Read articles from United States of America

February 28, 2020 by None

A sweeping tobacco bill slated for a House vote this week is reviving interest in limiting the levels of nicotine in cigarettes and other products — an idea the FDA first proposed three years ago that's largely fallen off the Trump administration's regulatory agenda.

Nicotine caps aren't actually in the legislation which would ban flavored tobacco, including menthol. But the way in which the Democratic bill goes further than the Trump administration's dialed-back vaping ban is focusing attention on what public health advocates say is a broader White House retreat from regulating tobacco [...]

February 28, 2020 by regulatorwatch.com

In this episode of RegWatch Dr. Rodu discusses events behind the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) retraction of a major study by authors Stanton Glantz and Dharma Bhatta of the University of California San Francisco that purported to show nicotine vaping led to an increase in heart attacks. The study fueled national panic over vaping and Dr. Rodu led the effort questioning the work.

February 26, 2020 by thehill.com

With the release of the administration’s new policy on flavored e-cigarettes, parents across the country have expected us — two volunteer parent advocates who have worked long and hard to promote nationwide action to prevent youth vaping — to be doing a victory lap.

We’re not.

It’s not that the administration didn’t do something. They just didn’t do much. On Jan. 2, they released a watered-down policy that took most flavored cartridges (or pods) — like the ones used by Juul — temporarily off the market, but left tobacco and menthol-flavored varieties of Juul and other pod-based e-cigarettes widely available. [...]

February 26, 2020 by bloomberg.com

A quarter century ago, a man named Steve Parrish was the ugly voice of the tobacco industry. The tobacco wars were raging: States were suing the cigarette companies, whistle-blowers were leaking damning documents to the media and David Kessler, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, was trying to regulate tobacco products. Parrish was a senior executive at Altria at the time, and his job was to strike back. He would go on television and hurl insults at Kessler. He would insist that cigarettes weren’t addictive. He would denounce the mounting lawsuits in strident language.

February 25, 2020 by medscape.com

[...] An e-cigarette will aerosolize a liquid and create anywhere from large amounts of vapor to very small amounts of vapor; the different products on the market create different amounts of aerosol. A Nicotrol inhaler delivers nicotine predominantly to the oral mucosa where it is absorbed. There is no heating involved in a Nicotrol inhaler.

Another important distinction is the difference between an e-cigarette and burned conventional tobacco. When you burn conventional tobacco, you are heating that tobacco to about 1000˚ C; [...]

February 25, 2020 by benzinga.com

Juul is planning to propose e-cigarettes that only unlock for persons above the legal age of smoking to the Food and Drug Administration as it seeks to remain in business in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The e-cigarette makers have the chance to demonstrate if their products present a net health benefit to American people over traditional tobacco products to the FDA by May 12.

According to the Journal, Juul is planning to submit a proposal for a next-generation age-locked vaping device to convince the regulatory body that its products wouldn't be used by teenagers.

February 25, 2020 by benefitnews.com

According to the recently released Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking Cessation, just 3.2%of U.S. adults vaped in 2018. That’s a pretty low number, and it’s been stable for about the past 5 years. But new research shows that vaping in the workplace is a much bigger concern than many employers recognize, and it actually has as much to do with those who do not vape as it does with those who do. Vaping isn’t harmless, either for e-cigarette users themselves or for those exposed to secondhand aerosol. First and foremost, the long-term effects of e-cigarette use are not yet known. [...]

February 25, 2020 by eurekalert.org

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have completed a cross-sectional human study that compares biomarkers and metal concentrations in the urine of e-cigarette users, nonsmokers, and cigarette smokers.

"Our study found e-cigarette users are exposed to increased concentrations of potentially harmful levels of metals -- especially zinc -- that are correlated to elevated oxidative DNA damage," said Prue Talbot, a professor of cell biology, who led the research team.

February 24, 2020 by theconversation.com

In June 2019, a paper by prominent US academics found that people who used e-cigarettes were at greater risk of a heart attack. The authors concluded that e-cigarettes were just as risky as tobacco in provoking heart attacks, and that using e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes at the same time was even riskier. Unsurprisingly, this caused a stir in the media – in the form of 35 news stories, to be exact. Also unsurprisingly, it provoked vigorous scientific debate. Eight months later, the paper was retracted. When a paper is retracted it means we can’t trust its results. [...]

February 24, 2020 by journalnow.com

The Big Three tobacco manufacturers are again testing the elasticity of smokers’ habit and budget by raising their list prices by 8 cents per pack, effective today.

The list price is what wholesalers pay manufacturers for their products. The increase typically is passed on to customers at retail.

It is the first time in 2020 that Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and ITG Brands LLC apply a strategy that has become at least a semiannual occurrence since 2014.