New Danish vaping law postponed

In March I wrote about a new law proposed in Denmark that would in practice ban e-cigarettes and was supposed to take effect already in November this year. Have a look here (scroll down a bit). Today, however, I'm happy to see that the Danish Ministry of Health have decided to postpone the processing of this proposal until the next parliamentary session which would also be after the next election. According to DADAFO (The Danish Union of Vapers) this means that e-cigarettes and vaping at this point will not be included in the new "law on smoke free environment": http://dadafo.dk/lov-om-e-damp-udsaettes/ (in Danish, hope google translate works fairly well). The Ministry of Health say they want to use more time to gather knowledge and information. 

DADAFO believes that this pleasant surprise comes as a result of the huge amount of responses to the request for comment, both from organisations and individuals, as well as the many emails sent to the relevant government instances and even the Minister of Health. The hard work that DADAFO and individual vapers have done has really paid off. Congratulations to you all! And I guess a thank you is also in order, from us Norwegian vapers. This will surely be noticed by Norwegian politicians as well and will make it easier to achieve our goal... to let vaping save as many lives as possible. I'm not sure if the Danish are aware about the commercials that usually hit Norway this time of the year (from Danish travel agencies I guess), but anyway, they have this jingle that goes like this: "It's wonderful to be Norwegian ... in Denmark". I'm glad that will still be true for a while :) (Yup, I'm actually going to Denmark this summer)
 

Danish Health and Medicines Authorities trying to scare the Danish people to death

Before Easter I wrote a post (http://goo.gl/4iQfP6) about the Danish Health and Medicines Authority being controlled by big pharma. I had a question mark at the end of my headline, but now I think that question mark needs to be removed. And the same goes for certain danish media. I'm not saying that big pharma controls the media directly but they seem to write whatever the Health and Medicines Authority feeds them with no questions asked, so in effect they write what big pharma wants.

An article (http://goo.gl/9uTbP9) in danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten from Monday reports some worrying statements from the Danish minister of Health, Nick Hækkerup. He wants to step up efforts to restrict e-cigarettes, and makes the following statement, with no reference to any scientific or other proof I may add: "We are talking about products, that can appeal to children and young people, and that can contribute to create interest for smoking regular cigarettes. Therefore I will contact the parties in the danish parliament (Folketinget) with the intention of discussing where we can step up our efforts". The statement is quoted from a written response to a question asked by the Danish Parliament's Health and Prevention delegation (http://goo.gl/fttKZu, in Danish, I doubt google translate will work here). Appearantly the gateway argument is not dead in Denmark, but common sense on the other hand...

The article then goes on with the following sub-headline: "Can cause cancer". The Health and Medicines Authority informs the journalist that there has been several adverse side effect registered, like irritation of the airways from short-term use, and allergic reactions. They also state that propylene glycol and glycerin is under suspicion of causing damage to the respiratory system and that some studies have found carcinogens in the products (editor: e-juice products). And of course, we must not forget that nicotine is addictive. Again, no reference to scientific proof whatsoever. This is exactly the kind of scaremongering big pharma wants, and gets, in Denmark these days.

At the end of the article there is another "think about the children" statement, and a lot of the parties in the Danish Parliament are willing to look into an age limit on e-cigarettes. Even a vendor of e-cigarettes supports an age limit. "Of course that is a good idea. I have children myself, and I wouldn't be happy if they started using e-cigarettes", says Frank Eskelun, the vendor in question. So... this is what it is all about then? An age limit? Well we all agree on that don't we? This is what the article should have focused on; responsible regulation of a product created for adults. So why all this scaremongering from the Health and Medicines Authorities and the minister of Health then? I'll go edit my previous post and remove the question mark to make it a bit clearer. I suspect they are starting to realize they will not be able to legally get rid of the competition, and now try desperately to scare people away from vaping. Scaring people to death just got a new, scarier meaning.

On the bright side, at the very bottom of the article, we get a clue to why the pharmaceutical industry is lobbying their asses off in Denmark at the moment: In 2010 1% of the Danish population used e-cigarettes, now the number is up to 5%.

photo credit: SodanieChea via photopin cc

Danish Health and Medicines Authority controlled by the pharmaceutical industry

Around half of the Danish Health and Medicines Authority's (Sundhetstyrelsen) funding comes directly, through fees, from global pharmaceutical giants. According to the Danish Medical Association (DMA, where most Danish doctors are members) this is a big problem and they demand new rules that will make the Health and Medicines Authority completely independent of the income from the pharmaceutical industry (http://goo.gl/qB7a3Q). Head of DMA, Mads Koch Hansen, condemns the relationship and says to Danish TV2 (http://goo.gl/a99IKZ): "A very large part of the country's Health and Medicine Authority's financing comes directly from the very industry that the authority is set to control, and who's products it's responsible for approving or discarding. But it is principally wrong that there is money going between the Health and Medicine Authority and the pharmaceutical industry. The Health and Medicine Authority should be economically independent, and the citizens should be able to have blind faith in the authorities' impartiality". From what I understand (anyone who reads Danish better than me, feel free to correct me if I got something wrong), DMA now suggests that the Health and Medicine Authority should be fully financed by the government and the fees that the pharmaceutical industry pays should be paid to a pool controlled by the government. Mads Koch Hansen says "this will ensure the necessary independence, and at the same time the companies (editor: pharmaceutical companies) pay for the work that is necessary to approve their products for use by the patients" (http://goo.gl/qB7a3Q).

LIF, a Danish organization for the pharmaceutical industry, says they do not understand DMA's concerns and that they think the system works fine like it is today. Ida Sofie Jensen, CEO at LIF, says that she has a hard time understanding the purpose of DMA's suggestion and that "this is the same as saying that something covert is going on, that a public authority cannot provide a service, without bribery or something ugly going on. We have definitely not seen indications of such cases". Well, I wouldn't say there has been no indication of big pharma being involved in allegations of corruption. Just an example for you: http://goo.gl/214tEj. A quick google search will give you a lot more. The Danish minister of Health and Protection, Nick Hækkerup, says he agrees with DMA that there should be no doubt that the Health and Medicines Authority should be independent and he is willing to continue the dialogue with DMA. However he sees no reason to question the authority's professional assessments is affected by the way it is financed today. 

Danish commentator and blogger Klaus K (http://www.180grader.dk/profil/Klaus_K) calls this whole relationship a corruption scandal (http://goo.gl/URfAZg), and mentions a lot of documentation showing how the pharmaceutical industry works to influence organizations like the Danish Health and Medicines Authority, by paying the right persons and making sure that whenever a doctor consults medical literature the same solution to every problem always appears: More medicine and more inefficient and expensive treatments. He points to the fact that after the Danish authorities seriously started interfering with peoples lifestyle, around 2007 when their current smoking laws was introduced, Danish people have gotten more and more sick (http://dengulenegl.dk/blog/?p=4412). In other words, the healthier the Danish peoples lifestyle is - the more sick they get. This means we seriously have to question the advice given by the Health and Medicine Authority, cause apparently, whatever their motives are, they are not doing a very good job at improving public health. 

And what does all this have to do with electronic cigarettes? Well, the Danish
Health and Medicines Authority is (of course) working against vaping and electronic cigarettes as well. They keep spreading fear around in the media, with reports of nicotine poisoning (http://goo.gl/bPjA10) and reports of carcinogens in the vapour (http://goo.gl/1AsU3A), backed up by the same junk science (commented by Dr. Farsalinos here: http://goo.gl/rJqAU3) that the pharmaceutical industry is sneaking into the medical literature that doctors are consulting. Hopefully the demand from DMA to get new rules on the financing of the Health and Medicine Authority will bring their poor results (and lies) into the spotlight in Denmark and force the politicians to do something. The Danish media, from what I have seen, has been fed a lot of scaremongering from the Health and Medicines Authority and reported it uncritically, but I hope this will make them investigate more and report more responsibly.

I'm sorry for all the Danish links in this article, hopefully google translate will work reasonably well. I'd also like to note that the statements cited is translated from Danish by a Norwegian (yours truly), so they might not be 100% but their essence should be correct.