Electronic cigarette report decried
Michael Siegel
A public health expert has warned that if people believe the US Surgeon General’s report on electronic cigarettes; it is going to do a lot of public health damage.
The Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, yesterday published a report entitled, E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults.
Dr. Siegel, a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, said in his blog, The Rest of the Story, that the report was scientifically dishonest.
It essentially lied about the single most important fact that the public needed to understand about electronic cigarettes and vaping products: that they do not contain tobacco and that therefore vaping is not a form of tobacco use.
Later in his piece, Siegel says that if, as stated by the Surgeon General, vaping is a form of tobacco use, then so is using nicotine replacement therapy. ‘And if the Surgeon General is serious in stating that “any form of tobacco use” is dangerous, then why isn’t he warning people who are using nicotine gum and nicotine patches,’ he asked.
‘Obviously, it would be terribly misleading and deceptive to tell the public that the nicotine patch is a form of tobacco use. It would be lying to tell the public that people who use the nicotine patch are tobacco users. But the nicotine in a nicotine patch is derived from the same tobacco as is the nicotine in e-cigarettes.’
The Rest of the Story is at: http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/.
