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Electronic cigarettes imported from China have grown in the past many years and which has worried Fed regulators, in part, because so very little is understood about what’s in them. “Some products, which are sold as the same, have wildly variable amounts of nicotine in them,” Sharfstein says. “One of the products has a poison in it that’s diethylene glycol. And what that indicates is that we do not actually know much at all about the way these things are produced.”. Sharfstein claims e-cigarettes depend on FDA approval as a drug or medical device, very similar to nicotine patches, gum and inhalers and thus they are illegal till they’re cleared.

Initial tests by the FDA show that e-cigarettes battery-powered tubes that deliver a nicotine vapor rather than burned tobacco smoke contain some of the same deadly cancer-causing chemicals that traditional cigarettes do, but at lower levels. “Some products, which are promoted as the same, have wildly variable amounts of nicotine in them,” Sharfstein says. “One of the products has a poison in it that’s diethylene glycol. And what that indicates is that we don’t actually know much at all about the way these things are produced.”. Sharfstein says e-cigarettes depend on FDA approval as a drug or medical device, very similar to nicotine patches, gum and inhalers and therefore they’re illegal till they’re cleared. The govt. has blocked e-cigarettes at the border, but has stopped before closing down domestic outlets.

“It is a cigarette, and cigarettes inherent by their design and nature aren’t safe,” Linscott asserts.

But as the company engages in a legal battle with the govt, its own telemarketers may be presenting a different picture to customers, including promoting claims on the internet.

Linscott says that was a mistake which has been corrected. The general misunderstanding as to whether e-cigarettes are safe prompted Oregon to get 2 travel centers to stop selling them in that state. Anti-smoking advocates, like John Banzhaf with Action on Smoking and Health, are putting stress on the FDA to ban the products in the States “If nothing is done to stop these and other similar products from being thrown on the market without any testing, without any warranties, without declaration or testing of ingredients, it fundamentally opens the market to having smokers serve as guinea pigs,” Banzhaf says.

Anti-smoking advocates, like John Banzhaf with Action on Smoking and Health, are putting strain on the FDA to prohibit the products in the USA “If nothing gets done to stop these and other similar products from being thrown on the market without any testing, without any warranties, without discovery or testing of ingredients, it essentially opens the market to having smokers serve as guinea pigs,” Banzhaf says.

The FDA’s Sharfstein explains it is early to say e-cigarettes are much more safe until regulators know what’s in them.

Mirak writes articles that inform people about the working of electronic cigarettes and the benefits of electronic cigarettes

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