Here's Why The FDA Is Regulating E-Cigarettes

Thursday, April 24, 2014 - 12:40 in Health & Medicine

Flickr/rpavich Early today, the FDA—after years of saber-rattling—proposed new rules to regulate e-cigarettes. You may have heard something about this, since people in both camps are losing it. Ah, so the FDA is really putting the clampdown on these, eh?  Well, relatively. Up until now, e-cigarettes were almost completely unregulated; the new system would make some changes, like banning sales to minors. Good! Yes! Unless you are in the camp that believes e-cigarettes are a healthier (or relatively, at least) alternative to regular ol' tobbacy products. In which case, this is a pernicious affront to public health.  Bad! Well, no. There are certainly reasons to be wary of electronic cigs. There was a blockbuster New York Times report about neurotoxins in the cigarettes, which are now "for sale by the vial, the gallon and even the barrel." There was also a Centers for Disease Control report that concluded the "number of calls to poison centers...

Read the whole article on PopSci

More from PopSci

Learn more about

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net