Nicotine / THR - Statements from Experts

The following experts are speaking out in support of adult use of Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) products to help people quit smoking and to prevent relapse so smoking.

Tobacco Control / TC (Past or Present)

Kenneth Warner

File:Kenneth Warner.jpg

University of Michigan

Less Dangerous
Kenneth Warner, a University of Michigan scholar, says harm from tobacco is far greater than from vaping. A founding board member of the Truth Initiative — the nonprofit public-health organization committed to ending tobacco use — Warner has also been the president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, the senior scientific editor of the 25th-anniversary Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, and the dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. Warner and a colleague, David Mendez, built a computer model that tracks the U.S. adult population’s smoking status and smoking-related deaths. When they ran data about vaping through the model, they found that under all but the very worst-case assumptions, the benefits of e-cigarettes, which can help smokers quit, exceed their costs in terms of lives saved.

Warner says the campaigns against e-cigarettes are a mistake. The harm from tobacco is far greater than from vaping: “Michael Bloomberg did some great things for public health, but he is way off base on this.”

He is the author of: How to Think—Not Feel—about Tobacco Harm Reduction

Steven Schroeder

File:Steven Schroeder.jpg

E-cigarette Summit 2020

Smart Politics But Dubious Public Health

Steven A. Schroeder, MD was president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 1990 to 2002 and led the philanthropy’s $700 million tobacco-control campaign. He formerly chaired the American Legacy Foundation (now Truth Initiative), which named the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies in his honor. He is the Professor of Health at UCSF. Dr. Warner says much of the energy and money aimed at opposing e-cigarettes has come at the expense of curbing the use of smoked tobacco, which remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

“On the face of it, it’s ludicrous that we would ban e-cigarettes, but permit the sale of tobacco and cannabis. It’s really smart politics but dubious public health.” Some of the people who smoke that could benefit from e-cigarettes "are the downtrodden. The homeless, the H.I.V. positive, substance abusers, prisoners, who have no constituency politically.” said Dr. Warner when interviewed about bans on vapor products.

Mitch Zeller, JD

File:Mitch Zeller JD.jpg

FDA

Reduce Risk Compared To Smoking

"We still have more than 30 million addicted adult cigarette smokers. Almost all of whom are concerned about their health and have some interest in quitting. So, if a typical pack-a-day cigarette smoker could completely substitute all of his or her cigarettes with e-cigarettes, there's no question that that person would be reducing their risk compared to continuing to smoke a pack of cigarettes every day."

Mitch Zeller, JD was appointed Director of CTP (Center for Tobacco Products), a department in the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration), in 2013. He served as associate commissioner and director of the agency’s Office of Tobacco Programs from 1993 until 2000, and then was the senior vice president with Pinney Associates, a Maryland-based pharmaceutical consulting firm that does work for GlaxoSmithKline, the leading seller of nicotine-replacement therapy products. (At Pinney he provided strategic planning and communications advice on domestic and global public health policy issues involving the treatment of tobacco dependence and the regulation of tobacco products and pharmaceuticals.) He previously served as executive vice president of the American Legacy Foundation (Now known as the Truth Initiative. His responsibilities there included marketing, communications, strategic partnerships, and creating the foundation's first Office of Policy and Government Relations.), the Washington-based anti-smoking organization established as part of the settlement between states and the tobacco industry. He was a co-chair of the National Cancer Institute’s Tobacco Harm Reduction Network at the time of his appointment as Director of CTP.

Zeller, a graduate of Dartmouth College and the American University Washington College of Law, has been working on FDA issues for more than 30 years. He began his career as a public interest attorney in 1982 at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). In 1988, Zeller left CSPI to become counsel to the Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Government Operations Committee where he conducted oversight of enforcement of federal health and safety laws. Instrumental in crafting the FDA's 1996 tobacco regulations, Zeller also represented FDA before Congress, federal and state agencies. Zeller also served as an official U.S. delegate to the World Health Organization (WHO) Working Group for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Tom Miller

Iowa Attorney General

The harm of the combustible cigarette is dramatically greater than the harm of the e-cigarette

"The combustible cigarette is by far the most harmful consumer product known to mankind, killing 480,000 people each year in the United States alone. This is largely due to the many deadly toxins created and released by the combustion. A panel of experts estimates that the e-cigarette is 95 percent less harmful. Some push back on this study, in part questioning the ability to put an exact number on it. Another estimate is 90-98 percent less harmful. But whatever number is correct, e-cigarettes are dramatically less harmful than combustible cigarettes. There has been an effort to say that combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes are equally harmful, that their companies are equally evil, and that they should be strongly regulated the same way. This view is incorrect, but it has gotten significant traction. Polling indicates that 32 percent of Americans believe that combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes are equally harmful. This means that as many as 13 million adult smokers believe them to be equally harmful, and are very unlikely to switch when switching may save their lives. People making misstatements about e-cigarettes have the best of intentions—to keep kids from being addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes. But adults misleading kids to get them to do what we want has always been a failed strategy."

Attorney General Tom Miller is serving in his 10th four-year term as Attorney General of Iowa. He is the longest currently serving attorney general in the nation. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1969. Mr. Miller served as a VISTA volunteer in Baltimore, Maryland, for two years, and then as legislative assistant to U.S. Representative John C. Culver (D-IA). He returned to the Baltimore Legal Aid Bureau as legal education director, and he also taught part-time at the Maryland School of Law. Mr. Miller opened a law practice in McGregor in northeast Iowa and served as city attorney of McGregor and Marquette. He has served as President of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).

He was actively involved in the establishment of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement and has been a fierce and determined critic of the Tobacco Industry over many years. Tom Miller served on the Board of the Truth Initiative (American Legacy Foundation)

Medical Professionals (No TC Background)

Dr. Fernando Fernandez

File:Dr. Fernando Fernandez.jpg

Phillipine College Of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons

Better strategy than watching our patients who smoke die of oral cancer

Renowned Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon and International Lecturer, member of the Philippine Dental Association (PDA) and the Philippine College of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (PCOMS). He is the past president of the PCOMS and the PDA. Fellow of the International College of Dentists (ICD), International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (IAOMS) and the Asian Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (AAOMS).

“We warn our patients who are smokers that smoking is the leading cause of oral cancer and strongly advise them to quit smoking. For those who cannot or do not want to quit smoking by themselves or with currently approved methods, we convince them to switch to non-combustible alternatives,”

Thomas Brandon, PhD

Moffitt Cancer Center

Earlier this year, the findings from a major clinical trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that e-cigarettes were almost twice as effective as the nicotine patch for producing one year of smoking cessation. These findings added to those of other, smaller studies previously published.

“This could be a game-changer for lots of people,” says Thomas Brandon, Ph.D., director of Moffitt’s Tobacco Research and Intervention Program and chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior. “It means that for smokers who have not been able to quit by using the available medications, vaping might be worth a try. But it is important to completely switch from smoking to vaping to get the most health benefits.”

Thomas Brandon, PhD, is the Director of the Tobacco Research and Intervention Program and Chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior at Moffitt Cancer Center. He is also Professor of Psychology and Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida

Suggestions to add to this page

The Truth Initiative, too, once embraced harm reduction. Its former board chairman, Tom Miller, Iowa’s long-serving attorney general, still argues that e-cigarettes are a “means to saving millions of lives.” Cheryl Healton, its former CEO, and David Abrams, formerly executive director of the Schroeder National Institute of Tobacco Research and Policy Studies, which is housed at the Truth Initiative, are harm-reduction advocates. So is Steven Schroeder, for whom the institute is named. Found here

Clive Bates

Michael Siegel

David Abrams good quotes from David and others

Ray N.

Bill G.

Neil B.

Lynn Kozlowski

David Sweanor

Dr Garrett McGovern Bio Article

Professor Lion Shahab

Kellie Ann Forbes BScN Here

M.O.V.E.

PROFESSOR HEINO STÖVER and here

Dr. Sudhanshu Patwardhan

Dr. Derek Yach

• “We’ve been very clear that we support provisions that children should never vape or smoke. However, our main objective is to help adult smokers quit by making cessation aids accessible and to support adult smokers switching to approved harm reduction products. These include snus, e-cigarettes, heated-tobacco products and nicotine pouches,” says Yach. “In the long term, tackling cessation together with harm reduction is the only way to bring smoking rates down relatively soon. If today’s adult smokers quit or switch, even into their fifties or sixties, they will see improvements in their quality of life.”

Quotes