Rejecting Industry Overtures

The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has urged doctors to refrain from dealing with vapor companies following reports of attempts by the industry to recruit medical professionals to its cause.

“E-cigarette companies are currently engaging physicians in an attempt to recruit them in disinformation campaigns that promote electronic cigarette use as viable harm reduction options,” said Health Undersecretary and acting FDA chief Eric Domingo.

Domingo said it would look bad for doctors to support vapor products because e-cigarettes have been “proven to introduce new risks above and over those already present in traditional combustible cigarettes.”

Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered a ban on the use and importation of e-cigarettes.

Before that, the Department of Health recorded the first case of vaping-related lung injury in a 16-year-old girl from Central Visayas.

Health authorities in the United States have attributed the outbreak of vaping-related injuries in that country to THC products obtained on the black market.