New product, old concerns

Re “The haze around e-cigarettes,” Editorial, Oct. 3

You are correct that the scientific community does not yet know enough about the potential health effects of nicotine in e-cigarettes. However, the tobacco industry likely has all that information based on its research on nicotine and its knowledge of the manufacturing process of the products.

The world knows that the tobacco industry lied and obfuscated for years about what it knew regarding the health effects of cigarettes. Its executives lied to Congress. An industry that lives on lies cannot be trusted today when it claims its devices are safe.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should regulate e-cigarettes just like it does other tobacco products until these can be proved safe. If the tobacco industry wants to accelerate that process and has nothing to hide, it should assist the FDA.

But something tells me the leopard will not change its spots.

Raymond J. Melrose

Los Angeles The writer, a professor emeritus of pathology at USC, is past president of the American Cancer Society’s California division.

The Times writes: “Should the devices be considered virtually the same as cigarettes when it comes to secondhand inhalation indoors? At the moment, we lack the knowledge to decide this with confidence.”

What a ridiculous statement. It’s as though you’ve all slept through years of tobacco industry propaganda and its attendant effects on human health.

The burden should be on the tobacco and e-cigarette industry to come up with safe products. In the meantime, e-cigarettes should be treated like any other nicotine-laced tobacco product and kept out of public and shared spaces.

We know enough now to know better than to abandon years of health protections based on the marketability of the latest untested gadget.

Carol Denney

Berkeley