Famous Cardiac Surgeon Defends E-Cigs

Mississauga: He is a renowned cardiac surgeon, and he shouldn’t be in the business of cigarettes, the cancer stick, the puff of death, whatever you want to call it. But Dr. Gopal Bhatnagar whose deft hands have stitched up scores of broken hearts and given a second lease of life to so many, is passionate and persuasive as he goes about defending the new fad of vaping, or smoking an electronic cigarette that has nothing in common with its tobacco cousin.

About three years ago, he threw his support behind a budding electronic cigarettes company called www.180smoke.ca, taking an ownership position along with two enthusiastic young men, Ashutosh Jha and Boris, who saw, in e-cigs, a healthier future for millions of their generation, and an option to fight the monster of addiction for those struggling to wean themselves away from the clutches of tobacco cigarettes, the ones loaded with thousands of chemicals. Dr. Bhatnagar is painfully aware of the devastation that cigarettes cause, he sees its effect on individuals, families and society in general, on a daily basis. He wouldn’t have gone into an area of business, like the e-cigs or vaping as the industry would like to call it, if he hadn’t been absolutely convinced that the arrival of e-cig technology lit a lamp in that dark tunnel full of the hopelessly addicted.

When he first heard of the proposal, he was, naturally, weary and quite reluctant. The material that his partners had put together about the beneficial effect, though<, substantial, didn’t persuade him to jump in.

He says, “For nine months, I researched the product. It was invented first by a Chinese guy who was trying to get off smoking himself. I realized that there was no tobacco in electronic cigarettes, there was no demonstrable carcinogens, and there was evidence that it actually helped people to cut down on tobacco(cigarettes). It’s as good as the other medications that doctors routinely prescribe to help people quit smoking. Once I was thoroughly convinced that it was both safe and ethical, only then, did I sign on.”

Three years on, Dr. Bhatnagar is even more convinced that he is in the life saving business. However, the general tone that emanates from the public health officials and the various international and national agencies recently does not bode well for the future of e-cigarettes. That makes Dr. Bhatnagar even more determined to fight the good fight.

While the entrenched public health establishment is frowning, giving the excuse that not enough is known about it, there are well placed media headlines that does further damage. One such screamed: Dramatic Increase In E-Cig Use Among Teenagers’, after a survey came out in New York. What they forgot to say, deliberately or otherwise, was that the e-cig users were ex tobacco smokers. Isn’t that a good switch for a teenager who was till then puffing up on tobacco with its thousands of proven carcinogens?

According to a big sample survey done in Europe and here, it became clear that almost 96% of vapers (those who smoke e-cigs) were ex tobacco smokers. Though critics would like to demonize e-cigs as a gateway to become smokers, almost all findings and yes, common sense, tell us that it’s picked up by those who are already smokers, desperate to get over the addiction to tobacco.

An oft-repeated warning issued by several public health agencies including prestigious ones like the FDA and the Heart and Strokes Foundation and many others is that ‘we don’t know enough’. Not knowing enough, is not enough to condemn an innovation that can save lives into a state of limbo. Medical research is full of such examples of drugs and vaccines that save millions of lives. And yet, some of these lifesavers are shown to have caused complications decades down the line. The FDA or any other agency automatically does not stop introduction of a drug after due diligence because they don’t know exactly what will happen 20 years down the line.

Some public health official claim that they don’t know what’s in the vapour to come to definite conclusions. Dr. Bhatnagar points out, “Actually that’s not true. We know everything about the vapour and its chemistry. Any second year chemistry student can run that experiment.”

What we know so far is that the hundreds of disease-causing chemical agents that are in a regular tobacco cigarette is certainly NOT in electronic cigarettes. In fact, they have not been able to prove the presence of a single carcinogen in e-cigarettes till date. If they had, let me assure you, they would have made sure you heard about it. “‘Not enough is known’ is just a mantra,” says Bhatnagar. “They refuse to say how much is already known presented through hundreds of papers on the subject. When innovation occurs in medicine, we decide that at this point in time, we have reached a level of information that we are fairly confident of.”

There are quite a few of those specific studies that should embolden the public health authorities to take up positions in defense of e-cigs.

“When people say that not enough is known, I want to emphasize that a lot is known. If you take burning tobacco and apply the resultant chemicals to a cell culture, it’s been found to cause deformities in the cells. On the other hand, take the e-juice and apply it to the same cell, it doesn’t cause anything. So the scientific work to determine if they are carcinogenic or not has been done already,” notes Dr. Bhatnagar.

The e-cigarette industry in Ontario is bracing for the crushing arm of the Provincial government to fall on them soon, and it’s called Bill 45 that while putting further restrictions on tobacco use, aim to equate e-cigs with tobacco. What’s driving them to such hasty and counterproductive actions? “People are busy,” Bhatnagar explains. “I can’t expect the public health officials of Ontario or the Minister of Health to have gone through all these articles on the subject. The point, though, is if they want to make statements, they need to get their facts right. They have massive resources, all these agencies, Cancer Care Ontario, Lung Association, Heart & Stroke and others. Rather than quote each other’s opinion, they need to get down to it and read the available material. If me, as single person can do it, they certainly have far more brilliant scientists at their disposal who can do it. For example, the Heart & Stroke Foundation has hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, why can’t they put a few million dollars into this and test it? Isn’t it in their mandate to fund that type of research so that the public has the right information?” he asks.

Obviously, Dr. Bhatnagar and others who see the immense benefits of vaping are not running away from a test of credibility. They have seen the evidence and so far, as a physician sworn to protect the quality of human life, he is convinced that further research would only prove an obvious point. “Trial after trial have shown that there is at least 50% reduction in tobacco use when people switch to electronic cigarettes. I think Bill 45 is very short-sighted. It does a lot of things good, regarding tobacco smoking. Yes, ban tobacco smoking from wherever you can. I would say even ban tobacco sales itself. But if you are not going to do that, then make the electronic cigarettes more socially and financially appealing to the smokers. We know it’s safe, it’s not harmful to the bystander, the science is all there. Let people do the vaping in certain designated areas in large buildings. The smokers have to go out, let the vapers vape inside, while the smokers have to stay out in the -20C! Incentivize them to switch.”

Tobacco smoking cost 2 trillion dollars in health cost to the world GDP, most of it preventable. 95% of all lung cancer is caused by tobacco smoking. “If tomorrow, every smoker stopped tobacco and switched to electronic cigarettes, lung cancer would disappear in the next ten years. Isn’t that worth giving a try,” asks Bhatnagar.

It seems such a simple thing to understand, given the science and even common sense of it. But sometimes, simple is not so simple when caught up in the labyrinth of bureaucratic decision making process. I do hope some sort of clarity emerges soon, we are not talking just about saving the much needed billions in healthcare costs, but we will also be wrapping a gift of life to millions still struggling to flee from the deathly embrace of tobacco smoking.