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Altria Urges Changes in FDA E-Cigarette Regulations that Would Decrease Its Share of Vaping Market and Help Save Many Smaller Manufacturers
In a move that casts serious doubt on anti-tobacco groups' maligning of the motives of the tobacco companies in marketing vaping products, Altria Client Services, on behalf of Nu Mark (the maker of Mark Ten e-cigarettes), has submitted comments to the FDA that blast its pre-market tobacco application (PMTA) requirements for e-cigarettes, arguing that these requirements are unduly burdensome, unnecessary, and beyond the scope of the agency's jurisdiction under the Tobacco Control Act.In the comments, Altria Client Services expresses particular concern that the burdensome PMTA requirements will force many manufacturers out o...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 18, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Op-Ed Explains Why FDA Deeming Regulations are Nonsensical
My op-ed, published yesterday in BU Today, explains why the FDA e-cigarette deeming regulations are nonsensical. (Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary)
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 14, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

FDA Botched Cost-Benefit Analysis of Its E-Cigarette Deeming Regulations
After reviewing the declaration of Nicopure Labs' CEO Jeff Stamler in its lawsuit against the FDA, I have concluded that the FDA completely botched its cost-benefit analysis of the e-cigarette deeming regulations, drastically underestimating the costs of the regulations and without even attempting to quantify the benefits.As such, this represents a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, providing strong grounds for the D.C. District Court to overturn the regulations.In its declaration, Nicopure reveals that it has 2,400 stock keeping units (SKUs), including e-liquids, vaporizers, and component parts. This me...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 13, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Eating Corn Flakes is Half as Dangerous as Smoking, According to Reasoning of Anti-Vaping Researchers
Based on evidence that chemicals often found in e-cigarette aerosol produce endothelial dysfunction and decreased arterial compliance, Dr. Aruni Bhatnagar of the University of Louisville has concluded that e-cigarettes are no safer than real cigarettes, and Dr. Stan Glantz has argued that vaping is up to half as dangerous as smoking. Both of these anti-vaping researchers reasoned that since the dose-response relationship between smoking and cardiovascular disease is non-linear and risk saturates at rather low levels of exposure, and since e-cigarettes contain chemicals that can cause acute cardiovascular injury, vaping is ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 12, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Findings from New Pediatrics Study are Not Relevant to Overall U.S.
A new study published today in the journal Pediatrics concludes that overall nicotine product use among youth is increasing and that many youth who would not otherwise have used a nicotine product are doing so because of e-cigarettes.(See: Barrington-Trimis JL, et al. E-cigarettes, cigarettes, and the prevalence of adolescent tobacco use. Pediatrics 2016; 138(2):e2015983.)The study reports the prevalence of current cigarette smoking and e-cigarette use among a cohort of youth reaching 11th and 12th grade, after having been followed for a period of two to 12 years. The youth sample was drawn from schools in 12 southern Cali...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 11, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Detroit Wayne County Mental Health Authority Issues Fraudulent Public Statements on Risks of Cigarette Smoking
In an action reminiscent of the tobacco industry of the 1970's, the Detroit Wayne County Mental Health Authority (DWMHA) has issued one of the most fraudulent claims about the risks of cigarette smoking as I have ever seen.The DWMHA created a billboard in which it told the public that smoking is no more dangerous than vaping. "E-qually dangerous," the billboard asserts.The Rest of the StoryThere is abundant scientific evidence that vaping, which has caused no documented chronic disease or death in any identified individual, is safer than smoking, which kills more than 400,000 people each year, causes chronic lung diseas...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 28, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Four More Lawsuits Filed Against FDA to Block its E-Cigarette Deeming Regulations
Last month, I reported that Nicopure Labs, a maker of e-liquids and vaping devices, filed a lawsuit against the FDA challenging its deeming regulations, claiming that they are in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and the First Amendment. Today, I report that four more lawsuits have been filed against the agency; all seek an injunction against enforcement of various aspects of the regulations or seek to overturn the regulations in their entirety.1. Lost Art Liquids, LLC has filed a challenge to the deeming regulations under the APA, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the First Amendment, and the Fifth Amendm...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 27, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Pediatrics " Gateway " Article Author Hiding Conflicts of Interest with Big Pharma; Drug Companies Have Gotten More than their Money's Worth
Last week, I < a href= " http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/06/new-pediatrics-study-provides.html " > discussed < /a > an < a href= " http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/06/10/peds.2016-0379 " > article < /a > published in Pediatrics which is going to deal a devastating blow to the vaping industry because it wrongly concludes that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking among youth. Evidence like this is the death knell to vaping, as perhaps it should be if it were true . The problem, however, is that as I explained, the Pediatrics ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 20, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Pediatrics "Gateway" Article Author Hiding Conflicts of Interest with Big Pharma; Drug Companies Have Gotten More than their Money's Worth
Last week, I discussed an article published in Pediatrics which is going to deal a devastating blow to the vaping industry because it wrongly concludes that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking among youth. Evidence like this is the death knell to vaping, as perhaps it should be if it were true.The problem, however, is that as I explained, the Pediatrics study cannot conclude that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking because it measured only e-cigarette experimentation at baseline and was unable to document that a single nonsmoking vaper actually became addicted to vaping. Nor was the study able to document that a single...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 20, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Why Must the American Cancer Society Continue to Lie to the Public? This Time, They Do So in Coordinated Fashion
In a letter to the editor published last week in the Bradenton Herald, an individual identified as being with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network tells the public that the Bishop-Cole amendment would "strip FDA's authority to review new products, ones becoming increasingly popular with youth, like e-cigarettes, cigars and hookah." She goes on to urge Florida's Senator Nelson not to "fall for the industry's latest trick to avoid critical FDA oversight of these addictive and potentially lethal products."The Rest of the Story There's just one problem with this letter. It's not telling the truth. The rest of the ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 16, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

New Pediatrics Study Provides Absolutely No Evidence that E-Cigarettes are a Gateway to Smoking
A new study published online today in the journal Pediatrics purports to show that electronic cigarettes are a gateway to smoking among youth. The study followed a sample of approximately 150 never-users of e-cigarettes and 150 ever users of e-cigarettes for one year. both groups consisted entirely of never smokers. At one-year follow-up, the initiation of smoking was compared between the two groups. E-cigarette users were found to be six times more likely to have initiated smoking. Based on these findings, the paper concludes that e-cigarette use among youth increases the risk of progression to smoking: "These findings su...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 13, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

CDC Data Reveal Drastic Decline in Youth Smoking, Blowing E-Cigarette Gateway Hypothesis Out of the Water
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday released new data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) revealing that despite a striking increase in youth e-cigarette use in the past two years, the prevalence of current smoking among high school students nationally declined by a whopping 31% from 2013 to 2015, falling from 15.7% to 10.8%. This represents a historic low and a 41% decline since 2011. Frequent smoking also fell to a historic low, dropping from 5.6% to 3.4%, a 39% decline. Daily smoking dropped by 42%, from 4.0% to 2.3%, and overall tobacco use declined by 23%, falling from 24.0% to 18.5%....
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 10, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

The Last Straw: Anti-Tobacco Groups are Actively Promoting Smoking
Readers of the Rest of the Story may have noticed that I have not posted for a few days. This is not for lack of material. Lots is happening that deserves comment, and in the days to follow I will catch readers up on some important developments, including two more lawsuits filed against the FDA in an attempt to overturn its electronic cigarette deeming regulations.I have not been able to write because I have been too distraught. I have come to the realization that the anti-smoking movement - which I have been a part of for the past 31 years, is essentially dead. And even worse, the anti-smoking movement is now actively pro...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 5, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

IN MY VIEW: American Lung Association Would Rather Smokers Die than Save their Lives " the Wrong Way "
Re-defining the meaning of paternalism, the American Lung Association on Tuesday boldly and unashamedly told smokers that if they quit smoking the wrong way, it doesn ' t count, essentially condemning the nearly 7 million Americans who are vaping instead of smoking. In a Reuters < a href= " http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ecigarettes-poll-idUSKCN0YF0DE " > article < /a > , the American Lung Association told the nation ' s smokers that: " We think there are certainly more and better ways to quit. When you ' re going to e-cigarettes, you ' re not quitting, you ' re switching. " < /i...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - May 26, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

IN MY VIEW: American Lung Association Would Rather Smokers Die than Save their Lives "the Wrong Way"
Re-defining the meaning of paternalism, the American Lung Association on Tuesday boldly and unashamedly told smokers that if they quit smoking the wrong way, it doesn't count, essentially condemning the nearly 7 million Americans who are vaping instead of smoking.In a Reuters article, the American Lung Association told the nation's smokers that: "We think there are certainly more and better ways to quit. When you're going to e-cigarettes, you're not quitting, you're switching."The Rest of the StoryThis is perverse paternalism. It is an attempt to so strongly control the lives of smokers that the American Lung Association i...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - May 26, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs