Doctor Tells Sen. Lautenburg: Cancel Your Opposition to the Electronic Cigarette

In a fax dated March 27, the Chair of the Tobacco Control Group for the American Association of Public Health Physicians, Dr Joel L. Nitzkin, stated that he "vigorously" opposed Senator Lautenburg's proposal that the Electronic Cigarette be withdrawn from sale.

In the letter to the Senator, the doctor agreed that there needed to be stricter controls over both the manufacture of electronic cigarettes and the claims made by e-cigarette retailers.

However, he also stated that, given the low smoking cessation rates amongst habitual smokers both with and without smoking cessation aids, alternatives to smoking should not be banned.

Available evidence, the doctor argued, appears to indicate that alternatives to smoking, including the electronic cigarette, are far safer than smoking cigarettes.

"Alternative nicotine delivery devices, including, but not limited to electronic cigarettes, have no products of combustion and none of the toxins in cigarette tobacco... As best we can tell, on the basis of currently available research data, these products promise a risk of illness and death well under 1% of the risk posed by cigarettes."

Senator Lautenburg, who received over $126,000 in campaign funding from pharmecutical companies, recently wrote a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting that the electronic cigarette be taken off the market until proven safe.