Smokeless Tobacco Advocate Rails Against 'Frauds, Extremists, Liars'

[Bill Godshall]

Smokeless tobacco Advocate Rails Against 'Frauds, Extremists, Liars'
"These anti-tobacco extremists want nothing short of seeing all the tobacco companies go out of business," says the director of Smokefree Pennsylvania
http://www.minyanville.com:80/sectors/consumer/articles/tobacco-harm-reduction-smokeless-tobacco-tobacco/10/10/2012/id/44843
or Smokeless Tobacco Advocate Rails Against 'frauds, Extremists, Liars' | Consumer | Minyanville.com

I contacted the author Justin Rohrlich last week responding to his article that criticized former Congressman Stephen Buyer for advocating tobacco harm reduction at
http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/politics-and-regulation/articles/Steve-Buyer-revolving-door-RJ-Reynolds/10/3/2012/id/44658

Hopefully, Rohrlich's newest article can help expose the deceitful and deceptive claims made by CTFK, Obama's FDA and other opponents of tobacco harm reduction.

 

[Petrodus]

I've said it before ...
I really think those opposing harm reduction actually know the truth.
They have heard it before and they know where to find Google.
They just keep vomiting lies due to their agenda ... and of course,
many are being funded by BP.

Obama's FDA Lies
Of course, they do ... Lying (per the White House) is considered
appropriate to advance propaganda

The only thing we can do is to keep pointing out their lies
and hopefully eventually they will get gun-shy knowing that
every time the vomit lies ... There will be those who will
stand up and call them out ... making a fool them.

 

[Petrodus]

What's got me scratching my head a little is ...
What michieve the FDA has planned for us
AFTER the Election.

AFTER the Election ...
Because there's some kind of Federal Law
against the government or its agencies
doing any real work until after the election.

 

[sonicdsl]

What's got me scratching my head a little is ...
What michieve the FDA has planned for us
AFTER the Election.

AFTER the Election ...
Because there's some kind of Federal Law
against the government or its agencies
doing any real work until after the election.

Unless they're voting themselves a pay raise, of course.

 

[sonicdsl]

Smokeless Tobacco Advocate Rails Against 'Frauds, Extremists, Liars'
"These anti-tobacco extremists want nothing short of seeing all the tobacco companies go out of business," says the director of Smokefree Pennsylvania
http://www.minyanville.com:80/sectors/consumer/articles/tobacco-harm-reduction-smokeless-tobacco-tobacco/10/10/2012/id/44843
or Smokeless Tobacco Advocate Rails Against 'frauds, Extremists, Liars' | Consumer | Minyanville.com

I contacted the author Justin Rohrlich last week responding to his article that criticized former Congressman Stephen Buyer for advocating tobacco harm reduction at
http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/politics-and-regulation/articles/Steve-Buyer-revolving-door-RJ-Reynolds/10/3/2012/id/44658

Hopefully, Rohrlich's newest article can help expose the deceitful and deceptive claims made by CTFK, Obama's FDA and other opponents of tobacco harm reduction.

And great article Bill on your interview w/the reporter! Thanks again for your contributions!

 

[TennDave]

The problem of getting FDA approved is the cost and it's not all about Big Tobacco companies and their smokeless tobacco products being approved (even if the FDA would approve them), it's about the thousands of mom and pop shops who don't have the money to spend, with the high risk of not being approved, AND (a big AND)....the time it would take for the approval (YEARS!!) during which hundreds of thousands more will die from smoking while waiting on the approval process. That's why the status quo in regards to regulations is the best thing.

 

[Vocalek]

And what, precisely is it, that is going to be approved? Would anyone care to count up the variety of hardware designs for e-cigarettes, e-pipes, and e-cigars? And even though one part of the FDA does deal with medical devices, is the Agency equipped to deal with the question of "effective" as applied to e-cigarette hardware? Without a liquid that can be vaporized, the hardware is useless.

And how many different varieties of liquid are there? Does each of the possible 200 combinations of PG/VG ratios need separate approval? And then when we throw in nicotine levels, and various flavorings, the possible combinations become unimaginable to the ordinary person.

The idea of FDA approval is much better suited to products that need to be uniform and precisely titrated to accomplish the job they set out to do.

 

[martinc]

Perhaps somebody should point to them that if they ever succeed,they will be out of jobs

 

[Vocalek]

McGoldrick shows his true colors when he says:

“We’re not closed to the idea of harm reduction, but it needs to be done in a regulated environment,” McGoldrick tells me. “Letting tobacco companies be the ones marketing harm reduction products is absolutely ridiculous."

And just who does McGoldrick think should be allowed to market smokeless tobacco products, if not tobacco companies? Should GlaxoSmithKline start growing and processing tobacco?

However, as Danny McGoldrick testified in Oklahoma, if the tobacco companies “want to promote smokeless tobacco or anything else as a smoking cessation product, they can do this through the Food and Drug Administration like other cessation products by demonstrating with science that their products are a safe and effective way to quit smoking.

“If the evidence is anywhere near what they claim, this should not present a problem for them,” he told the panel of lawmakers.

Leaving aside for the moment McGoldrick's confusion about the goals for prescription "smoking" (i.e. nicotine) cessation versus Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR)...

Presenting evidence to the FDA has already occurred. Perhaps McGoldrick missed the FDA hearings on modified risk tobacco products (MRTPs). Numerous studies were submitted to the FDA Tobacco Program Scientific Advisory Committee documenting the low rate of smoking in Sweden and the corresponding low rate of lung cancer mortality, corresponding to the percent of smokers that switched to snus.

When asked why the FDA doesn't make a blanket proclamation that switching to snus lowers health risks, the FDA leadership claimed that the law did not permit them to do it that way. Each company has to separately submit evidence on each of their products, following the "Industry Guidance" that the FDA published on the MRTP approval requirements.

The strongest evidence that snus users have lower health risks than smokers was not done on a product-by-product basis. Instead, when the rates of various smoking-related diseases within a population are studied, and the subjects are questioned about their use of tobacco products, they are not asked what brand or particular product they used.

So each tobacco manufacturer will need to "reinvent the wheel" in terms of scientific testing. They will need to conduct toxicology tests on each of their products, and then animal testing, followed by clinical trials using human subjects. And, of course, in order to compare such things as rates of heart disease and cancer, many years of study will be required. Even smokers don't develop these diseases overnight.

To those of us who are cynical, it seems that the bar was purposely set so high in order to postpone as long as possible allowing the truth about Tobacco Harm Reduction to leak out to the public. Truly, I see little difference between the approval requirements for a MRTP and the requirements for approval of a prescription drug, except for the fact that it might take longer for an MRTP to be approved due to the studies on long-term effects, which most prescription drugs are not required to conduct.

 

[Vocalek]

And Brad Rodu's comments are interesting as well: Tobacco Truth: Tobacco-Free Kids: Don’t Tell Oklahoma Smokers the Truth