April 2016

The 2017 Agriculture Appropriations Bill may not seem like a stirring piece of legislation to most, but it raised quite a few eyebrows last week as it passed through a House subcommittee with a key amendment&mdash;one that aims to spare the vast majority of electronic cigarettes from impending federal regulations.<br />
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The bipartisan effort to protect the burgeoning e-cig market is just the latest in a long-smoldering debate reignited by the Food and Drug Administration&rsquo;s plans this year to begin regulating the new devices as it does traditional tobacco products. <br type="_moz" />

Taking a stance sharply at odds with most American public health officials, a major British medical organization urged smokers to switch to electronic cigarettes, saying they are the best hope in generations for people addicted to tobacco cigarettes to quit.<br />
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The recommendation, laid out in a report published Thursday by the Royal College of Physicians, summarizes the growing body of science on e-cigarettes and finds that their benefits far outweigh the potential harms. It concludes resoundingly that, at least so far, the devices are helping people more than harming them, and that the worries about them &mdash; including that using them will lead young people to eventually start smoking traditional cigarettes &mdash; have not come to pass.<br type="_moz" />

The Senate OK&rsquo;d a bill Thursday that limits the sale and use of electronic cigarettes.<br />
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The upper chamber passed H.171 on a vote of 24 to 5.<br />
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The Senate made few changes to the bill that cleared the House last month. The legislation bans the use of e-cigarettes indoors at workplaces and restaurants.<br type="_moz" />

BOSTON (WWLP) &ndash; Beacon Hill lawmakers are taking steps to discourage young people from smoking.<br />
The state Senate is expected to take up legislation Thursday, raising the legal age to buy tobacco from eighteen to twenty-one in Massachusetts. Senate President Stan Rosenberg (D-Amherst) told 22News that if people are not allowed to drink alcohol at eighteen, they should not be able to smoke either.<br />
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Eighteen year olds can vote and enlist in the Miltary. They should be allowed to drink and smoke since we consider eighteen year olds &quot;Adults&quot;.<br type="_moz" />

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By Dr Farsalinos, E-cigarette Blog<br />
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The formaldehyde study scandal conducted by researchers from Portland university is progressing, with the authors unwilling to admit their methodological and presentation mistakes, while they continue their effort to misinform the public and consider our case for retraction as an attempt to help the industry or to get money from the industry. First of all, the only one who got money was the Portland University. They created a problem and they were awarded millions to &ldquo;solve&rdquo; it. Let me clarify in brief that the retraction was based on:<br />
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1. Assessing the risk of developing cancer from exposure to a chemical which they did NOT find in the study. All the analysis was based on formaldehyde exposure, while they only found formaldehyde hemiacetals. Formaldehyde hemiacetals are not classified as carcinogenic or toxic, thus their whole analysis is invalid.<br />
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2. They intentionally manipulated statistics by displaying in the same graph mean &plusmn; standard deviation values for formaldehyde in tobacco cigarettes and mean &plusmn; standard error of mean for formaldehyde hemiacetals in e-cigarettes. They intentionally did this in order to hide the huge variability in their measurements (standard error of mean is much lower than standard deviation).<br />
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3. They continue to create confusion and misinform the public by discussing about formaldehyde exposure, while (I repeat) they DID NOT find any formaldehyde.<br type="_moz" />

According to one of the researchers who published the study which has caused a lot of misinformation.<br />
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&quot;Peyton acknowledges that he found no formaldehyde when the e-cigarettes were set at low levels’. But he says <i><b>he thinks</b></i> plenty of people use the high settings. Thinking and proving it are two different things.<br />
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He heated propylene glycol, glycerol and nicotine, in a <b>nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy</b> at 5V before it registered any formaldehyde. One can the question the technique and methodology. This study has not been repeated by another set of researchers to confirm the results.<br />
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From Dick Puddlecoat’s blog.&nbsp; ASH Scotland receives 85% of their budget from the government. <br />
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Sheila Duffy, ASH Scotland, was in a philosophical mood in a recent article. &quot;Certainly there are informed adults who make a proactive choice to smoke and, so long as they cause no harm to others, that is their business&quot;.<br />
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Quite a statement from an anti.&nbsp; Read the entire article.<br type="_moz" />

From Medpage Today, good read highly recommended.<br />
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America is great on banning things that are recommeded by the health community, Prohibition was really sucessful – not!&nbsp; When will we learn?&nbsp; The obvious answer is NEVER!<br type="_moz" />

From the MOTHERBOARD. <br />
S.A. 3547 is an amendment to an amendment (isn&rsquo;t bureaucracy fun?) on the Federal Aviation Authority&rsquo;s reauthorization bill, which is currently being discussed by the US Senate. It includes a short provision that would ban vaping devices from being brought on board, even in carry-on luggage. Vaping devices were banned from being packed in checked luggage or charged onboard by the Department of Transportation last October, but this would extend the law to prevent vapers from flying with their gear at all.<br />
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Good grief, talk about getting hit from all sides! Write your <a href="http://www.senate.gov">Senator</a> today! It is time we bring jobs back home, there were never issues when lithium batteries when they were made in AMERICA!<br type="_moz" />

From Clive Bates blog, <b>The counterfactual. </b>A good explanation on what’s going on with FDA and e-cigarettes, a must read.<br type="_moz" />