tv Inside Story Al Jazeera September 23, 2013 5:00pm-5:31pm EDT
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here are headlines. al jazeera has confirmed all hostages have been released in nairobi. the release is two days after gunmen seized a mall killing dozens. earlier today we heard the gun battle between police and the attackers firsthand. soy and her crew are okay. kenya's interior ministry said gunmen from al shabab set mattresses on fire. they're sure all the hostages and we've confirmed that now have been freed from that mall. over 130 leaders are meeting for the 68th u.n. general assembly.
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syria's civil war is expected to be the biggest topic of discussion. over 2,000 square miles of colorado was damaged by the flooding. today vice president joe biden went to see the damage firsthand and praised fema for helping residents. >> you walk in here, and it's one-stop shopping. you have a group of people inside, and in the other centers around this state looking to find an answer for you. >> inside story is next. electronic cigarettes do not have the smoke or tar and it's not regulated. this is "inside story" on
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al jazeera america. hello. i'm libby casey. they're the hottest thing in neck teen, e-cigarettes. you may have seen them on store shelves and online ads or people puffing them where regular cigarettes aren't allowed. documents are vaping maybe to kick the habit and kids are vaping, too. is it harmful, a path to addiction? it's so new, nobody knows. one thing is for sure. it's big business and it's hip. >> i've never heard of this. >> katherine heigl opens dart letterman's eyes to a growing trend, the electronic cigarettes.
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>> you're awfully good with that. >> e sgra-cigarettes come in a variety of styles. others have flavors like mint or coffee or pineapple. marketed as socially acceptable alternatives to cigarettes since there's no tar or smoke to share secondhand. >> with blue e-cigs there's no tobacco smoke, only vapor. >> electronic cigarettes are getting a heavy celebrity push from stars sush as jenny mccarthy selling the blue brand. >> when i switched to blu not only did i feel better about myself, i fet the freedom to have a cigarette without the guilt. >> it's the absence of smoke and odor that make e-cigarette smoking called vaping so attractive. they say it's not healthier than smoking but a tobacco alternative or a smoking cessation products. still, health officials are concerned. dr. freeden is the head of the
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centers for disease control. >> anything that increases tobacco use is a big problem. right now there are several things very concerning. one of them is the rapid increase of kids use e-cigarettes. >> use has been skyrocketing. this year alone sales are expected to reach $1 billion. still well blov the $80 billion figure for conventional cigarettes. you can find them in convenience stores across the country, and only 20 states prohibit sales to minors. each of the big three u.s. tobacco companies are working on their own electronic products. here's how it works. shaped like a cigarette and about the same size, an internl rechargeable battery powers a heating unit that warms a nicotine liquid and vaporrizer. to some the draw of e-cigarettes is the freedom is gives to puff away. >> it was the ease of it. it was the fact you could do it inside. it was the fact that it wasn't as, like, chemically and odory
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as cigarettes. >> peter callahan is a radio producer and gets stuck in the studio for hours on end without a smoke break. an e-cigarette helps ease his cravings. >> i get the e-cigarettes mostly because i couldn't leave my desk at work for a long period of time. i was like, this is convenient and nice. >> some say too nice. >> the kind of flavors that are on the market i think are indefensible. this is clearly, clearly something that's being done to get kids hooked. >> in a survey released by the cdc 1 in 10 or 1.8 million middle or high school students have tried e-cigarettes, a number that doubled in just a year. the cdc says three-quarters of those students have also smoked a regular cigarette causing the agency to believe one leads to the other. some smokers hope e-cigarettes will help them quit tobacco, but both types of cigarettes share a key addictive ingredient. >> it could be a way to cut down, but it's still nicotine
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and close enough to cigarettes i don't think it made me want to stop smoking. >> for now e-cigs are a largely unregulated product. the food and drug administration is preparing to take action to regulate new tobacco products including e-cigarettes. the fda told "inside story" that first research is needed to assess the potential public health benefits and risks of electronic cigarettes and other novel tobacco products. in the meantime, consumers will continue to smoke 'em if they've got 'em. >> is there a chance to become addicted to the device? >> oh, yeah, i'm totally addicted to the device. [ laughter ] joining us to you talk about electric neck cigarettes is thomas hicklus the ceo, stanton glantz from the university of california san francisco. and danny mcgoldrick, the vice president for research at the
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campaign for tobacco free kids. let's start with you, tom. we asked manufacturers to come on our show, and they told us to try your group. you're an industry lobbyist and an owner of an e-cigarette company. take the broad view for us. who is using e-cigarettes and what's the market? >> well, the market for electronic cigarettes has vastly increased, as you stated in the opening. really the use of the e-cigs themselves are folks that are 35 and over, have tried other nicotine replacement therapies, didn't find success with those at all. have tried the technology in the early days, wasn't that proficient as technologies do advance. currently you have a technology that is very reliable or fairly reliable, and people are finding comfort in transitioning away from the one product we know, tobacco cigarettes that kills 450,000 people a year. so our clientele tends to be at
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this point in time those that are a little bit older and using the technology as a transitionary product away from tobacco cigarettes. >> do you think it's safe? >> we've never made the claim that the product is safe. we make the statement that it is logical and less harmful. in my office i have two posters. one of the posters has happy ingredients that are in a tobacco cigarette and it takes up the entire sheet. the same poster shows all the ingredients in the electric cigarette and it's five ingreet yents with 99% of the poster blank. whether you look at what the product is, it's five ingredients approved by the epa, fda, and have been in the u.s. households for ren ja generatio. it's a simple technology, but it has engendered a lot of conversation and a lot of misinformation. >> what are the five
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ingredients. >> proef lien glie cole, nicotine, water, flavors and glyc glycol. you say those constituents approved by the epa for inhalation use. you have different levels of neck nicotine. it's heated to a water vapor and you inhale it. the exhaling is a water vapor as well. you take the ingredients and i could put 50 people in the room using the electronic cigarette and you really won't smell anything. >> i want to hear from dr dr. glantz. tell us about the ingredients. what are your concerns about them? >> there have been a few studies now that have measured what's actually in the vapor produced by e-cigarettes, and in addition to the ingredients you heard they're more there's formaldehyde and tobacco-spifk carcinogens and heavy metals
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including lead, cad yum and nickel. so to say that there -- it's true they are delivering much lower levels of toxic chemicals than a conventional cigarette, but a conventional cigarette is the most dangerous consumer product ever invented. so, yes, they're less dangerous than a conventional cigarette, but they're still delivering a wide range of substances that are toxic. in fact, ten of the chemicals that have been measured in e-cigarette vapor are actually on what's here in california called proposition 65 list of known carcinogens and reproductive toxins that require consumer warnings. in addition, the claim that e-cigarettes don't pollute the area around the user are not true. i've been around them. you can see the vapor, the smoke. you can smell it. exhaled water vapor is colorless and odorless. formaldehyde, heavy metals,
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volatile organic compounds are measured in the exhaled e-cigarette vapors. the first thing we need to do is not allow them to be used in indoors any place you can't smoke cigarettes. they're not as polluting as a cigarette, but again, a cigarette is ridiculously polluting. i see no reason to -- i see no reason to increase indoor air pollution at all. >> we'll get tom's response when we come back and get danny involved in the conversation. stay with us as we continue our talk about e-cigarettes.
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welcome back to "inside story." we're continuing our look at electronic cigarettes. still with us is tom kiklis, the cfo of the tobacco vapor electronic association and dr. glantz and danny mcgoldrick the vice president for research for the campaign for tobacco-free kids. you were talking about health concerns. have there been studies? >> well, there's only been one study so far of the direct health effects of e-cigarettes. and that shows that they irritate the lungs. the problem is in order to really assess the health effects of this products, it will take five or ten years of watching people using them and see what kind of diseases they develop. the real issue, though, is what's called dual-use. 50% to 90% of the people who use
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these cigarettes continue to smoke conventional cigarettes at the same time. as long as you're smoking any conventional cigarettes, you're pretty much suffering the full heart disease risks associated with smoking. they're just cutting down the number of cigarettes you're smoking doesn't confirm any mortality benefit at all. >> we'll take it back up. let's get tom back in here. the doctor brought up some concerns about other chemicals, other things you really don't want in your body that are in these e-cigarettes after you said there are only five ingredients. >> well, again, this goes back at best it's disingenuous, the statements. the genesis is in 2009 when the fda put out a press release saying they found toxins and an ingredients used in antifreeze.
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they didn't report the levels. with any toxin it's not the fact you find it. it's at what levels, and they were found at trace levels. as a comparative a single tobacco cigarette has 11,190 tobacco specific nitrosamine nin it. you have 9 in electronic cigarettes. it's a trace amounts do you want people to stay on tobacco cigarettes and not transition away to this technology. when i hear those arguments, it's disheartening. >> we heard over 35-year-olds are the target audience for this. you're with the campaign for tobacco-free kids. what's krur response? >> our concern is e-cigarettes are marketed just like traditional tobacco products were marked for 50 or 60 years using the same tactics and themes, and those have a clear
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appeal to kids. we haven't seen cigarette advertising on television over 40 years. we seal it reglamourizing smoking for the young people. the flavors, cherry, vanilla and chocolate, the in-store displays and the sports sponsorships. you saw the celebrity, so the themes of sex, glaum glamour and rebellion. they show a doubling in the use of e-cigarettes by high school and middle school students is not surprising but extremely disturbing. >> the study that we saw made a link between how many kids have tried e-cigarettes versus traditional cigarettes. is there any proof one leads to another? >> it's hard to tell what order it happened. the fda will begin to tease that out. the doctor started to raise that question. what's the issue here, we need to figure out the health effects of these. no one knows them. that's for certain. we need more research on the health effects, but it goes way beyond that.
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even if the products are less harmful but fe serve to keep smokers smoking like the gentleman that said he used them to get his nicotine when he couldn't smoke a cigarette. if they prolong his smoking cigarette and lure former smokers by trying nicotine and getting that buzz again and going back to smoking, and in particular if they lure another generation of kids into cigarettes, even if they're less harmful, the over all exact could be dramatically bad for public health. >> will they macon sessions as far as advertising and keeping the product away from kids? >> the principals adjudicated this with the fda in 2009. in december 10, 2010, the courts determined that the e-cig is actually a tobacco product. our association is adamant that the e-cig as a tobacco product be regulated as a tobacco
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product and prohibit sales and marketing to kids. our position is on television, radio and sporting events that it not be advertised as we are a tobacco product and there should be not be advertising at sports events. >> we'll get into the regulation later in the show. what about fill sof if i c fillf i canally? are kids drawn to flavors like vanilla and chocolate? >> kids are drawn to a lot of things. kids try other drugs and alcohol. this study did not draw a link between kids experimenting and then kids actually using. so, again, the purpose of the study, i really don't know. you would think there's a correlation. yes, there's 10% of kids using e significants and 6.4% are hard-core users of conventional cigarettes. what the cdc is trying to disseminate is not clear at all. >> you talked about the research
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having to wait until longer-term effects are known. what are the questions you're raising right now? >> well, i think while the research that's available now is very limited, there is enough information, i think, to warrant prudent action. first of all, as i said, we know that they pollute the air. now, as tom said, they don't pollute the air as much as a cigarette, but a cigarette pollutes the air as much as a forest fire pollutes the outdoor air. they shouldn't be used indoors. there should be a ban on flavored cigarettes, chocolate, licorice, things that obviously appeal to kids. i think that the claims that e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking should be prohibited until such time as there's good scientific evidence that it's true. there are two population level studies that have been done looking at how the use of e-cigarettes among adult smokers affects quitting. one of them showed that e-cigarette users didn't quit
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any differently than anybody else, and the other one, which was a survey of people calling quit lines here in the united states, showed that people using e-cigarettes were actually less likely to quick. so a lot of the claims that are made in marketing these products, even though the data is limited, we know are false. we know that the claim that e-cigarettes are good for quitting isn't yet demonstrated. >> tom didn't say it was used for quitting. you used it like a transitionary product and that it sort of moves you to -- >> yeah. on our website we have a compliance section, and in that compliance section we have a list of recommended compliance issues for marketing sales. >> i want to put it into realspeak instead of marketing and compliance. calling it transitionary, does that imply that it does? >> to me -- >> go ahead, doctor. >> well, no, to me that's a
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distinction without a difference. in fact, wea've looked carefull and systemically at these e-cigarette websites and there's no question that some of them are saying they're good for quitting. others are strongly implying it by the use of doctors to endorse the product and things like that. because of the dual-use problem, because of the issue that was mentioned by the radio producer in your setup piece, you know, i think there's a better than even chance that e-cigarettes in the end will keep people smoking conventional tobacco cigarettes by acting as a bridge. >> we'll talk more about this when we come back and dig deeper into regulations. 20 states prohibit e-cigarette sales to minors. should the federal government get more involved? stay with us. ç]
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association, stanton glantz from the university of california san francisco and danny mcgoldrick, the vice president for research from the campaign for tobacco-free kids. danny, how should e-cigarettes be regulated? >> first of all, if they're making a cessation claim, they fall under the regulation of the fda drug center, and they have to show that they're both a safe and effective tobacco cessation product. so nobody has done that, and to my knowledge no e-cigarette has applied for that. if they fully transition or claim they transition people from conventional cigarette smokes to e-cigarette smoking, that's what they need to demonstrate to the fda. the tobacco control act of 2009, which finally gave the fda the authority to regulate tobacco prush products said you can assert your jurisdiction over other tobacco products. we need the tobacco center at the fda to act expeditiously to assert their authority over e-cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products that aren't
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currently regulated and decide which of these sales, marketing and manufacturing restrictions should apply to e-cigarettes. there are restrictions against sales to kids and product display restrictions put behind the counter, the flavors. they look at whether the flavors appeal to kids and like flavored cigarettes -- we got rid of those with the tobacco control act. then if the companies want a modified risk claim, that can be modified by the fda. states can act, too, and include cigarettes in the smoke-free law if they're not already included so the uncertainty about the health effects of second-hand vapor, we don't take that chance with our citizens. >> tom, how should regulation be? >> well, again, we have pushed they have for regulation as a tobacco product with all our constraints on marketing and advertising and sales to minors. prohibition on sales to minors. we're at the forefront going back, and we've worked with california, utah, illinois,
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new york. recently i was in the city of laguna beach that was going to pass an ordinance to ban the sale of the use of electronic cigarettes and we got them to overturn that by showing them the signs and facts behind the technology. it's the industry's position they're already regulated as a tobacco product and we adhere to all state and local and federal laws regarding the sales and marketing of tobacco cigarettes. >> i want to get danny's response to that. >> hold on a second, doctor. go ahead. >> if you look through history, look the aat what companies doing and not say. these themes i talked earlier about rebellion and everything are out of the documents. i would challenge everyone to look the at the advertising around e-cigarettes, jenny mccarthy, the same themes for years of sex, glamour and
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rebellion and the same tactics. why wait for fda to assert the jurisdiction if you claim that you don't market products in ways that don't addict children? >> why does it matter how it's regulated? how should it go further? >> well, i mean, i think it's very disingenuous for tom to talk about how the fda is regulating things and how they support that, because it was the e-cigarette companies that sued and prevented the fda from regulating e-cigarettes as a medical device, as a drug delivery device, which in my view is actually the right way to do it. but the fact is right now they're completely unregulated in the united states. there's no controls over the quality of them. there's no controls over the actual delivery of nicotine, which is a highly addictive drug, and there's no control over what else is in the product. i think -- while i agree with danny, the fda needs to get off its behind and do something. the realities are that any kind
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of meaningful action by the fda on e-cigarettes is probably years away. once they do start doing something, it's certain that some e-cigarette company will sue them and tie the whole thing up in court for years. that's why i think there's a need for local governments to move forward. >> danny, is it enough to be regulated as a tobacco product? does that go far enough? >> if the fda acts and applies the restrictions it does to other tobacco products, but states can act as well. >> thank you so much to all three of you gentlemen. that's all we have time for today, so that's it from the team in washington, d.c. and from me, libby casey. keep the debate going by logging onto our facebook page or send your thoughts on twitter. you can reach me direct directly @libcasey. thanks for watching.
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