E-cigarette advocates — as well as regulators like the FDA — are fond of pointing out that nicotine is not a carcinogen (chemical that causes cancer) and noting that because they do not involve combustion, e-cigarettes do not deliver many carcinogenic chemicals produced by burning cigarettes. A new paper by Stella Tommasi , Ahmad BesaratiniaContinue reading “Genetic evidence that e-cigarettes increase cancer (and other disease) risk among young adults”
Category Archives: cancer
The evidence that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer keeps piling up. When will Surg Gen, CDC, ACS and others start acting on this evidence?
In 2005 the California EPA found secondhand smoke caused breast cancer in younger women. (Related regulatory documents available here.) Amazingly, as of 2024 — 19 years later — neither the CDC (and the Surgeon General, who follows the CDC) nor the American Cancer Society list smoking or secondhand smoke as risk factors for breast cancer.Continue reading “The evidence that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer keeps piling up. When will Surg Gen, CDC, ACS and others start acting on this evidence?”
Evidence that e-cigarettes promote breast cancer
E-cigarette advocates and pro-tobacco forces generally love to point on that nicotine does not cause cancer. While they are correct that nicotine does not cause cancer, i.e., does not lead to cancer initiation, the fact is that once someone has cancer, nicotine makes it worse. In particular, nicotine promotes growth of blood vessels into tumorContinue reading “Evidence that e-cigarettes promote breast cancer”
Why does the Royal College of Physicians report on ecigs and harm reduction minimize knowledge of the adverse effects of nicotine beyond addiction?
E-cigarettes and Harm Reduction: An Evidence Review, the latest in a series of reports it has published since 2007 endorsing e-cigarettes for harm reduction. In this report, the RCP minimizes the adverse health effects of nicotine (beyond addiction), concluding that “There is little evidence of a long-term harmful physiological effect of nicotine that is notContinue reading “Why does the Royal College of Physicians report on ecigs and harm reduction minimize knowledge of the adverse effects of nicotine beyond addiction?”
Heated tobacco products damage human lung function as much as cigarettes
Philip Morris has aggressively promoted its heated tobacco product (HTP) IQOS all over the world as a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes based on the fact that IQOS delivers lower levels of some combustion products than cigarettes. IQOS is the most populat HTP in Japan, and other tobacco companies make similar claims for their HTP.Continue reading “Heated tobacco products damage human lung function as much as cigarettes”
Read the behind scenes story of the 1964 Surgeon General Report on Smoking and Health
The 1964 Report on Smoking and Health represented a turning point in the history of tobacco in the United States and the world. Now Don Shopland [photo above], who at the time was an eighteen year-old, “newly working at the National Library of Medicine,” who found himself moonlighting for the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee thatContinue reading “Read the behind scenes story of the 1964 Surgeon General Report on Smoking and Health”
Over 1 million previously secret Juul documents now available, with more to come
The UCSF Industry Documents Library released another 519,000 new Juul Labs documents, bringing the total number of documents to 1,053,233. This is about one-quarter of the complete collection of more than 4 million documents. Check out the Juul documents here.
Smoking cessation quickly reduces mortality, within 3 years
It’s been long-established that quitting smoking prolongs life and that quitting young (below about 40) eliminates all or almost all the mortality costs of smoking. The new paper Smoking Cessation and Short- and Longer-Term Mortality by Eo Rin Cho and colleagues extends this case to more recent data and from several countries. While they confirmContinue reading “Smoking cessation quickly reduces mortality, within 3 years”
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”
Stanton Glantz blog 