Last week the CDC and FDA published the 2023 statistics on youth tobacco use from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (FDA press release). The good news is that high school student overall tobacco use is down significantly compared to 2022 (from 16.5% to 12.6%), driven in large part by a drop in e-cigarette use (fromContinue reading “New national data shows kids using “ice” tobacco products; FDA needs to include them in pending menthol product standards”
Author Archives: Stanton Glantz
First longitudinal evidence linking e-cig use and death
Shauna Goldberg Scott and her colleagues recently published the first longitudinal evidence (where people are followed forward in time, the strongest kind of epidemiological study) showing that e-cigarette use was associated with increased risk of death. Their paper, Demographic, Clinical, and Behavioral Factors Associated With Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Use in a Large Cohort inContinue reading “First longitudinal evidence linking e-cig use and death”
Netflix documentary Big Vape is worth watching
Like Jamie Ducharme’s book Big Vape, the four hour (in four episodes) Netflix documentary Big Vape tracks Juul’s development from an idea by two Stanford grad students to compete with Big Tobacco by creating a less dangerous product to replace cigarettes into part of the tobacco industry. It does a particularity good job of highlightingContinue reading “Netflix documentary Big Vape is worth watching”
Regulations prohibiting import and sales of e-cigs work; Brazil and Thailand should keep them
Dozens of countries have issued regulations simply prohibiting the import and sale of e-cigarettes. These policies are under attack in Brazil and Thailand (again). Industry advocates argue that a better policy would be to legalize and regulate these products. The actual evidence tells a very different story. While policies prohibiting the import and sale ofContinue reading “Regulations prohibiting import and sales of e-cigs work; Brazil and Thailand should keep them”
Cigar flavor bans and retailer license fees reduce health disparities
Two new papers, The Effect of State and Local Flavored Cigar Sales Restrictions, on Retail Sales of Large Cigars, Cigarillos, and Little Cigars in Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and New York and The Association Between the License Fee Increase and The Density of Tobacco Retailers in California – A Segmented Interrupted Time Series Analysis by IncomeContinue reading “Cigar flavor bans and retailer license fees reduce health disparities”
New well-done RCT shows that giving smokers free e-cigarettes creates more dual users than switchers or quitters
Matthew J. Carpenter and colleagues recently published what is probably the most informative randomized controlled clinical trial of the effect of giving current cigarette smokers free e-cigarettes on their nicotine consumption: Effect of unguided e-cigarette provision on uptake, use, and smoking cessation among adults who smoke in the USA: a naturalistic, randomised, controlled clinical trial. They recruitedContinue reading “New well-done RCT shows that giving smokers free e-cigarettes creates more dual users than switchers or quitters”
Juul damages vascular function in people as much as a cigarette
There are several studies in people showing that earlier generations of e-cigarettes inhibit normal blood vessel function as well as studies in animals showing that this is the case for a wide variety of e-cigarettes, including Juul. Now Ziyad Ben Taleb and colleagues have shown that Juul inhibits blood vessel function just like cigarettes doContinue reading “Juul damages vascular function in people as much as a cigarette”
FDA tiptoes toward enforcement of rules prohibiting unauthorized ecigs
It is currently illegal to sell almost every e-cigarette on the market. (The exceptions are a few e-cigarettes produced by RJ Reynolds, NJOY and Logic Technologies.) But FDA has been very slow to take strong formal enforcement actions. As of October 2022, FDA, working through the Department of Justice, had sought injunctions against 6 small-timeContinue reading “FDA tiptoes toward enforcement of rules prohibiting unauthorized ecigs”
EPA needs to expand proposed perchloroethylene rule
Perchloroethylene, which is used in dry cleaning among other purposes, is toxic when inhaled. The US EPA previously determined that it poses unreasonable risk of injury to human health and is required under the Toxic Substances Control Act to ensure that “the chemical no longer presents [unreasonable] risk.” EPA has now proposed to ban allContinue reading “EPA needs to expand proposed perchloroethylene rule”
Improving EPA’s cumulative risk assessment procedures
In response to President Biden’s 2021 Executive Orders to advance racial equity, increase resources for underserved communities, and address the climate crisis, the Environmental Protection Agency has developed and released “Draft Proposed Principles of Cumulative Risk Assessment under the Toxic Substances Control Act.” While the draft includes many good points, in some ways it willContinue reading “Improving EPA’s cumulative risk assessment procedures”
Stanton Glantz blog 