In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden celebrated his reign of “cancer moonshot,” which aims to reduce cancer deaths by 50 percent over the next 25 years. A key plank of this ambitious program is tackling the nation’s leading preventable cancer, smoking.
To this end, the Biden administration will be “Ready for more action to help people avoid smoking in the first place and to support Americans who want to quit.” These are likely references to the Food and Drug Administration’s plan to ban menthol cigarettes and remove almost all nicotine from cigarettes on the market. It is unclear when any of these restrictions will be implemented.
And given that youth smoking is almost non-existent, with justification 2 percent High school students who have smoked at least once in the past month, preventing a new wave of teenage smokers is not an unrealistic or incredibly challenging aspiration.
Anyway, around 31 million Adults are regular smokers, or 12.5 percent of the population. In addition to keeping kids from smoking, Biden has promised to “support Americans who want to quit,” but his policies say otherwise. The FDA has banned more than 99 percent of e-cigarettes, which are safer than cigarettes, that were on the market when Biden takes office in 2021.
most of public And the majority physician Falsely believe that e-cigarettes are as dangerous or more dangerous than cigarettes. Still, despite Biden’s own FDA accept This widespread misconception, the agency did nothing to remedy the error. In December, several public health experts wrote in the journal anurati Amend vaping records as needed by public health authorities.
The study claims that e-cigarettes cause heart disease And cancer has been withdrawn. Those from comprehensive evidence reviews e.g King’s College London And The Cochrane Library, the gold standard in evidence-based medicine; Vaping is safer than smoking and e-cigarettes are more effective at helping smokers quit than FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapy. from the government Canada per New Zealand Recognize the value of innovations like e-cigarettes in helping people quit smoking and reduce preventable cancer deaths.
What makes the Biden administration’s hostility to tobacco harm reduction so surprising is that it reflects an equal and opposite enthusiasm for harm reduction policies to reduce deaths from opioid overdoses. For example, the White House has said it will expand Access to naloxone, which is used to reverse overdose.
It’s also hard to square the Biden administration’s anti-vaping policies with the drive to ban menthol cigarettes. According to the FDA, approx half The benefits of prohibition come from switching menthol smokers to menthol vapes. The FDA is so hostile to vaping that it even banned menthol e-cigarettes, which its scientists Conclusion It will benefit public health.
Back to back series last year wrong step Facing a wave of lawsuits and handling e-cigarette product applications, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf asked the Reagan-Woodall Foundation (RUF) to evaluate the FDA’s tobacco program. In December, the RUF delivered its judgment on FDA’s performance. The report found several failures at the FDA, including the agency’s lack of transparency and confusion about approving safe nicotine products. The agency is set to respond to the report this month.
In a briefing after the State of the Union, White House cancer moonshot coordinator Daniel Carnevale reiterated Biden’s pledge to reduce smoking. Unfortunately, instead of embracing harm reduction, Biden’s approach to safer nicotine alternatives appears to be more The Drug War Playbook of which he was an ardent supporter.