The FDA's website was recently updated with an article titled "Nicotine is addictive in Tobacco Products."
"What makes tobacco use harmful?" Part starts with part of the truth: "Nicotine is the reason people use tobacco products. However, it is the thousands of chemicals contained in tobacco and tobacco smoke that make tobacco use so deadly "[sic].
That's not bad. That's despite agency officials knowing that thousands of deadly chemicals are only present in smoke, not tobacco. Then they get more specific.
"Combustible products or products that burn tobacco are the most harmful. One example of a combustible product is cigarettes, which release more than 7,000 chemicals and nicotine that make it difficult to quit.
Fda-approved nicotine replacement therapies (NRT), such as gum and lozenges, are least harmful."
Then it gets scary because the guidance turns to non-combustible or smokeless tobacco products.
"Non-combustible products, such as smokeless tobacco products, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes, fall [in the middle] between combustible products and NRT."
Where is the real information?
The FDA has hundreds of scientists and funds research by thousands of scientists at universities across the United States. The federal agency is responsible for regulating the entire tobacco industry and setting a precedent for tobacco regulation around the world. It claims to act only on the basis of pure science, but pretends to ignore the risks of smokeless products.
His nonsensical position is undermined elsewhere on the site, where the agency acknowledges that "many studies have shown that e-cigarettes and noncombustible tobacco products may be less harmful than combustible cigarettes."
These studies do more than just make recommendations.
The Royal College of Physicians has said for years that smokeless products are at least 95 per cent less dangerous than cigarettes, a fact often ignored by anti-smoking enthusiasts.
The FDA's response is always "more research is needed," though that's never enough for the agency. Regulators know the facts but refuse to share them with smokers and their loved ones as smoking deaths continue to rise.