Response to Joe Nocera's NYT article from the health commissioner of New York State

[AegisPrime]

Regulate E-cigarettes

“Two Cheers for E-Cigarettes,” by Joe Nocera (column, Dec. 7), implies that the science related to e-cigarettes is being ignored by the public health community. It is not.

Early studies of the value of e-cigarettes as a smoking-cessation device have found that they are no more effective than nicotine replacement therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

We also know that the smoke that comes off an e-cigarette is not just “vapor,” a term probably promoted by the industry to make it sound innocuous.

There has been an increase in use of e-cigarettes coincident with the aggressive marketing of the product. But there has been no concomitant increase in the incidence of smoking-cessation coincident with the use of e-cigarettes.

Much remains unknown. How will smokers and former smokers use e-cigarettes: to reduce tobacco use or to maintain nicotine addiction by smoking e-cigarettes where they would normally have to abstain? Does the doubling of e-cigarette use by youth in the last year portend an increase in tobacco use that will reverse the significant reductions in cigarette use since 2000?

Most would agree that there is no public health value in youth nicotine addiction and that regulation by the F.D.A. as a tobacco product is necessary. The lack of science on critical questions should be cause for close regulation of e-cigarettes until these questions are better answered, rather than careless optimism with the lives of our youth.

NIRAV R. SHAH
Albany, Dec. 16, 2013

The writer is health commissioner of New York State..

Looks like the health commissioner should spend some time on Google

 

[AgentAnia]

Here speaketh a man confident that the ANTZ who whispered in his ear were telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

(*picking self up off floor* AA gives him one tenth of a point, however, for throwing in some sciency/eddacated sounding words like "coincident with" and "concomitant." Which means his total score comes to minus 99.9.)

 

[Vocalek]

Should they not have hired someone with at least a high school level of scientific understanding to serve as the Health Commissioner of the state?

His ignorance is glaring:

"The smoke that comes off an e-cigarette...."

1. Smoke is created by burning something. Nothing is burned in an e-cigarette, ergo, it does not produce smoke.
2. Use of the phrase "comes off an e-cigarette" shows that Mr. Shah has never observed an e-cigarette in use. Nothing comes off an e-cigarette.

And apparently he doesn't understand what "vapor" means. This definition was not invented by the "e-cigarette industry". That honor goes to Mirriam-Webster.

: a substance that is in the form of a gas or that consists of very small drops or particles mixed with the air

Smoke may be a type of vapor, but vapor is not a type of smoke, which Mirriam-Webster defines:

: the cloud of black, gray, or white gases and dust that is produced by burning something

He lies (or is woefully ignorant):

There has been an increase in use of e-cigarettes coincident with the aggressive marketing of the product. But there has been no concomitant increase in the incidence of smoking-cessation coincident with the use of e-cigarettes.

Incorrect. We cannot say for sure whether the relationship is causal, but we can say with certainty that there has been a decline in smoking rates (i.e., an increase in the incidence of smoking-cessation) coincident with the increase in e-cigarette use.

Results from the 2012 NSDUH: Summary of National Findings, SAMHSA, CBHSQ - Figure 4.6

He also asks:

Does the doubling of e-cigarette use by youth in the last year portend an increase in tobacco use that will reverse the significant reductions in cigarette use since 2000?

No, youth smoking rates and smoking initiation rates continue to fall.

Results from the 2012 NSDUH: Summary of National Findings, SAMHSA, CBHSQ - Figure 4.4

Results from the 2012 NSDUH: Summary of National Findings, SAMHSA, CBHSQ - Figure 5.8

So let us not pretend about portending.

 

[jtpjc]

...throwing in some sciency/eddacated sounding words like "coincident with" and "concomitant."

Nice trick, I can do that too:

There has been an increase of stupidity coincident with the aggressive lies of the ANTZ. But there has also been an concomitant increase in the incidence of facts coincident with the loudness factor of these lies.

Or something.