American Heartless Association

[Vocalek]

Email received from AHA

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From: NAT Service Center Feedback & Assistance <sc.feedback@heart.org>
To: Me
Sent: Sun, May 9, 2010 6:32:14 PM
Subject: American Heart Association Response - E Cigarettes




Dear Ms. Keller,

Thank you for contacting the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association regarding e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes are battery powered nicotine inhalation devices that claim to deliver nicotine to the user through a vaporized propylene glycol solution. E-cigarette manufacturers and retailers are making unproven health claims about their products – asserting that they are safe or safer than traditional cigarettes. Companies also claim that e-cigarettes can help people to quit smoking and in one press release, an e-cigarette company claimed their products were recommended for pregnant women by physicians.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted one limited study in July of 2009 and found that the products contained carcinogens and toxic chemicals, including the ingredients found in anti-freeze. A study conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University and published in February 2010 found that e-cigarettes deliver little or no nicotine to users.

While there has been some very limited research done regarding e-cigarettes, it is the position of the American Heart Association that these products should be required to go through the appropriate regulatory process with the United States Food and Drug Administration prior to being allowed to be sold in the open market. Regulation by the US FDA will help insure that these products are both safe and effective. We currently do not know that either claim would be true.

As a result, the American Heart Association believes that e-cigarettes should be banned from the marketplace until such time as the FDA has approved these devices for sale.

Helping people quit using tobacco is a top priority of the American Heart Association and we will continue to do all that we can to make sure that all people have access to safe and effective tobacco cessation therapies including pharmaceutical approaches as well as counseling. The U.S. Public Health Service has found that that the seven drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in combination with individual or group cessation counseling are the most effective way to help smokers quit.

If you have any questions, please call our toll free number at 1-800-242-8721. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thank you and have a great day!

All the Best,

American Heart Association
National Service Center
1100 E. Campbell Rd, Suite 100
Richardson, TX 75081
Phone Number: 1-800-242-8721

Comments? Observations?

 

[PlanetScribbles]

I've already read it Vocalek, being that it is the same as the one I received. Word for word. Even sent out at the same time.
I wonder how many of these garbage pro-forma responses they sent out?

 

[Vocalek]

I've already read it Vocalek, being that it is the same as the one I received. Word for word. Even sent out at the same time.
I wonder how many of these garbage pro-forma responses they sent out?

Hopefully thousands. I thought it interesting, though, that it matches the form letter sent out by the American Lung Association. Naughty, naughty. Makes it look like there is a conspiracy!

Here is the response I have drafted.

Dear AHA:

U.S. retailers are being very careful to not make health claims, understanding that the wrath of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will fall heavily upon them should they do so. However, those of us who use the products are making verifiable health claims. Check our medical records. We have experienced improved lung function, reduction or elimination of wheezing and coughing, and better markers of cardiovascular health. We don't attribute these health improvements to any magical healing properties of the products themselves, but rather to the fact that we stopped inhaling smoke. We have achieved the state of smoking abstinence, and these products allow us to maintain that state.

Given the fact that ~80% of daily users of the products have completely switched to inhaling vaporized nicotine instead of inhaling smoke, retailers would be justified in saying that the products can help people quit smoking. But, out of respect for the sensitivities of the FDA, the retailers have agreed to refrain from making such claims. There is no law, however, against consumers telling the truth. Somebody has to.

Because of the improvements in our health, we consumers have good reason to believe these products are safer than smoking. But there are two more good reasons in support of this opinion.

1) We compared the ingredients in tobacco smoke with the ingredients in vapor and found that smoke is much more harmful. See http://www.healthnz.co.nz/ECigsExhaledSmoke.htm Vapor is lacking some of the most egregious ingredients found in smoke including tar, carbon monoxide, heavy metals, particles of partially burnt vegetative matter, arsenic, benzene, hydrogen cyanide, etc, etc. Why would the AHA prefer that we go back to inhaling these substances?

2) The products have been in use for nearly 6 years across the globe and almost 2 years in the U.S., with no serious adverse events reported. Compare that to the track record of the FDA-approved smoking cessation medications Chantix and Zyban.

Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot regulate the products under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act (FDCA) because the intended use of the products is not to treat a disease. Judge Leon ruled that because the products are intended to be used as a substitute for smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes FDA could regulate the products as a modified-risk tobacco product under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control ("Tobacco Act"). (http://www.casaa.org/files/SE-vs-FDA-Opinion.pdf)

There is ample research to show that smoking has an adverse effect on cardiovascular health, but the morbidity rates for other forms of tobacco use are much, much lower. So why isn't the American Heart Association's top priority "helping people quit smoking" rather than "helping people quit using tobacco"? Helping people to quit smoking would be a much more easily attainable goal if health agencies and organizations such as yours would start telling the truth about the relative risks of tobacco products.

Most smokers and their loved ones would be outraged to learn that smokers could reduce their health risks by up to 99% if they switched to products such as reduced nitrosamine Swedish snus or electronic cigarettes. If they had not been misled into believing that all forms of tobacco use are equally harmful, more smokers would have made the effort to switch to a safer alternative. Think how much lower the smoking prevalance rate would be today if smokers had been given the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Think of how many heart attacks and strokes could have been averted. We might have achieved the Healthy People 2010 goal instead of missing it by a mile.

What is even more outrageous is the American Heart Association's goal of banning the only product that allows hundreds of thousands of former smokers to maintain their state of smoking abstinence. The prevention of smoking abstinence is not in keeping with the mission of the American Heart Association.

 

[Moonflame]

Very well written response.

 

[CHUCKLEHEAD]

I got the same letter last nightMy daughter has had two open heart surgeries! I have always supported and donated to the AHA !!!!!!!!!NO MORE They can kiss my lilly white ...

 

[ezmoose]

Talk about cherry picking data from junk science research to support preconceived notions! I thought you needed at least some professional background and savvy to work at the AHA; apparently not! They just lined up behind the company (FDA) policy and asked no questions like good little peons do! Do any of these agencies (AHA, ALA, ACS, et al), which presumably have the public’s health at heart, conduct independent research or are they just mouth pieces for the FDA?

It’s discouraging to say the least; perhaps even criminal?

 

[kristin]

Maybe we need to start responding to these emails with a link to the ecigssavelives.info petition. It's not quite 1,000 signatures yet - but it sure gets the point across!

(Nice response as usual, Elaine!)

 

[ezmoose]

I vented and feel a little better now or maybe it was just the Café Brasiliano that I vaped? lol

 

[Vocalek]

I suspect that it's the other way around. The non-profit health and anti-smoking (or more accurately, anti-tobacco) orgs get boatloads of funding from pharmaceutical companies that make the 7 "safe and effective" products recommended in their message. They have a vested interest in forcing us to stay on their merry-go-round. Try their products, relapse, try again, replapse, ad infinitum. The FDA is also kept afloat by all those fees paid by pharmaceutical companies seeking approval of their drugs and devices. So all it takes is a little pressure from them and FDA is asking "how high?"

 

[5cardstud]

They don't want to lose their big tabacco money either. When it comes to the purse strings the tabacco companies use them like a marionette does.
PS I should have put pharmaceutical companies too.

 

[ezmoose]

Thanks for your tireless efforts ladies (Vocalek & kristen); I'd follow either of you into battle any day!

 

[Vocalek]

BTW. I have read some of the studies that the American Heart Association has sponsored. My favorite is the one where they studied smokers who switched to Swedish snus. They found that the rates of heart attack and stroke were higher among those who switched than among those who stopped using any tobacco products.

And this is supposed to prove that switching isn't safe.

The missing data, which was noticed and commented on by Jonathan Foulds, is how those rates compared to those who kept on smoking.

The AHA is pretending that someday they will be able to force everyone to stop using nicotine altogether, so they don't even want to talk about reducing harm. Their delusion is killing people.

 

[pianoguy]

Brilliant response - all that it's missing is "Thanks ever so much for your form letter...." ;-)

 

[markarich159]

It appears "Harm Reduction" is not a phrase that is understood or accepted by any bureaucratic organization in the USA. The quit or die mentality that pervades this country, with all "vice" substances or activities(not just nicotine), is something I'll never get my brain around. Sam Harris in his book End of Faith infers that it has to do with our cultures subconscious Judeo-Christian mindset; which sees all "pleasure inducing" activities/substances, that are not related to worshiping God/prayer/religious ecstacy or procreative sex, as "evil" and something to be completely wiped out.

 

[Jimmy_2k9]

These threads make my blood pressure rise, maybe I should stay out of them. I've been a conspiracy theorist most of my life, but I fully believe that every single major charity type organization in this country, directly funds our government. This country was founded on Tobacco, literally. So our government, these organizations all want whats best for big tobacco, not us.

IMHO.

 

[kristin]

The AHA is pretending that someday they will be able to force everyone to stop using nicotine altogether, so they don't even want to talk about reducing harm. Their delusion is killing people.

I made the same argument against the ALA.

The AHA supports making changes in your diet to reduce the risks of heart disease:

Good nutrition is essential for your family’s heart health. Browse the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Center and start making small changes in your diet. Before you know it, you’ll be on the road to healthier hearts and longer lives!

Nutrition Center

Substituting Lower-Fat Foods in Recipes
You can make many of your favorite recipes healthier by using lower-fat or no-fat ingredients. These healthy substitutions can help you cut down on saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol, while noticing little, if any, difference in taste.

Smart Substitutions

So, they recommend an ALTERNATIVE to high-fat foods and don't expect people to quit using them altogether.

Why can they not understand this concept when it comes to a smoking substitution????

I'd like to know if low-fat sour cream has been tested for longterm use by the FDA!

 

[bassnut]

Great response letter Vocalek, but do you think there is anybody at AHA that will actually read it?
There's no way to tell when they respond with form letters.

 

[v1John]

We don't have time to waste, I think we need to do what we said in the petition, and start working to reduce the funding to the associations.

 

[CaptJay]

Good response Vocalek - people like Chucklehead, contributors, should write the AHA and explain WHY they are no longer making donations - apparently talking and facts (nice point about substitution of lower fat foods rather than abstaining altogether Kristen) means nothing, perhaps hitting them in their pocket might.

 

[D103]

Once again, Great letter Elaine!! Truly, I still believe these correspondences need to be sent to media outlets urging them to cover this story because obviously the 'Big Guns' have their line drawn in the sand and are not going to budge. Our problem is there are so many other very pressing news stories going on right now I fear no one wouuld be willing to take this on. We have got to figure out a way to hook someone in the national media to carry this story - we need more of the general public involved and they need to know this is truly a "public health issue" not just a smoker's health issue.