LONDON, ENGLAND

Public health groups carrying out a health campaign against electronic cigarettes have been bankrolled by the very organisations whose products are most threatened by the innovative new device.

That’s the claim being made by Jean Rasbridge, Managing Director of E Cigarette Direct, who has published a list of direct and indirect grants made by large pharmaceutical companies to these health groups.

“These organisations, with the help of a $99 million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Johnsong Foundation, helped bring about the current anti-smoking environment which exists today – an environment which helps fuel the three billion nicotine cessation industry.

“Given that, it’s perhaps not surprising that the same organisations are campaigning hard against the electronic cigarette – despite the fact that some respected scientists maintain that the electronic cigarette carries between one percent and one tenth of one percent of the risk of cigarettes.”

Attacks on the electronic cigarette have focused on the existance of carcinogens in electronic cigarette and on the use of propylene glycol.

The FDA, which receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the pharmeceutical industry every year, stated in a press release that the electronic cigarettes contained carcinogens – without mentioning that the carcinogens found were both thousands of times lower than that found in cigarettes and at a similar level to that found in nicotine cessation aids.

In total, the carcinogens found in electronic cigarettes measured 8.3 per trillion, somewhat lower than the 20 parts per trillion allowed in many food products.

One public health organisation, ASH, has argued that electronic cigarettes should be withdrawn from sale based on the fact that they contain carcinogens.

As Proffessor Siegel, a scientist with over 20 years of experience in the field of tobacco control, noted on the Tobacco Analysis blog, banning electronic cigarettes on those grounds alone and without taking into account the quantity would also mean the banning of nicotine gum, nicotine inhalers – and peanut butter.

“We believe that the total lack of science in the anti-electronic cigarette campaign can be much more easily explained when the funding of the campaign is taken into account,” concluded Jean Rasbridge.

To see the full details of the financial links please visit Anti-Electronic Cigarette Funding.