FDA Regulations on E-Cigarette Marketing May Increase Death Toll and Violate State Laws
Early last year, the Food and Drug Administration announced through their Commissioner Mr. Scott Gottlieb that FDA would reexamine and rewrite tobacco rules. Noticing that the leading health threat in tobacco and its products results from combustion and not nicotine, Gottlieb stressed the impact “less risky tobacco products” could make in reducing the number of deaths from cigarettes.
Though Gottlieb’s observations were well received, more has to be done if the dream must come true. Despite the recently proclaimed reforms, FDA’s rules on cigarette alternatives like e-cigarettes threaten to do more harm than help community health.
Cigarettes remain a major cause of avoidable deaths in the United States. And while many smoke cigarettes for the nicotine, research has confirmed that it is not nicotine that’s harmful. Instead, it’s the combustion/burning of tobacco that makes smoking risky.
E-cigarettes, as well as other smokeless forms of tobacco, can fulfill smokers’ longing for nicotine at a lower risk. Available evidence indicates that e-cigs expose a smoker to fewer health risks than combustible tobacco does. Yet federal regulations are hampering e-cigarette’s potential of reducing kills for all its good intentions. And the elusive suggestion by state officials that electronic cigarettes pose the same danger …