Vaping no public health advancement

The Review-Journal’s June 9 editorial, “Stifling a public health victory,” rests on the absurd presumption that the primary purpose of vape shops is the harm reduction business. The editors then draw the dubious conclusion that the Food and Drug Administration’s recently asserted authority to regulate e-cigarettes stands in the way of the new industry’s purported promise to improve the public’s health.

Almost every assertion in the editorial is inaccurate. It is patently inaccurate to say that “it must be noted that e-cigarettes contain no tobacco.”

Plenty of evidence suggests that smoking cessation is a principal reason many people try e-cigarettes. Most public health professionals agree, however, that it is premature to call e-cigarettes a safe alternative to traditional cigarettes, and it is irresponsible of industry and vape shops to market them as cessation aids.

In the most recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, Stanton Glantz concludes that “unfortunately the evidence to date indicates that smokers who also use e-cigarettes are actually less likely to quit smoking than smokers who do not use cigarettes” or smokers who use nicotine replacement therapy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this much we do know: 1) nicotine poses dangers to pregnant women and fetuses, children and adolescents; 2) youth use of nicotine in any form, including e-cigarettes, is unsafe and detrimental to adolescent brain development; 3) in order for adult smokers to benefit from e-cigarettes, they must completely quit combusted tobacco use; and 4) e-cigarette aerosol is not harmless “water vapor” and is not as safe as clean air.

Many chemicals found in e-cigarettes are themselves carcinogenic and otherwise harmful to their users.

Finally, despite the steady “de-normalization” of tobacco use over the past quarter century, the public health community is alarmed by the rapid rise of e-cigarettes use by youths over the past couple of years. Currently, half of Nevada high schoolers have used electronic vapor products and nearly 30 percent have used e-cigarettes in the past 30 days. In addition, there is good evidence that vaping leads to tobacco use in many of its users.

While e-cigarette manufacturers promise a less harmful and more socially acceptable alternative to conventional cigarettes, current evidence of e-cigarette safety and therapeutic efficacy remains thin. It is noteworthy that, as of this date, no e-cigarette manufacturer has ever submitted an application to the FDA to market e-cigarettes for smoking cessation.

As for the harm-reduction potential of vaping, if there is a public health benefit to e-cigarettes, then certainly those products can withstand the scientific scrutiny required of any device or good making medical claims under the purview of the FDA.

John Packham

Reno

Joseph Iser

Las Vegas

Mr. Packham is president of the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition. Dr. Iser is district health officer for the Southern Nevada Health District.

Pitiful souls

Let’s stop empowering these killers by calling them religious zealots, jihadists, terrorists or any other euphemism. All news articles should call them what they really are: low-life cowards who prey on defenseless innocent men, women and children.

They are pitiful souls who do not deserve to be called by any other name.

Also, their pictures should never be published as they do not deserve to be acknowledged as part of the human race. Instead, they should be treated as the animals they really are. No God would ever condone their actions.

Marvin Botwinik

Las Vegas