electronic cigarette use among Alaska’s adults had risen from one percent in 2014 to four percent in 2013.

That increase came as the percentage of adult tobacco smokers fell from 24 percent in 1996 to 21.9 percent in 2013.

These figures are part of the data gleaned from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a continuing survey of Alaska’s adults.

Andrea Fenaughty, deputy section chief for chronic disease prevention and health promotion under the DHSS, said the increase in electronic cigarette use might seem small, but that it represented a significant increase over a short period of time.

The survey found, among other things, that five percent of women and three percent of men use electronic cigarettes, and that seven percent of people aged 18 to 29 were vapers.

Eighty five percent of electronic cigarette users reported being current cigarette smokers, while 72 percent of them reported using electronic cigarettes in place of combustible cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool or when cigarette smoking was not allowed.

Fifty five jobs are expected to be axed as Imperial Tobacco’s non-tobacco product subsidiary, Fontem Ventures, implements its plan to close its electronic cigarette warehouse and office in Edinburgh, Scotland, according to a Herald Scotland story relayed by the TMA.

The closure is to be carried out from September 30 to December 30, basically during the company’s first quarter.

The Edinburgh operations are to be transferred to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Charlotte, North Carolina, the US.

Imperial said that the 55 employees facing the axe would be offered assistance to find new employment.

“We deeply regret that this strategic restructuring will result in redundancies among our 55 employees in Edinburgh [and] appreciate the commitment, achievements and contribution of all our employees” in the city, Bart Maas, general manager of Fontem, was quoted as saying.

Fontem Ventures, set up in 2013 to develop non-tobacco ventures for Imperial, used the Edinburgh site as a base to distribute electronic cigarettes.

The Herald reported that, in November 2013, Fontem acquired vapor technologies and patents from Dragonite International.

It acquired the blu e-cig brand in July 2015 and owns the e-cig brands Jai and Puritane.

British American Tobacco has welcomed a report issued this week by Public Health England that, in part, says vaping electronic cigarettes is about 95 percent less harmful than is smoking tobacco.

“This report by Public Health England, which concludes that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful to health than cigarettes, is an incredibly important milestone for the e-cigarette industry and its consumers, said BAT’s chief scientific officer, Chris Proctor, in a note posted on the company’s website.

“The review helps to de-bunk the myths around e-cigarettes and equip adult smokers with the facts they need to make informed choices.

“There are many misconceptions around this new product category and this review has provided adult smokers with greater clarity around the relative safety of e-cigarettes which should give them greater confidence to use them rather than cigarettes.

“We’re confident that by making research on the relative safety of e-cigarettes available to consumers, and by ensuring proper product quality and safety, this important product category with the potential to have a positive impact on public health can prosper.”

The report entitled ‘E-cigarettes: an evidence update’, concludes that:

• Vaping electronic cigarettes is about 95percent less harmful than is smoking tobacco;
• Nearly half the UK population doesn’t realize that vaping electronic cigarettes is much less harmful than is tobacco smoking;
• There is no evidence so far that electronic cigarettes are acting as a route into smoking for children or non-smokers;
• Almost all of the 2.6 million adults using electronic cigarettes in Great Britain are current or ex-smokers; and
• Electronic cigarettes have the potential to help smokers quit smoking.

In its note, BAT said that it was committed to offering adult smokers a range of quality reduced risk products that provided them with greater choice and assurances regarding product quality.

A senior medical consultant in Malaysia has said that the major concern over electronic cigarettes is that many people misuse the device by adding drugs such as marijuana and heroin, according to a story in The New Strait Times.

A study on electronic cigarette addiction conducted by the Institute of Respiratory Medicine (IPR) since 2013 is expected to be completed early next year.

IPR’s senior medical consultant, Professor Datuk Dr Abdul Razak Abdul Muttalif, described the issues surrounding electronic cigarettes as controversial: there were pros and cons.

He said the IPR had gone through a number of papers on electronic cigarettes published by different bodies around the world.

Some of them agreed that electronic cigarettes should be banned while others concluded that they should be controlled.

Abdul Razak said electronic cigarette vapers were likely to experience an acute or short term effect such as coughing and tiredness.

“The chronic or long term effect of it is cancer, heart disease and many other chronic diseases,” he said.

“The major concern now is that many people misuse the device by adding drugs such as marijuana and heroin, which will do more harm to the body, and this will be very difficult for the authorised bodies to control.”