Side note... the new Call to Action up top.
Just emailed my Senator and two others. Figure if I've given to their campaigns, past or present, they ought to at least have a staffer read it...
Here's what I sent to my Senator - and just adjusted the first part for those I've donated to. Feel free to cut and paste if you wish. Act now, the biased meeting is tomorrow.
Senator Murray,
As your constituent and long time financial supporter, I'm appalled at the "experts" called to testify at tomorrow's hearing. Only two people, both of whom have shown little regard for science.
After 40 + years of smoking cigarettes, after trying several iterations of the patch, gum and cold turkey and failing to quit (not willing to try the FDA approved drugs that are known to cause suicidal thoughts and actions!), I decided to try e-cigs as a replacement. I have not smoked for over a year and a half now, and credit that success to e-cigs which replicate the actions of smoking without the carcinogens.
A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that e-cig vapor is safe in the workplace, contains less than 1/100 the harmful products of cigarette combustion, and while not marketed as a "stop smoking" aid, does, in fact, help many of us to quit.
I urge you to ask these "experts" some of the following questions:
- How can public health benefit by FDA banning 99% of e-cigarette products that have helped many smokers quit?
- How can public health benefit if FDA protects cigarettes from market competition (by far less hazardous vaporizers) and gives the e-cigarette industry (comprised of several thousand mostly small companies) to Big Tobacco and perhaps several large cigalike companies?
- Why does the FDA keep denying the scientific and empirical evidence that e-cigarettes have helped many smokers quit, as the proposed deeming regulation states (on page 40) “There is no evidence to date that e-cigarettes are effective cessation devices.”?
- Why does the FDA consider tobacco companies and anti tobacco activists to be “stakeholders” in the regulatory process, but not consumers whose lives are at stake?
- Since e-cigarettes are far less hazardous than cigarettes, and since nearly all e-cigarette consumption is by smokers and former smokers who switched to e-cigarettes, doesn’t that benefit, instead of threaten public health?
Suggested questions for Senators to ask CDC’s Tim McAfee:
- Since the CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey found that teen smokers were 20 times more likely than nonsmokers to report past e-cig use, that <1% of nonsmoking teens reported past e-cig use, and that teen smoking rates declined from 2011 to 2012, why did CDC Director Tom Frieden and you tell the news media e-cigarettes were addicting youth, were gateways to smoking, and can renormalize smoking?
- Why is the CDC recruiting and offering to pay e-cigarette users who were diagnosed with a “serious health condition” to appear in advertisements even if their disease wasn’t caused by e-cigarette use? CDC Recruitment Ad for 2015 (All Conditions Only)
- Why does the CDC refuse to acknowledge that many smokers have quit smoking by switching to e-cigarettes?
- Why does the CDC oppose smokers switching to far less hazardous e-cigarettes?
- Since e-cigarettes are less hazardous than cigarettes, and since far more smokers begin using e-cigarettes than nonsmokers, aren’t e-cigarettes benefiting public health?
- Why isn't flavored vodka marketing to kids but flavored e-cigs are?
Thank you,
