Read articles from North America

August 29, 2023 by dallasnews.com

Earlier in my career, I spent a fair amount of professional time working with companies on U.S. Food and Drug Administration compliance. While I worked on the business side not the government side, I recognized then and now how important it is for us to have an agency tasked with protecting consumers from dangerous products. When that agency is functioning properly, that is. Sadly, today’s FDA is falling down on the job when it comes to enforcing its own regulations regarding illicit flavored disposable products, especially products from China.

August 28, 2023 by filtermag.org

A national ban on menthol cigarettes is inching closer. This month, the United States Food and Drug Administration will publish final regulations on the matter, according to the agency’s Spring Regulatory Agenda. The FDA has been considering making the ban effective one-to-two years after publication. A public comment period last year saw 175,000 comments submitted on the proposed menthol cigarette ban, with another 71,000 for a similar restriction on cigars. Based on my review, a majority appear to be against the ban.

August 14, 2023 by stltoday.com

Americans count on the Food and Drug Administration to be guided by science — not public opinion or politics. Without a high scientific standard, it couldn’t fulfill its mission of ensuring that our food, medicines, and cosmetics are safe.

Yet recently, the agency — which is staffed by about two-thirds scientists and one-third bureaucrats — has shown deep politicization on (…)

August 10, 2023 by medicalxpress.com

Hospital toxicologist Ryan Marino has seen up close the violent reactions of children poisoned by liquid nicotine from electronic cigarettes. One young boy who came to his emergency room experienced intense nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, and needed intravenous fluids to treat his dehydration. Kids can also become dizzy, lose consciousness, and suffer dangerous drops in blood pressure. In the most severe case he's seen, doctors put another boy on a ventilator in the intensive care unit because he couldn't breathe, said Marino, of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

August 09, 2023 by nytimes.com

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reminding caregivers to store tobacco vaping cartridges safely to prevent children from being poisoned by the liquid inside, noting that e-cigarette exposures have increased sharply over the last year. A newsletter published last week by the F.D.A. included data from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in June that found that there was a 32 percent increase for the month of March 2023 compared with the month of April 2022 in exposures to e-cigarettes or e-liquids reported to U.S. poison centers, most in children under 5. National data also suggests exposures hit an all-time high in 2022.

August 07, 2023 by marijuanamoment.net

Colorado online marijuana sales are officially allowed as of Monday, giving consumers a new method of ordering cannabis more than a decade after the state enacted legalization. This comes two months after Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed the online sales legislation from Reps. William Lindstedt (D), Said Sharbini (D) and Robert Rodriguez (D) into law. The measure strikes language from state statute that explicitly prohibited cannabis from being sold on the internet, while adding regulations to provide for online commerce.

August 07, 2023 by townhall.com

Despite being on the U.S. market for more than a decade and a half, there is a lot of misinformation about e-cigarettes and nicotine and tobacco harm reduction. A recent global survey of more than 15,000 doctors representing 11 different countries came to the alarming conclusion with 74 percent of participants “incorrectly [believing that] nicotine causes a range of illnesses from lung cancer to COPD.” More recently, ABC News (and other outlets) picked up on updated guidelines from various public health trade associations (including the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology), claiming that doctors “increasingly discourage vaping amid mounting health concerns.”

August 03, 2023 by news-medical.net

Hospital toxicologist Ryan Marino has seen up close the violent reactions of children poisoned by liquid nicotine from electronic cigarettes. One young boy who came to his emergency room experienced intense nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, and needed intravenous fluids to treat his dehydration. Kids can also become dizzy, lose consciousness, and suffer dangerous drops in blood pressure. In the most severe case he's seen, doctors put another boy on a ventilator in the intensive care unit because he couldn't breathe, said Marino, of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

August 03, 2023 by ctvnews.ca

Selling flavoured vaping products will be prohibited in Quebec starting Oct. 31. New regulations announced by the Health Ministry on Wednesday, will also limit the maximum nicotine concentration of vaping products and require certain information to be included on their labelling and packaging. The province will also control "certain characteristics" of vaping paraphernalia to make them "less attractive" to youth, according to a government press release. 

August 02, 2023 by cspdailynews.com

Use of electronic cigarettes will be banned in indoor public spaces in Illinois following a measure signed Friday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The bill, HB 1540, adds electronic smoking devices to the 2008 Smoke-Free Illinois Act, which banned smoking combustible products, like cigarettes, in most public places in the state. The amendment will take effect Jan. 1. “Illinoisans deserve to enjoy public spaces without being exposed unwillingly to secondhand vapor and other electronic cigarettes byproducts,” Pritzker said. [...]