Keeping up with the science on vaping: lessons from Surgeon General Reports on smoking and health

As this E-Cigarette Summit commemorates the 60th anniversary of the historic 1964 Advisory Committee Report on Smoking and Health to the US Surgeon General (SG), my talk will focus on the lessons learned from that report and those that followed in terms of the implications for tracking the evolving science on vaping.   The 1964 report was certainly ground-breaking in establishing the basis for defining the causal relationship between cigarette smoking and disease.  However, the 1964 report did not end the debate on smoking and health it only marked the beginning of the modern era of tobacco control that relied on continuous updating of the science to alert the public about the dangers of smoking and guide public policies to curb the harms from smoking.  Science based tobacco product regulation as it relates to vaping requires a process that ensures the continuous review and updating of scientific evidence much like what was done for smoking and health with reports issued annually as was done following the 1964 SG report.  In a regulated market, we need to find ways for industry to share their science more widely so that public health authorities can critically review and update evidence available about products so consumers can rely on the information coming from government authorities.