Tossed this in e-mail
Dear Marcia Morphy,
It' generally accepted it's unethical to publish without rudimentary fact checking. Nicotine is not a carcinogen. Doctors like Richard Hurt (Mayo Clinic) even suggest using NRPs for as long as it takes. Dr. Neal Benowitz (FDA's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee) even suggests using dissolvable tobacco is acceptable because:
* No evidence that nicotine causes or promotes cancer
* Nicotine may slightly increase the risk of MI and stroke. If so the risks are far lower than those of cigarette smoking
* Nicotine likely has adverse effects on reproduction, including increasing the risk of pre-eclampsia and preterm birth
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/NewsEvents/UCM232147.pdf
It's a social norm that 1 and 7 people continue smoking until they die, half of those die from heart disease, not cancer. E-cigarettes have no tar, thus the major risk is eliminated, and even in the FDA sponsored study the unvaporized liquid contained as many trace TSNAs as the nicotine patch, which is accepted as an acceptable risk by the medical community.
All objective evidence suggests if 1 in 7 people who otherwise would smoke would use alternative forms of nicotine delivery, whether it be NRPs, Snus, new dissolvable products, for the rest of their lives, the harm is reduced, and would be a huge net win for public health. From a business standpoint, e-cigarettes compete with both tobacco and cessation products, and competition and choice is typically a net win for consumers. Each time a user switches from cigarettes, they are taking an active step making the cigarette industry less viable. E-cigarettes have an edge in terms of price per use, and cigarette cessation rates. Conservative is the Boston study (Michael Siegel) citing twice as effective as the nicotine gum and patch, other studies suggest 78%.
There is the risk about a product that is destined to be obsolete, but the e-cigarette is nothing more than a portable Glade Plug-in, except it poses far less of a health impact. Glade Plug-ins use iso-paraffinic compounds which have a HMIS health rating of 2, moderate risk. E-cigarettes use propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin, which has a HMIS rating of 0. It's also a small scale fog machine, and potential for delivering other forms of medication exists. But as cigarettes are still legal, and smoking is still a social norm, the only way they'll be obsolete is if parents actually successfully promote cigarette abstinence.
So please, check your facts before publishing, and don't presume accepting someone's knee jerk reaction as fact as acting ethically. Having to shame someone to promote ethics suggests they're not ethical to begin with, and all objective evidence would suggest e-cigarettes solve a public health issue, not cause one.
Thank you for your time, and do have an inspirational day...
{me}
