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- Category: September 2021
After San Francisco banned adults from purchasing flavored tobacco and vaping products in 2018, a funny thing happened. Teen smoking rates increased.
Now, two other major California cities are considering similar bans. Like San Francisco's, the proposed measures in Los Angeles and San Jose are backed by vocal advocates who argue that candy- and fruit-flavored electronic cigarettes and tobacco products (which minors are already prohibited from legally purchasing) are tempting kids to get addicted to nicotine. [...]
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- Category: September 2021
Banning menthol flavors in cigarettes could reduce smoking by 15% by having smokers giving up tobacco products altogether or switching to e-cigarettes and other nicotine vaping products—avoiding 16,250 tobacco-related deaths per year by 2060, according to a new University of Michigan study.
The report supports the April 2021 announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of its intention to ban menthol cigarettes and cigars nationwide. The menthol ban would not affect e-cigarettes or other flavored products. [...]
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- Category: September 2021
“The information available lacks sufficient detail to be able to assess the research fully, and it has not been peer-reviewed or published. So we should be extremely cautious about accepting any of the claims at face value.
“It’s hard to interpret the results, as they say nothing about their statistical methods. The authors claim statistical significance, but without knowing how the values were calculated it’s impossible to say how meaningful they are.
“It’s important to note that the researchers did not look at any clinical outcomes. [...]
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- Category: September 2021
Ruth Tal-Singer spent more than two decades at GlaxoSmithKline, where she was a top scientist studying COPD — a chronic lung disease often related to smoking. She’s published dozens of influential scientific papers. And she now helps run the nonprofit COPD Foundation.
So she was stunned when a recruiter contacted her this summer to see if she would be interested in working with Philip Morris International, the world’s largest listed tobacco company.
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- Category: September 2021
Before delving into what sustainability means for the tobacco market, we must first ask what the word itself means. A good starting point is an observation of the French philosopher Luc Ferry: “I know that this term is obligatory, but I find it also absurd, or rather so vague that it says nothing.”
Ferry captures the problem well. It is often taken as a green concept, promoting enlightened practices on energy and emissions, waste and recycling and raw materials in the supply chain. A more evolved definition considers social and economic impacts. This has led to a steady output of sustainability reports from major businesses, [...]
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- Category: September 2021
As part of an effort to curb tobacco use in New Mexico, especially among high school students who are increasingly using e-cigarettes, several lawmakers expressed support Thursday for increasing taxes on all tobacco products.
The push to raise the price on cigarettes and other tobacco products came after representatives from the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network delivered a long list of bleak statistics about the toll tobacco use is taking on New Mexicans.
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- Category: September 2021
For the last 15 years, there’s been a caveat tacked on to any discussion of e-cigarettes’ public health impact. Though millions of people in the U.S. use them regularly, the devices have never been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
That could change next week, as the multi-billion-dollar vaping industry nears its judgement day. The FDA is supposed to decide by Sept. 9 whether and how e-cigarette companies—including market-leader Juul Labs—may keep selling their products in the U.S. The long-awaited decisions promise to spark controversy no matter which way they go.
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- Category: September 2021
Premium vaping brand RELX has officially launched in the Kingdom as more Saudi youth are resorting to e-cigarettes.
The vaping products are also available in the UAE and Kuwait, and signal RELX's intention to expand into the rest of the Middle East and North Africa this year. Dr. Abdulaziz Sallam, a consultant in emergency medicine at Saudi Airlines Medical Services, said: “E-cigarettes and vape devices are not an alternative to quitting smoking because they are harmful to the body just as cigarettes are because they also contain nicotine."
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- Category: September 2021
Parents who smoke harm the health of their own children
Warnings against the dangers of smoking can be read on every cigarette box and in every advertisement for smoking brands. Those who smoke endanger themselves and also those around them, who inevitably become passive smokers. This way, parents who smoke harm the health of their own children. A first-of-its-kind study in Israel by researchers from the Sackler Medical School of Tel Aviv University uncovers alarming data about secondhand smoking by children of smokers: According to the study, nicotine residues were found in the hair samples of 7 out of 10 children who participated. [...]
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- Category: September 2021
On August 31, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied the PMTA applications for about 800 vaping products from three e-liquid manufacturers. All of the products were flavored.
Dimitris Agrafiotis, the self-described “Vapin’ Greek” who runs International Vapor Solutions, a consultancy firm, told Filter that three e-liquid companies companies he represents—two of them large and one medium-sized—were sent marketing denial orders (MDOs) by the agency.
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- Category: September 2021
Using e-cigarettes containing nicotine causes an immediate increase in the formation of blood clots and a deterioration in the ability of small blood vessels to expand and dilate, as well as raised heart rate and blood pressure, according to research [...] Researchers say these effects are similar to those caused by smoking traditional cigarettes and with long-term use, they could result in a heart attack or stroke.
The study was presented by Gustaf Lyytinen, a clinician at Helsingborg Hospital and researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. [...]
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- Category: September 2021
Health Canada is trying to ban almost all vaping liquid flavours. This is on top of measures to limit nicotine strengths and marketing. It is the nearest they can get to a prohibition without actually having to prohibit the most promising low-risk rival to cigarettes. The likely effects are obvious: more smoking. But in a bizarre twisting of reality and evidence, Health Canada finds that making vaping less attractive relative to smoking will… um … reduce smoking. And that’s how it justifies the measure. We respond with a counter-analysis.
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- Category: September 2021
Dr. Patt Denning is a pioneer in developing the field of harm reduction therapy. She is the director of clinical services and training at the Harm Reduction Therapy Center (HRTC) in Oakland/San Francisco, [...] Denning was a lifelong smoker—with the exception of an interlude where she quit for five years, before returning to smoking.
In this short video, she explains what it took to quit combustible cigarettes permanently by switching completely to vaping. It was a long and at times frustrating journey. For a couple years, Denning both smoked and vaped, and didn’t realize she was practicing harm reduction!
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- Category: September 2021
When electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) first emerged, they became a popular way for people to quit smoking. But in 2019, a mysterious lung condition emerged that primarily affected young people, particularly those who vaped. This left many questioning the safety of e-cigarettes.
The condition was named e-cigarettes or vaping use-associated lung injury – or Evali for short. The average (median) age of people affected by the condition was 24 years. Symptoms included respiratory complaints, such as a cough, shortness of breath and chest pain, as well as stomach problems, fever, chills and weight loss.
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- Category: September 2021
The US Food and Drug Administration most recently announced its intention to ban menthol cigarettes and cigars nationwide in April 2021. Implementation of the ban will require evidence that it would improve public health. This paper simulates the potential public health impact of a ban on menthol in cigarettes and cigars through its impacts on smoking initiation, smoking cessation and switching to nicotine vaping products (NVPs).
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- Category: September 2021
Perceptions of the harmfulness of tobacco products may be a determinant of smoking behaviors. This study aimed to: (1) assess the perception of harmfulness of various tobacco products and e-cigarettes in Poland as well as (2) to assess the awareness of the health effects of using tobacco and e-cigarettes. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2019 with a nationally representative sample of 1011 individuals aged 15 and over. In the studied group, 22.3% were smokers. Smokeless tobacco was most likely to be perceived as less harmful than cigarettes (25%), followed by water pipe (24.5%), heated tobacco products (22%), e-cigarettes (21.6%), [...]
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- Category: September 2021
It is a remarkable development in the contentious debate over nicotine vaping. A group of influential tobacco control experts authored a paper, published in The American Journal of Public Health, calling on the broader health community, policymakers, and the media to re-evaluate and reform their positions on vaping in favor of vaping as a tool for harm reduction
Joining us today on RegWatch is Dr. Robin J Mermelstein, Distinguished Prof. of Psychology and IHRP Director at the University of Illinois-Chicago [...]
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- Category: September 2021
If you want to quit smoking, vaping is not the best option.
This was stressed by HealthJustice Philippines, a non-government organization, that expressed alarm over the pending Senate Bill 2239 titled “An Act Regulating the Importation, Manufacture, Sale, Packaging, Distribution, Use, And Communication of Vapor Products and Heated Tobacco Products [HTPs],” or commonly known as the Vape Bill, which would encourage people, especially the youth to try vaping.
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- Category: September 2021
Are you planning to quit tobacco during the pandemic? What risk does COVID-19 pose to a tobacco user? Learn how the tobacco industry lured people to consume tobacco during the pandemic. Dr Hebe Gouda explains the health benefits of quitting tobacco in Science in 5.
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- Category: September 2021
When it comes to taxing cigarettes, there’s rarely any opposition from lawmakers. “Sin taxes,” as they’re sometimes called, raise significant revenue for governments and are broadly deployed in the name of reducing rates of smoking—in the US, they’re particularly high in states like New York and Connecticut. But rarely is the effect of these taxes studied on marginalized people with low incomes, who around the world smoke at the highest rates.