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Expert Available to Discuss Warnings About 'Electronic' Cigarettes

Newswise - Dr. Steven M. Marcus, executive director of the New Jersey Poison Information & Education System (NJPIES) at the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, is available to provide comment on a warning by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the risks of electronic cigarettes that have been found to contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.

Electronic cigarettes, also known as "e-cigarettes," are battery-operated devices that do not emit smoke. The device turns nicotine, an addictive drug, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled and exhaled by the user. The FDA says these products are marketed and sold to young people and are readily available online and in shopping malls.

The electronic device does not include any health warnings comparable to those on FDA-approved nicotine replacement products or conventional cigarettes. Concerns of public health officials include the potential for the product to increase nicotine addiction and tobacco use in young people.

Marcus established NJPIES, New Jersey's poison control center. He is a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and associate professor of pediatrics at the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School.

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Annually, there are more than two million patient visits at UMDNJ facilities and faculty practices at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.

Source: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)