Ottawa stubbing out science?
TORONTO — As debate rages about the merits of e- cigarettes, the federal government has effectively stymied scientific studies that could answer whether the devices are a life-saving alternative to tobacco — or a potential magnet drawing more people to smoking, researchers say.
Scientists need Health Canada’s green light for studies because nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are currently outlawed.
But the department is treating the products like an experimental drug, dragging out and muddying the approval process, charges one respected scientist, even though millions of Canadians consume nicotine legally from an unquestionably more harmful source: tobacco itself.
The University of Waterloo’s David Hammond, a former adviser to the World Health Organization on tobacco control, said his Ontario-government funded trial is now all but dead because of the federal response. Meanwhile, thousands of Canadian smokers are already trying e-cigarettes.
The battery-powered contraptions mimic the sensation of smoking by heating up and vaporizing a liquid that usually contains nicotine, yet generates virtually none of the carcinogens in tobacco fumes. Nicotine, while addictive, does not itself cause cancer.
“The lack of clarity and response from Health Canada has been very frustrating; at a certain point they simply stopped responding to our emails,” said Prof. Hammond. “There is an urgent need to conduct a proper scientific trial … In the absence of a proper trial, Canadian smokers will continue to serve as guinea pigs in a far less controlled experiment.”
Sean Upton, a Health Canada spokesman, said the department cannot comment publicly on a specific application for clinical-trial approval.
But he suggested the government is interested generally in learning more about the technology. Health Minister Rona Ambrose has, for instance, asked the House of Commons health committee to study the issue, and help identify options for regulating the devices, said Upton.
Friction over the regulator’s actions underscores a dispute that continues to divide the public-health world.
Government officials, provinces and many health charities in Canada have generally come out against e-cigarettes, arguing they could re-normalize smoking and potentially act as a gateway for teenagers to use real cigarettes.
Other anti-smoking advocates and scientists, however, say there is evidence ecigarettes could be a unique harm-reduction or cessation tool, satisfying smokers’ addictions in a far-less dangerous way than tobacco.
“It could represent a sea change, a disruptive technology,” said one Canadian researcher, who asked not to be named.
“I think it’s going to wipe out conventional cigarettes in North America in the next 10 or 20 years.”
To date, though, there has been little science to back up either side in the debate.
One New Zealand trial published in 2013 found ecigarettes had only a modest benefit at helping people quit smoking, but critics say that study was flawed, partly because it used now-outdated devices that did a poor job of delivering nicotine.