What's So Bad About E-Cigarettes?

The Food and Drug Administration says it plans to regulate e-cigarettes, along with cigars and other tobacco products. Health advocates say it’s about time, but many “vapers” who use e-cigarettes say regulation will damage a product that’s a far safer substitute for cigarettes.

“The FDA has over stepped their boundaries,” supporters wrote in an online petition posted this week. “Do Not, allow the FDA to take control of a life saving product .”

Even health experts agree that electronic cigarettes, which deliver nicotine in a heated mist of water, glycerin and propylene glycol, might be useful in helping people who want to quit smoking. So where’s the harm in them?

Mostly, it’s the unknown, the FDA says. “We can’t even tell you what the compounds are in the vapor,” FDA’s Mitch Zeller told reporters.

>READ MORE about risks to youth and watch Dr Nancy Snub out Myths at NBCNews

5 Sketchy Things We Still Don’t Know About E-Cigarettes

The FDA has cracked down on e-cigs by asserting its regulatory power and proposing a ban on sales to minors

On Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) flexed its regulatory muscles and extended its authority over more tobacco products, including the highly debated electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes. In the announcement, the agency said it now has jurisdiction over items that meet the statutory definition of tobacco products—which includes e-cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and hookah tobacco, among others. The FDA says it also plans to crack down on e-cigarettes by proposing a ban of their sale to people under 18 and by requiring health warnings on packaging.

The UK already has stiff regulations on e-cigarettes and some cities in the U.S., like Los Angeles, have bannedthem in several public places. The trouble with e-cigarettes is that they are so new, and there’s not enough evidence to definitively determine either how effective they are at helping people quit smoking—or the health risks associated with inhaling vaporized nicotine. Here are five things we are still scratching our heads over.

> READ FULL ARTICLE to learn about the facts of  electronic cigarettes FROM TIME

E-Cigarette-Related Poison Center Calls Surge

Calls to poison centers involving e-cigarettes have surged during the last 3 and half years, a new study shows.

The number of calls shot up from 1 per month in September 2010 to 215 per month in February 2014, researchers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in the April 4 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

"This report raises another red flag about e-cigarettes — the liquid nicotine used in e-cigarettes can be hazardous," said CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, in a CDC press release. "E-cigarette liquids as currently sold are a threat to small children because they are not required to be childproof, and they come in candy and fruit flavors that are appealing to children."

More than half (51.1%) of the calls to poison centers because of e-cigarettes involved children 5 years and younger, the researchers report. Many states do not restrict the sale of e-cigarettes to minors.

READ MORE from medscape.com