Thinking 'bout THR News and Views
January 31-Feb 6, 2025
Good Things Take Time
I woke up feeling impatient today. I struggle in the winter. I can’t tolerate the cold, and I get tired of being indoors constantly. In a few weeks, I can return to going for a walk each morning. Soon, it will be warm enough for me to take my laptop to my favorite park by the Mississippi River. I can do advocacy work there while enjoying fresh air, trees, birds, and watching the river peacefully floating by.
It is challenging to manage my depression during the dark and cold months. While many people celebrate the holiday season, I focus on surviving it. This time of year, I remember the painful anniversaries of loved ones who died from smoking. There are several of them in January and February! And it is three days away from the anniversary of the death of my son, Curtis, who was killed by a drunk driver in 1997.
I find myself “stuck.” I’m frustrated that the truth about tobacco harm reduction is not spreading fast enough. I also get frustrated because I’m not getting enough done on the projects I’m working on, and what I am getting done is happening at a snail’s pace. I must remind myself to practice what I preach, #BeKind, which includes being kinder to myself. We all should practice being kinder to ourselves.
So, I put on my favorite t-shirt and headed out to meet the challenges and rewards of another day. I hope your day finds you doing some of your favorite things and you experience more rewards than challenges.
(Note: This newsletter is extra long because I skipped doing one while I was ill. If you access this via email, you might have to click the “clipped message” link at the end to view all the news.)
Until next time…
PS: Does this sound familiar? “Has Our Goal For a Tobacco-Free World Changed To a Nicotine-Free World?” It should. I worried about that happening in a recent newsletter. If I ruled the world, I’d wave a magic wand, and all journal papers (including that one) would be open-access so laypeople like me could sit at the grownup table and join the conversation. We can’t discuss what we can’t read.
The researchers who see people, not just numbers.
Rachel Hoopsick, PhD, MS, MPH, MCHES. “Resistance in data!
Much of the public health community is now aware that on Friday afternoon, many of the CDC webpages were removed or altered, including public health surveillance datasets like the BRFSS and YRBSS. These data were collected with US tax dollars and are owed to the public.
After being tipped off that these pages would be scrubbed, an anonymous data hero archived all public CDC datasets as they were on January 28, 2025. This is our collective information — used to understand population health and make critical public health decisions. Data that is censored to bend to the political will of the current administration affects us all, but certainly harms people who are already marginalized the most.The Scientific Importance of Free Speech. “These are merely tools that help us to accomplish a far greater mission, which is to choose between rival narratives, in the vicious, no-holds-barred battle of ideas that we call “science”.”
Simon Maechling. Talks about working as a scientist in the private sector.
Jeffrey Weiss - “…Effectively, FDA has awarded a multi-million-dollar, multi-year grant to look at a simple issue - how to responsibly educate adults who smoke that if they cannot or will not quit all use of nicotine, they can reduce their health risk by switching to an FDA-authorized, non-combustible tobacco product….”
Vuyo Zungula MP - “The ATM has taken a major step toward introducing the Foreign Agents Bill to Parliament! The Draft Bill is now with Parliament’s legal department. This is a crucial move to expose foreign agents hiding behind NGOs while pushing external agendas.” (South Africa)
Nicotine & Tobacco Research Journal. “Nicotine & Tobacco Research, the journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, is seeking three experienced nicotine/tobacco researchers to join the editorial board of the journal as Associate Editors.”
Cheryl K Olson - “I come from an academic, public health background. People go into public health to save lives; they don’t want people to die from smoking.
But I’d argue that most people from public health and academia have serious unrecognized areas of ignorance that prevent them from recognizing vaping (or nicotine pouches) as a valuable public health tool.
For example:…”Jeffrey Weiss - “…This is the second time that the ITC has entered an order banning the importation of a product authorized by FDA as APPH…One element that is common to both cases was the failure of FDA to take any action to explain to the ITC the meaning of an APPH finding and its accompanying marketed granted order. FDA did nothing to help the ITC – which is supposed to consider the public policy implications of its decisions – understand that the products in question have the potential to benefit the health of the adult smoker who completely switches or significantly reduces cigarette consumption.”
"Contemporary Tobacco Control Issues: Ecigarettes, Tobacco Treatment, and Lung Cancer Screening" Speaker: Michael B. Steinberg, M.D., MPH, FACP. Medical Director, Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies; Interim Executive Vice Chair and Vice Chair for Clinical Research, Department of Medicine Professor and Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
Jonathan Foulds “Dr. Jonathan Foulds, professor of public health sciences and psychiatry and behavioral health, talks about researching the harmful components in tobacco products and the addiction produced by the products.”
Ep 10 - Smoking Kills, But So Does Misinformation, Dr. Yach Weighs In. “Dr. Yach examines the history of harm reduction, vaping’s role in public health, and South Africa’s flawed regulations. He discusses government misinformation, the illicit market, medical stigma, and the future of vaping as a safer alternative.”
FDA's RISKY LOW-NICOTINE PLAN | Featuring Will Godfrey of Filter. “Low nicotine cigarettes form the basis of the FDA's latest plan to reduce tobacco consumption, but will it actually work? Will Godfrey of Filter Magazine joins us to discuss the details of this proposal, and why this not-so-new idea may cause a significant headache for US smoking cessation efforts.”
UGN Settles Health Plan Tobacco Penalty Lawsuit for $299,000. “UGN Inc. signed a $299,000 class settlement in a lawsuit saying the automobile part maker wrongly charges tobacco-using workers an annual $1,152 penalty for health coverage without providing a valid way to avoid the fee…Bass Pro, Lippert Components struck similar settlements.”
Critical Appraisal of Exposure Studies on E-Cigarette Aerosols Generated by High-Powered Devices. “According to our experimental results, there is full certainty that all 14 studies exposed biological systems to aerosols generated under overheating and unrealistic conditions with high aldehyde loads that follow from machine puffing a high-powered device with inappropriate airflow.”
It continues to travel:
Putting on the brakes:
Update - Tweet(s) now displaying a community note:
Nawar Al Nasrallah, MD. “Hey NHS England how did you reach this conclusion: “Vaping is not completely risk-free, but it poses a small fraction of the risk of smoking cigarettes. The long-term risks of vaping are not yet clear”. Time to correct this small fraction claim?”
Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. “Just one vape can release more nicotine into the body than smoking a whole pack of cigarettes and can even cause sudden cardiac arrest.”
'My child didn't want me to die, so I quit smoking'. “Mr Shuttleworth and his wife have been non-smokers for the past seven years, which he said has made him "proud". He said the hardest part of the journey was breaking his usual habits around smoking. "When you're eating, you finish a meal and the first thing you do is reach for your cigarettes," he continued. "If you happen to go out and have a drink you always have a cigarette in one hand and a pint in the other hand. That's the hardest thing. "The nicotine side of it, that goes fairly easily, it's the habit side that's the hardest."
Global Harm Reduction Organizations Urge Recognition of Tobacco Harm Reduction. “Advocacy organisations in Africa, Latin America, and Asia Pacific - In a united effort, representing millions of adult consumers who use nicotine products that do not involve combustion, have sent a letter to the Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The correspondence addresses recent comments made in a recent report regarding the validity of Tobacco Harm Reduction and urges the United Nations to recognize its importance in promoting public health.”
Smoking may lead people to earn less. “The stigma surrounding smoking may also induce bias and discrimination against people who smoke…The researchers found that a one-unit increase in pack-years was associated with a 1.8% decrease in earnings. This suggests that reducing smoking by the equivalent of five pack-years could lead to a 9% earnings increase. Additionally, the investigators involved with this study found that a one-unit increase in pack-years led to a 0.5% decrease in years employed.”
How to Build on Sweden’s “Smoke-Free” Success? “Sweden has successfully reduced smoking rates by combining innovation, legislation and consumer empowerment,” Jesper Skalberg Karlsson told the audience.
Karlsson, a member of Sweden’s parliament, was speaking at an event held in London to celebrate Sweden’s dramatic lowering of its smoking rate, and to draw out lessons for the rest of the world.”
New pharmacy vape regulations ineffective in NSW. “Despite promises from Health Minister Mark Butler, a survey of 47 pharmacies revealed that none had low-nicotine vapes available for walk-in customers.”
Why Attack Tobacco-Harm Reduction? “So, what is causing this nascent nicotinophobia? For centuries, people have associated nicotine with smoking without realizing that smoking — not nicotine itself — is unhealthy. Maybe anti-smoking activists are simply biased against anything that, in any way, connects to that behavior.”
Luxembourg vows not to ban disposable vapes. “The Health Ministry acknowledged the need to reduce harm to the environment and prevent young people taking up vaping, but said it believes “a ban targeting disposable vapes [in Luxembourg] alone would be limited in its effectiveness.” Instead, it is calling for a “global approach” that includes regulations on all types of vapes as a “more coherent” way to address these issues.”
FDA’s Zyn Approval A Good Sign in Fight Against Smoking, Public Health Pros Say. “Michael Siegel at Tufts University School of Medicine thinks this is a positive sign and a definite change of approach by the FDA.
“In the spectrum of risk, this is probably at the lowest end,” Siegel said. “As you go from nicotine patches to electronic cigarettes to smokeless tobacco towards heated tobacco and then towards real cigarettes, you get a drastic increase in risk, and these are probably the safest because not only is there no tobacco, there is no combustion, but there’s not even heating like you have with a cigarette, so there isn’t much of a chance to get harmful chemicals into them.”
It’s Time to Approve Flavored Vapes. “The FDA’s hostility toward non-cigarette flavored vapes is a slap in the face to smokers. The only vapes that are legally accessible mimic the flavor of combustible e-cigarettes. Critics incorrectly believe that Crème Brûlée and peach-mango e-cigarettes are targeting children, but the flavors are crucial for getting adult smokers to quit.”
Trump: Look at the Slow-Moving FDA. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of a product known as Zyn is a leap forward for the cause of tobacco harm reduction, which encourages smokers to switch from dangerous combustible cigarettes to less dangerous products. However, the agency’s inexplicable delay in doing so raises serious questions about the FDA’s bureaucratic and unaccountable approval process”
Exclusive Commentary: The FDA Is Rethinking Nicotine, Montana Should Too. “But if you use tobacco-free nicotine products such as pouches or vapes, that same system still sees and bills you as a smoker. This is wrong, and our insurance market is long overdue for a rethink on nicotine.”
Scientists cite disease “epidemic” in launch of new “Center to End Corporate Harm”. “Citing an “industrial epidemic of disease,” a group of scientists have launched an organization aimed at tracking and preventing diseases tied to pollution and products pushed by influential companies.”
Trump, RFK Jr. and the case for revolutionizing tobacco regulation. “The newly inaugurated administration brings a crucial opportunity to combat chronic diseases, which claim hundreds of thousands of American lives annually, and one leading preventable cause of death – smoking – could be eradicated under the new administration. This could easily be achieved simply by following through with plans to reform the beleaguered U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make it easier for smokers to quit by making the switch to less harmful products.”
Blowback over new Kentucky vaping law prompts lawmaker to file a repeal. “Both Maddox and the store owner place the blame over the bill’s impact on well-funded lobbying by traditional tobacco companies and believe the argument it was meant to protect kids was disingenuous given that selling tobacco products to minors is already illegal.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposes new tax on vapes, nicotine pouches. “Anti-tobacco and nicotine product groups have long advocated for steeper taxes on nicotine products, citing studies that have shown they lower rates of use, and in turn, damages to public health by reducing cancer rates.”
South Carolina lawmakers float bill to regulate vapes. “The Attorney General would be responsible for maintaining a public directory that lists all approved products. If a product isn’t listed that means it can’t legally be sold in the state. Manufacturers would also have to pay a $2,000 registration fee per product and an annual renewal fee of $500.” (NOTE: Is this just for vapes? Do mfgs of combustible products have to register and pay these fees? ~Skip)
More news: (LOL! A hint at how behind I am on my reading list. Normally, I read this and pick out items of interest for my newsletters.)
ETHRA December & January news roundup. (European Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates)
NAQC January Newsletter. (North American Quitline Consortium)
Nicotine Science and Policy News Digest Feb 3, Feb 4, Feb 5.
ASTHO Public Health Weekly. (ASSOCIATION OF STATE AND TERRITORIAL HEALTH OFFICIALS)
Announcing the winners of Beyond the Buzz youth poster contest. “The intent of the poster contest was to spark meaningful conversations about youth tobacco, cannabis, vapour product and alcohol use, and their impacts on youths’ health, environment and their communities.”
Vaping Rates Falling Among Young Australians. “This data showed the largest proportion of ‘never-vapers’ since the Generation Vape study began in 2022, with 85 per cent of people aged 14 to 17 reporting they had never vaped. The proportion of young people who have never smoked is also at its highest rate at almost 94 per cent.”
Not researched for this edition
Notes:
I create these newsletters as a personal project. They are not affiliated with any current or past employers or groups I do volunteer work with. I receive no financial compensation for my efforts to create these newsletters.
My blog, Skip's Corner, has an X/Twitter account. My personal accounts are on BlueSky, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter).