health canada to rescue big pharma from e-cig

Health Canada has just jumped in (with both feet) on the e-cig controversy, advising Canadians against purchase or use of the product. According to Health Canada, “these products may pose health risks and have not been fully evaluated for safety, quality and efficacy by Health Canada”. (I wonder if Champix was “fully evaluated for safety, quality and efficacy”)

But, while Health Canada goes on at great length about the possible hazards of nicotine addiction in their press release, they note that pharmaceutical nicotine is sanctioned for sale here in the Great White North. Says the press release: “While no electronic smoking product has yet been authorized for sale in Canada, Health Canada has authorized the sale of a number of smoking cessation aids, including nicotine gum, nicotine patches, nicotine inhaler, and nicotine lozenges”.

Health Canada’s endorsement of alternate nicotine delivery systems sold by the drug industry, while discouraging use of the e-cig, appears to be a direct attempt to influence the market place and deprive smokers of a satisfactory alternative to smoking. Their energetic promotion of pharmaceutical nicotine is problematic and should be of concern to all Canadians.

And, the timing of the news release, less than a week before the launch of a major television advertising campaign for the Nicorette Inhaler in Canada, should have Canadians concerned about the role of Health Canada as a marketing agent for the big drug companies.

The e-cig has been on the market for several years, yet Health Canada chose to raise no safety concerns until the e-cig started making news in the mainstream media. Celebrities using the e-cig, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, have been cropping up in the news and have threatened to increase the popularity of the new nicotine delivery device.

Health Canada has a legitimate role to play in the health and safety of Canadians. Unfortunately, their latest press release looks more like a campaign to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. And, I’ve noted several times on these pages the propensity of the anti-smoker cult (The Canadian Cancer Society, Physicians for a Smokefree Canada, etc.) to promote pharmaceutical nicotine.

The safety issue provides a handy smokescreen for anti-smoker efforts to promote the profits of their puppet masters in the drug industry.

Murray Laugesen, a former medical officer in New Zealand, tested the first electronic cigarette in 2004. The result was a paper by Laugesen, along with others at Health New Zealand, entitled: “How safe is an e-cigarette? The results of independent chemical and microbiological analysis”.

According to Laugesen, who is also an anti-smoking activist with ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) New Zealand: “no cause of serious concern has been found." This doesn’t mean the e-cig is completely safe, or that further study is unnecessary. But, Health Canada has had ample time to evaluate this product for “safety, quality and efficacy”.

Not surprisingly. most members of the anti-smoker cult have been critical of the e-cig. Unlike the patch or the inhaler, the e-cig looks like a cigarette and provides the user with most of the trappings of the real thing. There’s even simulated smoke.

And that, apparently, is what has the anti-smoker cult in an uproar. It looks like people are smoking and that is simply unacceptable to the cultists. And, there’s also the fact that the e-cig is not geared specifically to smoking cessation. It is meant to be used as a safer substitute for smoking tobacco, although it can be used as an aid for smoking cessation.

According to Pfizer, the drug company which makes the competing Nicorette Inhaler, mimicking the hand to mouth ritual involved in smoking reinforces smoking cessation. At the launch of the inhaler in 2004, they claimed: “the Nicorette Inhaler is the only smoking cessation product to wean smokers from both the primary reinforcement (nicotine) and the secondary reinforcement (hand-to-mouth).

In a survey, 41 per cent of smokers said that one of the reasons their last quit attempt failed was because they missed the hand-to-mouth gratification they've come to depend on after years of smoking”.

Hmmm . . . 41% of smokers? Or 41% of smokers who tried to quit and who were surveyed (not all smokers actually do want to quit, contrary to myths created by the anti-smoker crowd).

But many might consider reducing tobacco consumption through use of the e-cig, if they’re given the opportunity. Unfortunately, it looks like the anti-smoker brigade will be using every means available to prevent that from happening.

Champix, on the other hand . . .