Blog

The e-cigarette company Gamucci is concerned about the way in which the European Commission’s draft Tobacco Products Directive is being handled and was quick to react to news yesterday that the European Parliament had agreed to delay the vote on the directive from Sept. 10 to Oct. 8.

Many MEPs, Gamucci said, had expressed concerns that Linda McAvan, the British MEP in charge of piloting the draft directive through parliament, seemed to be attempting to rush through her own amendments without acknowledging the serious impacts they could have on the fast-growing e-cigarette sector.

McAvan wanted to force all e-cigarette products to be regulated as medicines.

“Her draconian and unjustified proposals would impose significant and—for some—potentially insurmountable barriers on a sector that is increasingly successful in encouraging adult smokers to switch away from traditional combustible tobacco products,” Gamucci said in a press note.

“There are already an estimated 12 million electronic cigarette consumers across Europe who fear that such regulation could drive them back to smoking traditional tobacco products.”

Meanwhile, Gamucci’s Jacqueline Burrows made the point that very many health professionals believed the evidence was clear (1).

“Electronic cigarettes provide smokers with the positive benefits and pleasures of nicotine without the risks associated with traditional burning tobacco and its smoke,” she said. (2) (3) (4) (5) (6).

“Many MEPs who have taken the time to study the facts and listen to those who have already made the switch recognize that it is the pharmaceutical companies and existing tobacco companies which would be the main beneficiaries of medicinal regulation of electronic cigarettes.” (7) (8).

Burrows added that this was the time to work together and agree on a sensible, proportionate, regulatory framework. It defied common sense that electronic cigarettes should be subjected to a more draconian regulation than that applying to existing tobacco products.

1. Gerry Stimson, Clive Bates, Konstantinos Farsalinos, M.D. and Jacques Le Houezec, September 2013: “The impact of e-cigarettes on public health will vastly overshadow all other measures in the TPD” http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1499
2. Drexel University, August 2013: “Chemicals in e-cigarettes pose no health concern for users or bystanders”
3. Hajek, Lancet, July 2013: “The chemicals that make cigarettes dangerous are either absent or present only in trace concentrations”
4. Inhalation Toxicology, October 2012: “The study indicates no apparent risk to human health from e-cigarette emissions”
5. Robert West, University College London: “The risk is negligible, and compared with smoking there is no contest”
6. John Britton, Royal College of Physicians: “If all the smokers in Britain stopped smoking cigarettes and started smoking e-cigarettes, we would save 5 million deaths”
7. Wells Fargo, January 2013: “Within 10 years there could be more e-cigarette users than cigarette smokers”
8. Polosa, June 2013: “E-cigarettes help users stop smoking tobacco”: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0066317#s4

A recent U.S. study has found that chemicals in electronic cigarettes pose no health concerns for users or bystanders, according to a press note from the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA) released through PRNewswire.

The study, by professor Igor Burstyn, of the Drexel University School of Public Health, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is said to be the first definitive study of electronic cigarette chemistry.

It found that there are no health concerns based on generally accepted exposure limits.

“By reviewing over 9,000 observations about the chemistry of the vapor and the liquid in e-cigarettes, Dr. Burstyn was able to determine that the levels of contaminants e-cigarette users are exposed to are insignificant, far below levels that would pose any health risk,” the press note said. “Additionally, there is no health risk to bystanders. Proposals to ban e-cigarettes in places where smoking is banned have been based on concern there is a potential risk to bystanders, but the study shows there is no concern.”

This was the first study funded by the CASAA Research Fund. CASAA describes itself as the leading consumer advocacy group promoting the availability and use of low-risk alternatives to smoking. It is an all-volunteer, donation-funded organization.

In commenting on the study, CASAA President Elaine Keller, said that, over the years, there had been a lot of small studies of electronic cigarette liquid and vapor, but those studies were either ignored or misinterpreted. “Those that showed even the slightest contamination were used for propaganda by those who object to e-cigarettes because they look like smoking,” she said. “We realized that an expert review was needed to give an unbiased explanation of the available scientific evidence for our membership and policy makers. We reached out to our membership and they enthusiastically donated to make it possible.”

Meanwhile, CASAA’s scientific director, Carl V. Phillips, said it had always been clear that using electronic cigarettes posed a much lower risk than did smoking, but that there had been uncertainty about whether continuing to inhale a mix of chemicals posed a measurable risk. “Even those of us who have long encouraged smokers to switch are a bit surprised that even the worst-case-scenario risks are so low,” he said. “This study assures us that e-cigarettes are as low risk as other smoke-free tobacco and nicotine products, like smokeless tobacco and NRT. All of these products are about 99 percent less harmful than smoking, and so smokers who switch to them gain basically the same health benefits as if they quit tobacco and nicotine entirely.”

Phillips said that there had been a call for “regulatory science” by the FDA. “This is exactly the type of science that is needed to make good regulation and informed individual decisions: it summarizes all of the available knowledge and puts the numbers in a useful perspective,” he said.

The study cautioned, however, that electronic cigarette users were inhaling substantial quantities of the main chemicals in these products (propylene glycol and glycerin). And while these chemicals were not considered dangerous and their levels were far below occupational exposure limits, Burstyn suggested ongoing monitoring to confirm that there was no risk.

The chemical contaminants were found to be of even less concern. “While there have been many claims that formaldehyde, acrolein, nitrosamines, metals and ethylene glycol found in e-cigarette vapor poses a health hazard, the study concluded that all of these have been found only at trivial levels that pose no health concern,” the press note said.

The study is available at http://publichealth.drexel.edu/SiteData/docs/ms08/f90349264250e603/ms08.pdf.

A decision to allow police in Cambridgeshire, U.K., to use electronic cigarettes at work has been upheld following a review over health scares.

According to a story in the Cambridge News, the Cambridgeshire force’s Executive Board (EB) had been asked by the force’s “People Board” to reconsider the decision to allow the use of electronic cigarettes “following the announcement that the products were unregulated and produced some slight release of chemicals.”

However, the EB upheld the original decision, which means that officers will be able to use electronic cigarettes, though not in public.

Imperial Tobacco said on Thursday that it was continuing to make “good progress” with its initiatives in the “e-vapor sector” through its subsidiary Fontem Ventures, and that it remained on track to launch its own products in 2014.

In publishing an interim management statement, Imperial reported that its stick equivalent [cigarettes and fine-cut] volume fell by 7 percent and its underlying volume [excluding the effect of trade destocking] was down by 5 percent during the nine months to the end of June.

The company’s key strategic brands were said to have outperformed market trends, but reported volume for these brands was down by 4 percent and underlying volume was down by 1 percent.

Within the overall trend, fine-cut tobacco performance was described as “excellent,” while there was said to have been good growth in premium cigars and snus.

“I’m pleased with the significant progress we’re making with the strategic transition of the business, which is strengthening our sustainable sales growth capabilities and optimizing our costs in line with our strategy,” said CEO Alison Cooper.

“Our full-year expectations remain unchanged. We continue to focus on maximizing opportunities for our total tobacco portfolio in the EU against a backdrop of weak industry volumes and are driving good in-market performances in Asia-Pacific and Africa and Middle East, with our share improving in many markets.

“Whilst opportunities to grow sales in the short term are being impacted by the environment challenges, we remain focused on generating high-quality returns and sustainable growth from our portfolio.”

Hong Kong is the main source of fake electronic cigarettes and e-liquids entering the EU, according to the European Commission’s 2012 annual report on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR).

A commission press note said that last year EU customs “detained” almost 40 million products valued at nearly €1 billion “suspected of violating” IPR.

Cigarettes were said to have accounted for 31 percent of “interceptions.”

Postal and courier packages accounted for about 70 percent of customs “interventions,” with 23 percent of the “detentions” in postal traffic involving medicines.

China was said to be the main source of fake goods entering the EU.

The Thailand Tobacco Monopoly (TTM) would consider developing and importing electronic cigarettes if the government were to legalize them, according to a story in the Bangkok Post.

Managing director, Torsak Chotimongkol, was quoted as saying that, as a government agency, the TTM could not proceed with such a project until electronic cigarettes were legalised.

“However, if the situation becomes clearer and the product is legally approved, we may consider importing e-cigarettes and developing our own product as an option for smokers,” Torsak said.

Electronic cigarettes cannot be sold legally in Thailand because they have not been approved by the Thailand Food & Drug Administration.

However, they are widely distributed online and sold discreetly in some stores.

The European Parliament’s environment, public health and food safety committee has voted to back the European Commission’s proposal to classify electronic cigarettes as medicinal products.

For many people, this proposal is the most health-negative of the raft of proposed revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive put forward by the commission at the end of last year.

In its response to the proposed revisions, Parliament’s legal affairs committee said, in part, that Article 18 prohibited nicotine-containing products such as electronic cigarettes containing a certain nicotine level if they were not authorized pursuant to the Medicinal Products Directive. “It is, however, quite unclear if these products (which are much less harmful than tobacco products) even fall under the scope of the Medicinal Products Directive,” the committee said. “For products which do not fall under the Directive, this would effectively constitute a ban. Banning products which are less harmful than tobacco products and which can be a means of smoking cessation is certainly not in line with the public health aims of the proposal.”

Before Wednesday’s vote by the environment committee, a group of vapers wrote an open letter to the chairman of the environment committee, Matthias Groote, calling for a rethink on the proposal for regulating electronic cigarettes.

The group said that for 5 million to 7 million people within the EU, electronic cigarettes had provided and continued to provide a viable alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.

And it asked Groote and his committee to imagine how many lives could be saved if electronic cigarettes were allowed to continue to flourish.

However, the group expressed concern that what it called this positive story was about to come to an abrupt halt because of the commission’s proposal. “By regulating e-cigarettes as a medicinal product, and by banning flavours, the Commission and its supporters in Parliament and Council are effectively banning e-cigarettes, as the Parliament’s own Legal Affairs Committee has made clear,” it said.

The group made the point that whereas electronic cigarettes were safe, tobacco cigarettes killed 700,000 people in the EU each year and neither the commission nor Parliament were proposing to ban them.

In fact, the commission and the environment committee are proposing that some cigarettes should be banned: slim cigarettes and those with characterizing flavors, including menthol.

It also voted in favor of graphic warnings covering 75 percent of the fronts and backs of cigarette packs, though it did not accept a proposed amendment seeking the imposition of standardized tobacco packs.

The proposals still have to go before a plenary session of Parliament.

A group of vapers has written an open letter to the chairman of the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee, Matthias Groote, calling for a rethink on the European Commission’s proposal for regulating electronic cigarettes.

The committee is due to vote tomorrow on the totality of the commission’s proposals for revising the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), which include the electronic cigarette proposal.

The group says that for 5 million to 7 million people within the EU, electronic cigarettes have and continue to provide a viable alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.

And it asked Groote and his committee to imagine how many lives could be saved if electronic cigarettes were allowed to continue to flourish.

However, the group expressed concern that what it called this positive story was about to come to an abrupt halt because of the commission’s proposals to amend the TPD. Under these proposals, electronic cigarettes could be placed on the market only if they were authorized pursuant to the Medicinal Products Directive. “By regulating e-cigarettes as a medicinal product, and by banning flavours, the Commission and its supporters in Parliament and Council are effectively banning e-cigarettes, as the Parliament’s own Legal Affairs Committee has made clear,” it said.

The group made the point that whereas electronic cigarettes were safe, tobacco cigarettes killed 700,000 people in the EU each year and neither the commission nor Parliament were proposing to ban them.

“The key health benefit of e-cigarettes is determined by how many smokers switch to them or use them as a staging post to quitting completely,” the group said in its letter. “It is therefore vital that e-cigarettes continue to be regulated as a consumer product. Many of us have tried numerous times to quit smoking using conventional nicotine replacement therapies and have failed; however, with e-cigarettes we have all cut down our smoking or stopped completely. Without anyone in the professional public health field doing anything and without spending any public money, smokers like us have been quitting, switching and cutting down through the use of e-cigarettes. This is something that should be celebrated, not a cause for concern.”

The group posed the following question to the committee: “Why would the EU want to intervene to prevent or obstruct a smoker having access to products that could potentially save his or her life?”

And it followed up that question with another: “Do MEPs really want to protect an industry that kills 700,000 people at the expense of a market-based, consumer-led public health revolution that has the potential to save millions of lives?”

The group urged the committee to reject the electronic cigarettes proposal.

“We believe it is poorly thought through, contains an arbitrary and pointless threshold, takes an easy shortcut by applying medicines regulation rather than designing appropriate regulation, and has been prepared without proper consultation of the industry and users like us,” the group said. “Members of your committee should insist that the Commission starts again and does a thorough job, looking properly at all the regulatory options and only once it has done the necessary work, bring forward proposals.

“In the meantime, Member States should enforce the existing legislation properly and report on what they are doing.

“For the sake of 7 million e-cigarette users and the millions of potential e-cigarette users, we urge you to do the right thing.”

The letter can be read in full at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/152389430/Open-Letter-From-Electronic-Cigarette-Users-From-Across-the-European-Union.

AucklandUniversity is carrying out a study into the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes as a quit-smoking aid, according to a TVNZ story.

More than 650 people are participating in the study comparing electronic cigarettes with the commonly-used nicotine patch.

Participant, Luis Paraha, who was said to have twice previously tried to quit, believes she has cracked the problem by combining exercise with electronic cigarettes.

“I just used the e-cigarette and then three weeks later, that was it – stopped,” she told ONE News.

University of Auckland researcher, Chris Bullen, said bodies such as the World Health Organization were asking what to do about the devices, but no-one had the answers because no-one had done a study until now.