Smokers who switch to e-cigarette vapes rapidly boost heart health: study

LONDON - Chronic smokers who switched from tobacco cigarettes to e-cigarette vapes in a large randomized control trial saw a significant improvement in markers of heart health after just a month, researchers said on Friday.

In study results likely to be closely scrutinized by health specialists worldwide, British scientists found that cigarette smokers who switched to nicotine-containing vapes saw a marked boost to their vascular function - a change that could lead to a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

“By switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes we found an average percentage point improvement of 1.5 within just one month,” Jacob George, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and therapeutics at Britain’s Dundee University, told a briefing about the study.

“And to put that into context, each percentage point improvement in vascular function results in a 13% reduction in cardiovascular event rates, such as heart attack.”

Jacob stressed, however, that the study looked specifically at vaping compared with tobacco smoking, which causes lung and other cancers and sharply increases the risk of deadly strokes, heart attacks and many other cardiovascular diseases.

“It is crucial to emphasize that e-cigarettes are not safe, just less harmful than tobacco cigarettes when it comes to vascular health,” George said. “They should not be seen as harmless devices for non-smokers or young people to try.”

The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, will fuel further international debate about the potential risks and benefits of e-cigarettes amid more than 2,000 cases of vaping-related lung illness and more than 40 deaths in the United States in recent months.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts say their investigations suggest the injuries are linked to vapes containing THC - the component of marijuana that gets people high - and Vitamin E acetate, which is believed to be used as a cutting agent in illicit THC vaping products.

British addiction and toxicology experts said last month that the American vaping illnesses were most likely “a U.S.-specific phenomenon,” and there was no evidence of a similar outbreak in Britain or elsewhere where the suspect products were not widely used.

For the Dundee-led switching trial, which took two years and was funded by the British Heart Foundation charity, researchers recruited 114 long-term cigarette smokers who had smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day for at least two years.

They were put into one of three groups for a month and had vascular testing before and after. One group stuck to tobacco cigarettes, the second switched to e-cigarettes with nicotine, and the third switched to e-cigarettes without nicotine.

The results showed that, whether or not the e-cigarettes contained nicotine, those who switched away from tobacco smoking found their endothelial function - a measure of how easily blood flows around the body - was significantly improved.

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Juul knowingly sold tainted nicotine pods, former executive says

A former top executive of Juul is alleging that the electronic cigarette giant sold at least 1 million contaminated mint-flavored nicotine pods — and refused to recall them when told about the problem in March.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday, Siddharth Breja, who was senior vice president for global finance, claims he was fired March 21 in retaliation for whistleblowing and objecting to the shipment of the contaminated and expired pods and other illegal and unsafe conduct that “has jeopardized and continues to jeopardize public health and safety and the lives of millions of consumers, many of them children and teens.”

Breja detailed a culture of indifference to safety and quality-control issues among top executives at the company and quoted the then-Chief Executive Kevin Burns saying at a meeting in February: “Half our customers are drunk and vaping” and wouldn’t “notice the quality of our pods.”

Burns, who left the company in September, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon strongly disputing the quote. “I never said this, or anything remotely close to this, period,” the statement said. “As CEO, I had the company make huge investments in product quality, and the facts will show this claim is absolutely false and pure fiction.”

The lawsuit was first reported by BuzzFeed News.

Ted Kwong, a Juul spokesman, dismissed Breja’s claims as baseless.

“He was terminated in March 2019 because he failed to demonstrate the leadership qualities needed in his role,” Kwong said. “The allegations concerning safety issues with Juul products are equally meritless, and we already investigated the underlying manufacturing issue and determined the product met all applicable specifications.”

This lawsuit is only the latest in a growing series of cases against Juul being filed around the country by school districts and individuals. Earlier this month a federal judicial panel gathered together the far-flung cases before Judge William H. Orrick in the Northern District of California in San Francisco, who will oversee them. The claims typically focus on personal injury for vaping-related illnesses or false marketing. The panel estimated that there are about 50 lawsuits so far.

Breja’s lawsuit did not specify what the contaminant in the nicotine pods was. The allegations detail that the shipment of tainted mint-flavored pods resulted from a series of decisions by Juul that created a huge demand for that flavor.

In November 2018, Juul, under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration, announced it would no longer sell its teen-friendly flavored pods in retail stores, making them available only online. But while Juul moved its dessert flavors off the shelves, it continues to sell menthol and mint in retail stores. Breja alleged that with popular flavors like mango and creme no longer readily accessible, customers began embracing menthol and mint with fervor, so much so that demand outstripped supply.

Breja said in the legal complaint that Burns, whom he characterized as behaving like an autocratic “king,” pressured suppliers to hurriedly come up with more mint-flavored product. Burns, he said, also exhorted employees, saying, “You need to have an IQ of 5 to know that when customers don’t find mango they buy mint.”

In March, Breja said he learned that batches of pods flavored with mint-flavored liquid and nicotine had been contaminated and that 250,000 “Mint Refill Kits,” the equivalent of 1 million pods, had been shipped and were being sold by retailers.

Juul did not recall the pods, Breja said, yet he was told to charge the supplier, Alternative Liquids Inc., $7 million so that Juul could recover from the contaminated batches. The supplier was not reachable for comment.

Breja said he urged Juul’s chief financial officer to issue either a recall or put out product safety warnings. A week later, the complaint says, Breja was fired.

Erika A. Kelton, a lawyer at Phillips and Cohen, a Washington-based firm that represents whistleblowers but is not representing Breja, said that although the allegations are cast as a wrongful termination case, they are likely to get the attention of regulators.

“These contamination allegations are headline-grabbing, and I’d expect both federal and state regulators will investigate because they are of such grave public concern,” she said.

Juul is already under investigation by numerous government offices, among them the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, five state attorneys general and several congressional committees.

They have ordered Juul to turn over reams of internal documents, and the FDA, among others, has complained that the records do not appear complete. Breja’s case may offer a clue to their frustration.

He also claims that after the FDA raided Juul headquarters in October 2018, seeking internal documents, Burns instructed Breja and other executives not to put anything relating to regulatory or safety issues in writing, so that the FDA could not get them in the future.

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New York state bans flavored e-cigarettes over vaping concerns

NEW YORK - New York became the second US state to ban flavored e-cigarettes Tuesday, following several vaping-linked deaths that have raised fears about a product long promoted as less harmful than smoking.

A health council passed emergency legislation proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo outlawing flavored vaping products amid an outbreak of severe pulmonary disease that has killed seven people and sickened hundreds.

The ban comes into force with immediate effect. Michigan became the first state to declare a ban earlier this month, but that law has yet to be implemented.

"It is undeniable that vaping companies are deliberately using flavors like bubblegum, Captain Crunch and cotton candy to get young people hooked on e-cigarettes -- it's a public health crisis and it ends today," said Cuomo.

President Donald Trump's administration announced last week that it would soon ban flavored e-cigarette products to stem a rising tide of youth users.

The move could later be extended to an outright prohibition of vaping if adolescents migrate to tobacco flavors, seen as more legitimate products that help smokers quit their habit, said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates e-cigarettes.

"New York is not waiting for the federal government to act, and by banning flavored e-cigarettes we are safeguarding the public health and helping prevent countless young people from forming costly, unhealthy and potentially deadly life-long habits," Cuomo added.

POPULAR WITH ADOLESCENTS

Shops in New York now have two weeks to remove vaping products from their shelves. The ban does not prohibit menthol or tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes have been available in the US since 2006 and are sometimes used as an aid to quit smoking traditional tobacco products like cigarettes.

Their use among adolescents has skyrocketed in recent years: some 3.6 million middle and high school students used vaping products in 2018, an increase of 1.5 million on the year before.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently that there were now more than 450 possible cases of pulmonary illness associated with vaping in the US.

The CDC has cautioned against vaping as officials investigate the precise cause of the deaths. No single substance has been found to be present in all the laboratory samples being examined.

New York's health department found very high levels of vitamin E oil in cannabis cartridges used by dozens of people in the state who had fallen ill after using e-cigarettes.

Vitamin E is a commonly used nutritional supplement but is dangerous when inhaled.

San Francisco, the home of market leader Juul Labs, became the first American city to ban e-cigarettes in June last year.

The FDA has warned Juul to stop advertising itself as a less harmful alternative to smoking, noting in particular the company's attempts to attract young people.

pdh/bgs

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Patient dies in US from lung disease after vaping

WASHINGTON, United States—A patient who had recently been vaping has died in hospital in the Midwestern US state of Illinois after developing severe respiratory illness, the local health authority said Friday.

The adult, whose age and gender have not been released, was one of 153 people across 16 states sickened by the illness since the end of June, according to figures released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The cause has not been determined but all had recently used e-cigarettes, medics said.

"The severity of illness people are experiencing is alarming and we must get the word out that using e-cigarettes and vaping can be dangerous," said Illinois health department director Dr. Ngozi Ezike.

"We requested a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help us investigate these cases and they arrived in Illinois on Tuesday."

Many of the patients had recently vaped cannabis, the CDC said, though no specific product has even been identified, let alone blamed, for the illness, in any of the cases.

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San Francisco bans sales, manufacture of e-cigarettes

LOS ANGELES - San Francisco on Tuesday became the first major US city to effectively ban the sale and manufacture of electronic cigarettes, as concerns grow over a sharp rise in vaping among youths.

The city's legislature unanimously approved an ordinance suspending the sale in shops or online of e-cigarette products that lack approval by federal health authorities. No such approvals currently exist.

Backers said the ban was necessary due to the "significant public health consequences" of a "dramatic surge" in e-cigarette use among teenagers.

But the move triggered a swift backlash from critics who say it could drive former smokers back to conventional cigarettes.

US health authorities are alarmed by the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices that enable users to inhale addictive nicotine liquids that are often fruit flavored.

The potential health consequences of vaping, including fears it could stunt adolescent development, remain largely unknown, in part because the practice is so new.

The number of young Americans using e-cigarettes grew by 1.5 million in 2018, with about 3.6 million middle and high school students using vaping products.

San Francisco is home to market-leading e-cigarette maker Juul.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who co-sponsored the ban, said it closed a loophole that the federal U.S. Food and Drug Administration should have tackled long ago.

"E-cigarettes are a product that, by law, are not allowed on the market without FDA review," he said in a statement after the second and final vote to implement the ban.

"For some reason, the FDA has so far refused to follow the law. If the federal government is not going to act, San Francisco will."

'DEADLY CIGARETTES'

The city's mayor London Breed has 10 days to sign the legislation -- which she has said she will do -- with the ban due to take effect seven months later.

"We need to take action to protect the health of San Francisco's youth and prevent the next generation of San Franciscans from becoming addicted to these products," Breed said in a statement Tuesday ahead of the vote.

She added that e-cigarette companies were "targeting our kids in their advertising and getting them hooked on addictive nicotine products."

But critics say the legislation will make it harder for people seeking alternatives to regular cigarettes.

E-cigarettes do not contain the cancer-causing products found in tobacco.

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times noted that regular cigarettes were still for sale in San Francisco, arguing that "it's bad public health policy to come down harder on the lesser of two tobacco evils."

Juul said in a statement following the vote that the ban would "drive former adult smokers who successfully switched to vapor products back to deadly cigarettes, deny the opportunity to switch for current adult smokers, and create a thriving black market."

The manufacturer called instead for stricter regulation and enforcement including proof-of-age identification.

'INCREASE RISK'

Traditional "Big Tobacco" companies have increasingly marketed "smoke-free" products like e-cigarettes as far less harmful alternatives to the deadly habit they have long been peddling.

But experts point out that it took decades to determine that smoking tobacco -- which accounts for more than seven million premature deaths worldwide every year -- is truly dangerous.

The San Francisco ordinance text said that nicotine exposure during adolescence "can harm the developing brain" and "can also increase risk for future addiction to other drugs."

It would introduce fines of up $1,000 for each violation by vendors.

Unlike an e-cigarette ban in force in Singapore, the San Francisco legislation does not restrict the use of vaping products -- only sales, manufacturing and distribution.

Recreational cannabis use has been legal for adults in California since January last year.

amz-ban/ft

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E-cigarette use linked to heart trouble: study

People who use e-cigarettes are more likely to have heart problems than those who don't, says a study released on Thursday in the US.

The rate of heart attacks among those who vape was 34 percent higher than among those who don't, once corrections were made for risk factors such as age, gender, body mass index, cholesterol level, blood pressure and tobacco use.

E-cigarette users were 25 percent more likely to have coronary artery disease and 55 percent more likely to suffer from depression or anxiety, the study says.

"Until now, little has been known about cardiovascular events relative to e-cigarette use," said Mohinder Vindhyal, assistant professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and the study's lead author.

"These data are a real wake-up call and should prompt more action and awareness about the dangers of e-cigarettes."

The report does not however identify a cause and effect relationship for this observation.

Studies of people who vape are relatively new because the devices only came onto the US market in the last decade or so.

US health authorities are alarmed by the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices which enable users to inhale nicotine liquids that are often fruit flavored.

Among US teens, use of vaping devices rose 78 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year.

E-cigarettes do not contain the cancer-causing products found in tobacco.

But beside the well-known addictive consequences of consuming nicotine, public health experts are focusing on the effect of heating the liquid nicotine cartridges to high temperatures.

For the study, which will be presented next week at the American College of Cardiology, researchers examined the responses of nearly 100,000 people in 2014, 2016 and 2017.

This kind of study is a preliminary one that does not go so far as to say vaping causes heart trouble, or suggest a biological mechanism as to how this might happen.

Longer-term studies of people who vape are needed to reach any such conclusion.

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US orders restriction on e-cigarette sales; youth use surges

TAMPA - US regulators Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on sales of e-cigarettes, as national data showed a 78 percent single-year surge in vaping among young people, with two-thirds using fruit and candy-flavored products.

The proposed regulations announced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would allow flavored e-cigarettes products to be sold in stores only, not online, and would also ban menthol in cigarettes and flavored cigars.

The changes are open to a public comment period lasting until June before they can take effect.

"These data shock my conscience," said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, referring to the latest data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

"From 2017 to 2018, there was a 78 percent increase in current e-cigarette use among high school students and a 48 percent increase among middle school students," he said.

A total of 3.6 million US youths reported vaping at least once in the past month, the data showed.

"These increases must stop. And the bottom line is this: I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes," said Gottlieb. 

The battery-powered devices heat a nicotine liquid that users inhale, and are gaining popularity in the United States and abroad, particularly among young people, which Gottlieb has previously described as an "epidemic."

The proposed rules aim to restrict sales of all flavored vaping cartridges -- other than tobacco, mint and menthol -- to sales at "age-restricted, in-person locations and, if sold online, under heightened practices for age verification," said an FDA statement.

The reason mint- and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes are not included is they are more popular with adults who may be using them to decrease or stop their use of traditional cigarettes.

"This reflects a careful balancing of public health considerations," Gottlieb said, citing data that shows mint- and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products "are more popular with adults than with kids."

At the same time, the FDA announced a proposal to ban menthol in combustible cigarettes and cigars.

"I'm deeply concerned about the availability of menthol-flavored cigarettes," Gottlieb said.

"I believe these menthol-flavored products represent one of the most common and pernicious routes by which kids initiate on combustible cigarettes," he said, adding that "menthol products disproportionately and adversely affect underserved communities."

STOCKS SLIDE

Health experts applauded the FDA move.

"The banning of flavors, popular among teens, would definitely be an important step in curbing the growing epidemic of e-cigarettes among youth," said Patricia Folan, director of the Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health, a network of hospitals in New York.

Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said "it is widely recognized that e-cigarettes are the gateway to smoking tobacco cigarettes for teens and young adults."

E-cigarettes expose users to significantly lower levels of potentially toxic substances than traditional cigarettes, except for nicotine, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said earlier this year.

But Horovitz cautioned "there is a question of safety in e-cigarettes because of the presence of propylene glycol, and other as yet unidentified compounds."

Some e-cigarette makers have already taken steps to curb sales to young people, including JUUL, a fast-growing startup which announced Tuesday it is suspending in-store sales of various flavored products and scrapping its social media presence.

JUUL flavors such as mango, fruit, and creme will now only be available on the company's website, "where we are adding additional age-verification measures," a statement said. 

For its part, American tobacco giant Altria, maker of major brands like Marlboro and Chesterfield, said earlier this month it would stop selling 2 types of e-cigarettes that use "pods" of flavored nicotine liquid for refills.

Altria will maintain the sale of its other e-cigarettes -- which resemble conventional cigarettes and which come in traditional flavors like tobacco and menthol.

On Wall Street, tobacco stocks slid on the news, continuing a decline that began last week as media reports warned of the impending regulations.

Altria fell 1.86 percent at 1:45 (1845 GMT) while British American Tobacco (Dunhill, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall) lost 3 percent and Philip Morris International fell 0.26 percent.

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Air China incident linked to co-pilot smoking e-cigarette - state media

SHANGHAI - An emergency descent by an Air China aircraft after oxygen levels dropped in the cabin has been linked to a co-pilot who was smoking an e-cigarette during the flight, state media said on Friday, citing China's aviation regulator.

"In the preliminary investigation, the co-pilot was found to be smoking an e-cigarette," state-owned China News said in a report, citing a news conference by the Civil Aviation Administration of China investigating Tuesday's incident.

"Smoke diffused into the passenger cabin and relevant air conditioning components were wrongly shut off, without notifying the captain, which resulted in insufficient oxygen," it added.

The Air China Boeing 737 aircraft was flying to the Chinese city of Dalian from Hong Kong, when it made an emergency descent to 10,000 feet (3,048 m), during which oxygen masks were deployed, before climbing again to continue on to its destination. 

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Exploding e-cigarette killed Florida man, coroner says

MIAMI, United States - An exploding e-cigarette killed a Florida man found dead in his burning apartment, an autopsy has found.

In what is believed to be the first death from a vaping pen explosion in the United States, 38-year-old Tallmadge D'Elia died when two pieces of the e-cigarette lodged themselves in his cranium, the Pinellas County medical examiner said.

D'Elia was discovered when firefighters broke into the burning apartment in St Petersburg, Florida, on May 5. The fire was found to have been caused by the exploding device, and resulted in 80 percent burns to his body.

The lethal vaping device was identified as a Smok-E Mountain brand, which is manufactured in the Philippines, according to the local Tampa Bay Times newspaper.

It said the device was known as a "mechanical mod" e-cigarette, which lacks some of the safety features that other makes have, including computer chips to prevent them from overheating.

"A regulated device typically contains electronic circuitry, built-in safety features, and adjustable power settings," Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, told AFP.

"In contrast, a mechanical mod is unregulated and works simply by drawing the power of a battery to an atomizer," he said.

"If the battery in a mechanical mod over-discharges and the device doesn't contain enough air holes to allow the battery to vent, there is a risk of explosion."

The coroner's report did not specify what made the vape pen explode.

The Smok-E Mountain brand's Facebook page had been taken down on Thursday.

According to FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, there were 195 fires and explosions involving electronic cigarettes between 2009 and 2016 in the United States.

None of them was fatal, although a fire safety officer who studied the cases told the Tampa Bay Times they could result in "horrific injuries" to the face, and to the thigh and groin area if they exploded in users' pockets.

The Food and Drug Administration warns that the devices can explode and cause severe injuries, noting that while the exact causes of such incidents remains unsolved, they appear to be mostly linked to lithium-ion batteries, which are also used in cell phones.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that "e-cigarettes have the potential to benefit adult smokers who are not pregnant if used as a complete substitute for regular cigarettes and other smoked tobacco products."

However, a study carried out on mice, and reported in the National Academy of Sciences' publication PNAS in January, showed that vaping can increase the risk of certain types of cancer and heart disease.

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Daniel Padilla explains vaping photo

MANILA – Young star Daniel Padilla has broken his silence after a photo of him smoking an e-cigarette made the rounds online.

In an interview with ABS-CBN News and other reporters over the weekend, Padilla stressed that he does not smoke cigarettes.

“Hindi yosi ‘yun. Hindi rin ‘yun droga. Vapor po ‘yun. Hindi naman ako nag-yosi, talagang vape lang. Hindi ko naman lahat sinasabi mag-vape na pero siguro tayo namang tao, may mga sariling buhay din naman tayo. May mga sarili tayong gusto,” he said.

Padilla’s photo was met with mixed reactions from his fans. While some still support the actor, others felt that he sets a bad example to his young fans.




The actor, however, emphasized that he does not have other vices except for two. “Magpuyat at basketball, ‘yun lang,” he said.

As a celebrity, Padilla admitted that it is difficult when people watch his every move.

“Mahirap kasi parang ‘yun nga, nakita akong nagve-vape, mali kaagad. Mahirap. Pero kung ayaw niyo na sa akin, ayaw niyo na,” he said.

source:  www.abs-cbnnews.com