Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food And Drug Administration (FDA), the government agency that recommends health regulations, said that he isn’t convinced that vaping e-cigarettes causes lung cancer, despite a new study from a major research institution which finds a link.
"I'm skeptical that nicotine causes cancer," Gottlieb said on CNBC’s Squawk Box. "It might be a tumor promoter," he acknowledges. "But it doesn't cause cancer."
The E-Cigarette Uproar -- Understanding The Facts
The answer is that researchers couldn’t exactly get mice to vape — but they could simulate the conditions of inhaling a lot of vapor. "Humans just inhale, so we cannot completely replicate that. The next best is to just put the mice in a closed chamber with no air, and we inject the e-cigarette vapor. It's a closed system, where the only thing they can inhale is the e-cigarette vapor," Dr. Moon-Shong Tang, Professor of Environmental Medicine, Pathology and Medicine at New York University School of Medicine who authored this study tells SurvivorNet.
Dr. Brendon Stiles, thoracic surgeon at Weill-Cornell, on why he tries not to make people feel bad for smoking cigarettes
In the study, 40 mice were exposed to e-cigarette vapor with nicotine over 54 weeks. The amount of smoke the mice were exposed to is about the amount that a person would be exposed to if they vaped for three to six years. 22.5 percent of them developed lung cancer and 57.5 percent of them developed precancerous legions on the bladder. By contrast, out of the 20 mice who were exposed to e-cigarette vapor with no nicotine over four years, none developed cancer.
“With nicotine in e-cigarettes, general belief is that it is not carcinogenic — it’s addictive, but it does not cause cancer. But we showed that nicotine from e-cigarettes can damage DNA material and cause lung cancer and precancerous legions on the bladder,” Dr. Tang continues. Of course, he’s still referring to mice.
What have doctors said about vaping in the past?
Part of the problem with vaping is that because the science is still unclear, many people believe it’s not actually harmful, and while this study from NYU is a good start, there is still a lot unknown about the impact of vaping. Because vaping is still new, researchers haven’t been able to conduct long-term studies on the physical damage these products can do.
In a previous interview with SurvivorNet, Weill-Cornell thoracic surgeon Dr. Brendon Stiles explained that the need to study these products and their dangers now is urgent — and users shouldn’t assume that products are a safer alternative to cigarettes (as they were marketed to be.
Dr. Brendon Stiles, thoracic surgeon at Weill-Cornell, talks about the need for more research on vaping and lung cancer
“The reason doctors can’t say with certainty that vaping is dangerous is that there simply hasn’t been enough time to study the long-term effects yet,” Dr. Stiles told SurvivorNet, adding that these unknowns make it dire that research on the dangers is started sooner rather than later. “It’s very pressing to start researching this now. If we wait 10 to 15 years until we see the clinical effects in all these kids who are taking up vaping, it’s going to be too late.”
In its latest warning, the FDA acknowledged that there is still much more research to do, but said that there are serious indicators implicating THC-containing vape products as a real danger to a person’s health.
“This is a complex, ongoing and evolving investigation,” the FDA said. “In addition to our own analyses, we are also diligently reviewing published literature of third-party analyses of samples and data, which are beneficial to our ongoing investigation. At this time, the FDA does not have enough data to identify the cause, or causes, of lung injuries in these cases. Additionally, while no one compound or ingredient has emerged as a singular culprit, we do know that THC is present in most of the samples being tested.”
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
