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Vaping & the R.I.C.O. Act

Ham-Strung  Margaret Hamburg, former Commissioner of the Federal Drug Administration – resigned – last year. Seems the e-cigarette battle at the FDA wasn’t all she was fighting or hiding from. One has to ask, What else was she protecting besides her husband’s business interests? It’s not often we hear of R.I.C.O. charges being brought in the U.S.A., and when they …

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Dr. Margaret Cuomo: Credibility. Hoax Alert!

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” ― George Orwell, 1984 It seems Dr. Cuomo would like to solidify her vast (Author of A World Without Cancer, contributor to WebMD, HuffingtonPost.com, etc.) knowledge of e-cigarettes and now assert it into the general public via the Huffington Post. Releasing a video, she claims e-cigarettes are (linked here if you must)”Just …

How We Know Vaping Opponents are Driven by Ideology and Not Science

I have presented many examples on this blog over the past months demonstrating the fact that vaping opponents are being driven by ideology rather than science. But there is one observation I made which is dispositive. In legal terminology, dispositive means “evidence that unqualifiedly brings a conclusion to a legal controversy.” This observation brings a conclusion to any controversy about …

New Study in Pediatrics Shows How Anti-Vaping Researchers are Trying to Fool the Public

A new study published online ahead of print in the journal Pediatrics purports to provide evidence that e-cigarettes are encouraging youth to smoke. According to the article, “youth who initiate use with e-cigarettes are more likely to start smoking conventional cigarettes.” An accompanying press release concluded that “E-cigarettes are encouraging – not discouraging – youth to smoke…”. (See: Dutra LM, Glantz …

Nurses Get Into the Act: Smoking is No Worse than Vaping! Don’t Commend Patients for Quitting Smoking Using E-Cigarettes

Apparently, irresponsible medical advice being given to smokers about quitting is not restricted to physicians. Nurses are getting in on the act and publicly making the most reckless medical recommendations to smokers. Two egregious examples highlight the incompetent and ill-considered information being disseminated to the public in the nursing literature.1. Smoking is No Worse than VapingAccording to an article in …

Tennessee Department of Health: E-Cigarettes Create the Threat of Date Rape, Cause Popcorn Lung, and are as Addictive as Heroin

According to a new warningissued by the Tennessee Department of Health (TDOH), use of electronic cigarettes puts youth at risk of date rape. Date rape is just one of numerous devastating consequences that the Tennessee Department of Health is linking to electronic cigarette use, including “popcorn lung” (i.e., bronchiolitis obliterans) and addiction to nicotine that is just as strong as …

Winner of the 2016 Lie of the Year Award

Today, I am pleased to announce the winner of the 2016 Lie of the Year Award. This award is given to the health agency or organization which has lied most egregiously to the public about smoking and/or vaping in 2016.The nominees were: the American Thoracic Society, the University of Louisville, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, the Arizona Department of Health …

New FDA Rule is Wrong on the Law: Smoking Cessation Claims are Not Inherently Therapeutic Claims Because Smoking is Not a Disease

On Monday, the FDA will issue a new rule whose intent is to clarify the conditions under which electronic cigarettes will be regulated as drugs instead of as tobacco products. Essentially, this amounts to a rule regarding what claims electronic cigarette companies are allowed to make (since few, if any, of these companies can afford the expenses associated with preparing …

First Longitudinal Study to Examine Progression from Vaping to Smoking among Young People Finds No Effect of Vaping

The first longitudinal study that examines progression from vaping to smoking among young people has been published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. The study followed college freshmen at Virginia Commonwealth University for one year to examine whether vaping at baseline was associated with the progression from never smoking to ever and/or current smoking at follow-up.(See: Spindle TR, et al. Electronic …