WASHINGTON, Sept. 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Vaping advocates from across the country descended on Washington D.C. on Saturday to show support for small vapor businesses and to demonstrate to President Trump that their votes have the power to change the upcoming election. Vaping advocates demanded President Trump push for the Food & Drug Administration to reform the Pre-Market Tobacco Application (PMTA) process or extend the cutoff before the looming deadline of Sept. 9. With 14,000 small businesses in jeopardy of vanishing overnight, the FDA is still tracking towards the Sept. 9 deadline requiring small businesses to file pricey and burdensome PMTAs to keep their products for sale.  

Organized by United Vapers Alliance, advocates peacefully protested to show the world that “We Vape, We Vote” is a movement that has the influence to disrupt the upcoming election with millions of potential votes up for grabs. The vaping advocates vowed to continue to push elected officials to reject prohibitionist policies that threaten access to life-saving vapor products.

“If President Trump does not deliver on real reform at FDA, he is not only risking the destruction of an American industry, but he will be also be creating a situation where millions of adult ex-smokers could return to deadly combustible cigarettes,” said Dimitris Agrafiotis, who serves as executive director of the Tennessee Smoke-Free Association. “HHS Secretary Alex Azar has pledged PMTA reform, but he failed to deliver. Now, it is up to President Trump to stop the FDA from destroying 99% of the industry and leaving 160,000 Americans unemployed in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Despite fearmongering by special interest groups, vapor products manufacturers are not Big Tobacco and their technology products should not be subject to the same regulations. Studies have repeatedly shown that vapor products expose users to a tiny fraction of the harmful chemicals that cigarettes contain. Millions of adults throughout the United Sates have successfully quit smoking cigarettes because of vaping products.

Over 20 vaping consumer advocates shared life-changing stories during the rally on their journey to vaping and how it has positively impacted their friends and family since switching to a tobacco-free lifestyle. They were also joined by featured speakers and leaders in the industry Dimitris Agrafiotis, executive director of the Tennessee Smoke-Free Association; Amanda Wheeler, president of Rocky Mountain Smoke-Free Alliance; and Gregory Conley, president of American Vaping Association.

This is UVA’s second annual Save the Vape rally and they continue to ask vaping advocates from across the nation to call the White House Switchboard and say, “We Vape, We Vote”.   

About United Vapors Alliance
United Vapers Alliance (UVA) educates the public and politicians regarding the benefits of harm reduction via vapor products, and strongly conveys that changes must be made, within the FDA, to provide an economically feasible pathway to market. Currently, the FDA pathway to market is not obtainable for small and medium size manufacturers. The only entities that can afford the FDA pathway to market is Big Tobacco, while more than 11,000 family owned vapor businesses will shut their doors. Left unchallenged, 99% of the vapor products, will exit the market in September 2020. UVA does this via social media, public events and grassroots activism. For more information about UVA, please visit unitedvapersalliance.org and @AllianceVapers on Twitter and @UnitedAllianceVapers on Facebook.

Media Contact: Abigal Anello, aanello@novitascommunications.com

SOURCE United Vapers Alliance

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Researchers are working hard to determine the cause of more than 500 cases of lung illness affecting e-cigarette users. Eight of those people have died, sparking a criminal investigation from the FDA – but even before this outbreak, e-cigarettes divided the medical community.  The American Lung Association has said that “e-cigarettes are not safe,” but the American Cancer Society said they’re “likely to be significantly less harmful for adults than smoking regular cigarettes.”

One of the web’s most talked-about pro-vaping videos is an experiment comparing the effects of tobacco cigarettes and e-cigarettes on the lungs, put out by England’s top public health agency.

“My research shows that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful than cigarettes,” said Dr. Lion Shahab, an associate professor at University College London.

Public Health England describes e-cigarettes as “at least 95% less harmful” than tobacco cigarettes.

Dr. David Abrams, a professor at New York University, said that he thinks that’s a fair estimate.

“Actually, I would go further,” he said. “I think there’s no evidence from looking at the cancer biomarkers, that it could be as high as 98% or 99% for cancer.”

Abrams said he’s worried that the panic over e-cigarette-linked illnesses will distract from the public health benefits they could offer. 

“I think we’ve forgotten that 120 years ago, the disruptive technology was the cigarette rolling machine that literally caused this epidemic of lung cancer and other diseases. And now we have an opportunity 120 years later to get rid of the cigarette with a new technology that delivers nicotine in a very satisfying way without the major harms of burning tobacco,” he said. “If we lose this opportunity, I think we will have blown the single biggest public health opportunity we’ve ever had in 120 years to get rid of cigarettes and replace them with a much safer form of nicotine for everybody.” 

To parse the competing claims, “CBS This Morning” asked Abrams’ colleagues in the school of medicine to recreate the experiment by Public Health England.

“This is gonna look very yucky,” NYU School of Medicine professor Terry Gordon told “CBS This Morning” co-host Tony Dokoupil.  “You’re gonna see lots of brown and dark color, and that’s what’s gonna simulate what goes in the lungs of people.”

For about two hours, the NYU team simulated smoking four packs of cigarettes, and compared it to the same amount of vaping. The differences were plain to see: The damage caused by cigarette smoke was obvious; the vapor from a coffee-flavored e-liquid, not so much.

Gordon also thinks Public Health England’s estimate is “fairly accurate.” “Might be 80%-90%. I don’t know how they can be that accurate,” she said. “But … they’re much safer than cigarettes.”

Abrams doesn’t believe the sudden outbreak of illnesses should stop adults from vaping. “I think all the evidence we’ve seen from the FDA and the CDC reports is that these cases are people who bought marijuana oils on the street made either illegally or in a sort of a street version like a dirty street drug,” he said. 

“We haven’t seen a single case that a commercially made legitimate e-cigarette that smokers are using has caused any of these illnesses,” Abrams added. “And I would say for smokers they should not be scared by what they’re seeing and that e-cigarettes should still be used instead of cigarettes if they’ve already switched.”

Source: CBS