More About the MHRA Decision to Treat Ecigs as Medicines

I mentioned yesterday that the links provided by Dick Puddlecote (see sidebar) to the MHRA decision did not work. Dick has provided another link to a copy of that article. Here is the URL:

http://www.healthcare-learning.com/news/item/e-cigarettes-to-be-treated-as-medicine

But, just in case that link also disappears, I have published below the text of the article:

E-cigarettes to be treated as medicine 

Posted on: Thursday 13th June 2013 

All nicotine-containing products (NCPs), such as electronic cigarettes, are to be regulated as medicines in a move to make these products safer and more effective to reduce the harms of smoking. 

The UK Government has decided that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will regulate all NCPs as medicines so that people using these products have the confidence that they are safe, are of the right quality and work.  

Jeremy Mean, the MHRA’s Group Manager of Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines, said: “Reducing the harms of smoking to smokers and those around them is a key Government health priority. Our research has shown that existing electronic cigarettes and other nicotine containing products on the market are not good enough to meet this public health priority.

“Some NCPs are already licensed and the Government’s decision to work towards medicines licensing for all these products is designed to deliver quality products that will support smokers to cut down and to quit.”

The quality of NCPs can vary considerably which is why licensing them as medicines will allow people to have the confidence that they are safe, are of the right quality and work.

The UK Government will press for EU law to create a Europe-wide legal position on NCPs as medicines through the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive. The European Commission has said it expects the new legislation to be adopted in 2014 and for it to come into effect in the UK from 2016. From that point, all NCPs will require a medicine licence. This will allow time for manufacturers to ensure that their products meet the safety, quality and efficacy requirements of a medicine. Until that law is in place, the MHRA would encourage those manufacturers with unlicensed products currently on the market to apply for a medicine licence.  

There are an awful lot of obvious faults in the article, but the first thing that struck me right away was this:

“The UK Government has decided that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will regulate all NCPs as medicines so that people using these products have the confidence that they are safe, are of the right quality and work.”

Erm ….. Has the UK Government decided any such thing? When was this decision made and by whom? Or is this decision by the UK Government a non-fact dreamed up by the Zealots?

The only such ‘indication’ that I know of is a statement in the EU Parliament that the UK representative said that the UK is vaguely supportive of regulation of ecigs as suggested in the new ‘Tobacco Directive’. That is an awful long way from saying that the UK has made a definitive decision. 

So before even thinking about the rest of the article, we can reasonably assume that the whole thing is just a try-on. NO DECISION WHATEVER HAS BEEN MADE BY THE UK GOVERNMENT. The effrontery of these Zealots never ceases to amaze me. What seems clear to me is that the Zealots have stepped way out of line in an attempt to bolster the EU’s stated objective of issuing a directive which would make ecigs medicines. But we might ask, “Why are they playing this trick?”

Again, we come back to Tobacco Control’s desperation. In order to justify their existence and their well-rewarded jobs, they MUST get legislation; note, not an improvement in health, nor even a reduction in smoking prevalence – ANY SORT OF LEGISLATION WILL DO. Without actual legislation, they are just a pressure group.

The rest of the article is waffle, but if there is one over-riding theme which stands out, it is the attempt to commandeer ecigs as though they had been invented big Big Pharm as a smoking cessation aid. They must be checked out by committees of Zealots to make sure that they are effective as a smoking cessation aid. But they were not invented by Big Pharm and they are not smoking cessation aids – they are a means of inhaling flavours and nicotine as a pleasure. The fact that some people took up ecigs in order to derive that pleasure rather than continuing to enjoy tobacco, does not make ecigs ‘smoking cessation products’.

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The article is one more step in the revelation of the Tobacco Control Industry as the charlatan organisation that it is.  One day, someone will do an investigation and find out just when and how criminal elements took advantage of the monopolistic structure of Tobacco Control to enrich themselves.