The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has just unveiled a new website, BeTobaccoFree.Gov, and as usual those in charge have chosen to keep on demonizing reduced risk tobacco products such as smokeless, and electronic cigarettes. E-Cigarettes may contain ingredients that are known to be toxic to humans. Because clinical studies about the safety of e-cigarettes have not been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), you have no way of knowing ¦ if they are safe [or] which chemicals they contain, the website says.
That completely misrepresents the reality. The FDA analyzed contents of some e-cigarette vapor in 2009, and found trace amounts of so-called carcinogens, but at levels lower than found in, for example, nicotine replacement patches and gum. So that concern is pure bogus. E-cigarettes are safe by anyone s definition, and even using hyper-precaution, they are far safer than cigarettes.
E-cigarette users, or vapers, are voting with their feet by the millions.
We find this to be totally unacceptable, to have the government take this outrageous position, ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan says. We see the e-cigarette as being the wave of the future.
