Saving lives with vapor products

In the US, electronic cigarette use could lead to a 21 percent drop in deaths from smoking-related diseases in those born after 1997, according to a story by Toni Clarke for Reuters, citing a study published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research.

The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Cancer Institute and the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network, found that under most plausible scenarios electronic cigarettes and other vapor products provide for a generally positive public health impact.

“While the data are still not as clear as we would like, we present the entire picture with national data so we think our estimates are as good as we can get,” said David Abrams, executive director of the Schroeder Institute of Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at the Truth Initiative.

Most previous studies count as electronic cigarette users anyone who has vaped within the past 30 days and that can include someone who goes to a party and vapes once or twice.

“Those are not the people we are concerned with,” said David Levy, a professor of oncology at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and the study’s lead author. “We tried to get an idea of the number of people who progressed to established use.”

On May 5, the FDA announced a final rule extending its tobacco authority to include electronic cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars and hookah. The rule, which becomes effective in early August, requires companies to seek marketing authorization for any tobacco product introduced after February 15, 2007.

Levy and other electronic cigarette advocates say excessive FDA regulation could stifle the development of safer products that could more effectively displace cigarettes.