It might seem obvious but not to the FDA

A leading health expert has expressed dismay that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is unsure whether smoking tobacco cigarettes is any more hazardous than is vaping e-cigarettes.

Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, said on Monday that the most damaging revelation in the FDA’s proposed deeming regulations was the fact that the agency was not sure that smoking was any more hazardous than vaping.

“This is worth repeating: The nation’s federal regulatory agency with jurisdiction over cigarettes is not sure that smoking—which kills more than 400,000 Americans each year—is any more dangerous than vaping, which involves no tobacco and no combustion and has not been shown to cause any harm,” he wrote on his blog.

“The FDA is not convinced that inhaling nicotine plus tens of thousands of chemicals and more than 60 known human carcinogens is any worse than inhaling nicotine plus propylene glycol and low levels of a few other chemicals.”

Siegel’s full blog is at http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/federal-agency-that-regulates.html.