Category: News This Week

Authorities in Hong Kong are determined to press ahead with a ban on the sale of electronic cigarettes despite a recent British study suggesting that vaping electronic cigarettes is about 95 percent less harmful than is smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes, according to a story in the South China Morning Post.

The study, carried out on behalf of Public Health England, an agency of the Department of Health, concluded that electronic cigarettes should be promoted as a means to help smokers quit their habit.

The Asian Vape Association, formed by five major electronic cigarette companies operating in Hong Kong, heralded the British report as a major turning point.

It urged the government to consider regulating the ingredients of e-liquids instead of banning the products outright.

“The report proves that electronic cigarettes are indeed an effective tool for harm reduction,” said Nav Lalji, founder and chairman of the association.

“We urge the Hong Kong government to advocate e-cigarettes as a safer alternative instead of completely banning them.”

But Hong Kong’s Food and Health Bureau seems set to proceed with the proposed ban on electronic cigarette sales sometime this year.

Health officials are said to believe that electronic cigarette manufacturers target young people and market their products as trend-setting.

According to a 2010 study, Hong Kong’s smoking rate was 11.1 percent of people above the age of 15.

Ireland’s Department of Health has said it will continue to monitor evidence on the harms and benefits associated with the use of electronic cigarettes, according to a story by Elaine Edwards for the Irish Times.

The department was responding to the results of a study published yesterday by Public Health England that said electronic-cigarette vapor was 95 percent safer than was traditional-tobacco-cigarette smoke.

The Department of Health and Children said that though electronic cigarettes did not contain tobacco, they did contain nicotine, which it described as ‘a highly addictive substance which is the driver for cigarette smoking’.

‘Hence, there are legitimate concerns about the public health benefits of allowing such products to exist without regulation,’ the department said in a statement.

‘Because they are a relatively recent product there is limited scientific information available to balance the potential harms and benefits that might arise from more widespread public use.

‘Against that background, and whilst more research is awaited on the harms and benefits, there is a need to ensure that there is some regulation of e-cigarettes.’

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggests that use of e-cigarettes by youth who had not previously smoked could lead to use of combustible cigarettes and other smoked tobacco products.

The JAMA study examined whether teens who reported ever using e-cigarettes were more likely to initiate use of combustible (smoked) tobacco products, such as cigarettes, cigars and hookah.

The study involved 2,530 students from 10 public high schools in Los Angeles who reported never using combustible tobacco at the start of the study (when the students were in the nineth grade) and were re-assessed six months and 12 months later.

The researchers found that students who had ever used e-cigarettes (222 students at the start of the study) were more likely to report initiation of combustible tobacco use over the next year. These students were also more likely to initiate use of each individual combustible product, including cigarettes, cigars and hookah.

In April, the CDC reported that current (past-month) e-cigarette use among high school students jumped from 4.5 percent in 2013 to 13.4 percent in 2014. (It was 1.5 percent in 2011).

Current e-cigarette use now exceeds current use of regular cigarettes (9.2 percent of high school students smoked cigarettes in 2014).

The researchers did not evaluate the likelihood of e-cigarettes helping smokers quit their habit.

Read the full study here.

Vaping electronic cigarettes is 95 percent less harmful than is smoking tobacco, according to a story by Adam Brimelow for BBC News, citing a recent expert review.

One of the report’s authors, Professor Ann McNeill of King’s College London said electronic cigarettes could be a game-changer in public health.

“At the moment, 80,000 people [in England] die every year as a result of cigarette smoking,” she said. “If everybody who was smoking switched to e-cigarettes that would reduce to about 4,000 deaths a year. That’s the best estimate at the moment. It may well be much, much lower than that.”

The experts who compiled the report for Public Health England (PHE) said also that there was no evidence that electronic cigarettes provided children with a gateway into smoking.

The report said that though general practitioners and stop-smoking services were currently not able to prescribe electronic cigarettes because none of the products on the market were licensed for medicinal purposes, it was hoped that hurdle would be removed in the future.

PHE said it was committed to ensure that smokers had a range of evidence-based, effective tools to help them to quit, and that it looked forward to the arrival on the market of a choice of medicinally-regulated products that could be made available to smokers by the NHS on prescription.

The review also highlighted evidence that growing numbers of people have doubts over the safety of electronic cigarettes. It said that nearly 45 percent of the population did not realise that vaping electronic cigarettes was much less harmful than was smoking.

Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at PHE, said it was important to tackle what he called “harmful myths”.

Electronic cigarettes are now used by 2.6 million adults in Britain.

Read the full story here.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has urged health chiefs across the U.K. to encourage smokers who have enrolled in the National Health Service’s stop-smoking services to use e-cigarettes as smoking-cessation devices, reports The Guardian.

It also argued for new “exclusion zones” outside schools, bars, pubs and parks, where smoking, but not vaping, should be prohibited.

If widely adopted by the government, the recommendation could represent the biggest shift in attitudes towards e-cigarettes in the decade since the devices entered the U.K. market.

The RSPH is an independent charity comprising more than 6,000 public health professionals.

Peter Beckett has joined the Nerudia Group to establish Nerudia Compliance, a new subsidiary that will offer a full product stewardship solution to companies seeking to become compliant with the regulations and legislation governing the vapor industry.

“We’re delighted to welcome Peter to the Nerudia team,” says Nerudia co-founder David Newns. “When it came to planning our compliance product offering, we knew that Peter was best placed to deliver our business vision. He has played a key role in the development of the legislation and has an enviable reputation for his detailed understanding of the industry.”

Nerudia Compliance will help companies understand the requirements placed upon them and assist and guide customers through the submissions they must make to the authorities. In addition, Nerudia Compliance will offer access to Nerudia’s analytical services, which are able to provide the vital analytical and toxicology assessments required for submission.

Nerudia Compliance’s global support ranges from consultancy and individually managed projects to an online Vaping Product Management System (VPMS). The VPMS will securely and confidentially manage requirements for regulatory submissions, including product technical file information as well as long-term product reporting requirements.

The most immediate requirement for many companies will be compliance with the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), which will come into force in Europe next year.

“Having been on the front line of the TPD negotiations, the logical next step is to help vaping companies of all sizes understand and comply with the new rules,” says Beckett. “TPD doesn’t need to mean the end of the businesses that made this industry what it is, and we intend to prove that. Nerudia’s commitment to quality and deep technical knowledge of vaping products is a perfect synergy with my ethos, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Richard Henning, president of e-liquid wholesaler Nicvape, has co-founded American E-liquid Manufacturing Standards (EMS), reports The Los Angeles Times. The EMS requires members to verify the accuracy of the nicotine content in their products, ensure the quality and safety of all ingredients, make e-liquids in sanitary conditions, and use childproof packaging.

Nicvape supplies about 675 retail locations across the U.S., but Henning worries that the anticipated Food and Drug Aminstration (FDA) regulations would put his companies out of business.

Greg Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, said FDA’s deeming regulations could eliminate up to 99 percent of the small players in the e-vapor industry because they would not have the financial resources to meet the FDA requirements.

A sharp decline in Scotland in the number of people using a National Health Service (NHS) support program to help them quit smoking has been linked to the rise in popularity of electronic cigarettes, according to a BBC Online story.

The Smoking Matters service in Dumfries and Galloway, for instance, helped 102 people in deprived areas quit smoking during the past year, but this was 251 below target.

And public health consultant Dr. Andrew Carnon said this trend was being mirrored across Scotland. Many people, he said, saw e-cigarettes as a stepping stone to stopping smoking.

Nationwide figures have shown a similar trend to those in the south west of Scotland.

Carnon said that though there was a lack of evidence about the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes, the NHS might have to review and adapt its smoking cessation service in the future.

However, he said he believed that there would always be a need for support services.

Vapor from two different types of electronic cigarettes had no cytotoxic impact on human airway tissue, according to a eurekalert.org story citing new research published in Toxicology in Vitro (DOI: 10.1016/j.tiv.2015.05.018).

Scientists at British American Tobacco and MatTek Corporation were said to have used a unique combination of tests to investigate the potential adverse effects of electronic cigarette vapor on airway tissue, along with the adverse effects of cigarette smoke on such tissue.

“By employing a combination of a smoking robot and a lab-based test using respiratory tissue, it was possible to demonstrate the ability to induce and measure aerosol irritancy and to show that the different e-cigarette aerosols used in this study have no cytotoxic effect on human airway tissue,” said BAT spokesperson Dr. Marina Murphy.

This new methodology could be used to help develop product standards for electronic cigarettes in the future.

‘E-cigarette vapour can contain nicotine, humectants, flavourings and thermal degradation products, so it is important to understand the potential impact on biological systems,’ the eurekalert story said. ‘Until now, there have been no aerosol studies of potential adverse effects of e-cigarette vapor on in vitro models that so closely mimic the structure, function and exposure of normal human airway tissue.’

Meanwhile, the results of the research showed that while cigarette smoke reduced cell viability to 12 percent (near complete cell death) after six hours, neither of the electronic cigarette aerosols caused any significant decrease in cell viability.

Despite six hours of continuous exposure, the results in the case of the electronic cigarette vapors were similar to those obtained when control cells were exposed only to air.

The eurekalert story can be found here.

British American Tobacco has welcomed vaping-product guidelines issued yesterday by the British Standards Institution (BSI).

The guidelines set quality and safety standards for vaping products, including electronic cigarettes and e-liquids.

“We are supportive of the BSI specifications for e-cigarettes and believe that they have the potential to grow this important category by giving the appropriate assurances to consumers on product quality and safety,” said Donato Del Vecchio, head of BAT’s Legal and External Affairs for Next Generation Products.

“Although these specifications are voluntary, we believe that all manufacturers have an obligation to their consumers to deliver the best in product quality and safety.

“As such, we support the principles of the BSI guidelines and we are currently auditing our supply chain to work towards ensuring full compliance to these voluntary standards.

“We’ve always said that we want to see a regulatory framework for e-cigarettes that ensures consumer safety and product quality whilst allowing for the appropriate levels of innovation, marketing and distribution freedoms that we believe are required to enable this important category to grow.

“We are confident in the robust practices and procedures that we have in place around product safety and quality standards for our e-cigarette Vype. We see delivering quality products as vital in ensuring the growth of this important category.”