The Oct. 11 online news article “Why some experts are recommending vapes to quit smoking” highlights the complicated challenge of reducing the toll of cigarettes for the more than 25 million U.S. adults who still smoke them.
While completely quitting is always the goal, access to e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches that have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration may play an important role for adults unwilling or unable to stop using nicotine. But providing an off-ramp from combustible cigarettes for adults who smoke cannot become an on-ramp for young people or nicotine-naive individuals.
For these products to potentially play that role for adults who smoke, regulators must ensure there’s a strong scientific review process and ongoing vigilance for any authorized products. That must also be coupled with effective enforcement against the thousands of illegal e-cigarette and nicotine pouch products that have flooded the market.
And for those looking to quit nicotine altogether, it’s critical that they have safe and effective tools to do so. Remarkably, it has been about two decades since a new smoking-cessation medication was approved.
The FDA must better align its approach for nicotine-cessation medications with that for drugs intended to treat other addictions. In particular, the FDA continues to hold smoking-cessation medications to a more rigid standard, despite smoking’s far greater death toll.
Quitting nicotine isn’t easy, but it can be done with the right support. Decades of research have shown that combining behavioral and pharmacologic support yields the best outcome, but few avail themselves of both approaches.
Those who want to stop smoking or using nicotine deserve properly evaluated tools that give them the best chance to do so.
Kathy Crosby, Washington
The writer is the CEO and president of the nonprofit Truth Initiative.
Understanding black holes
In astrophysicist Fabio Pacucci’s Oct. 13 op-ed, “Priceless discoveries by the James Webb telescope,” he noted that the “little red dots” dating from the cosmic dawn discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope are believed by many astronomers to be powered by black holes. He also noted that these black holes appear “to rival their host galaxies in mass” and, moreover, may have come first. He said that this may suggest black holes are “not by-products of galaxies’ evolution, but the seeds from which the first galaxies sprouted.”
In fact, there is already strong evidence that black holes are as fundamental to galaxy formation as stars are to solar system formation.
In 2000, astronomers Laura Ferrarese, David Merritt and Karl Gebhardt, encouraged by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, found a precise correlation between the mass of the supermassive black hole found at the center of galaxies and the velocity dispersion (a means of calculating the mass) of the stars in the galaxy’s central bulge.
This correlation, now known as the “M-sigma relationship,” implied, according to Gebhardt and other authors of the study, “that central black hole mass is constrained by and closely related to properties of the host galaxy’s bulge.” However, one could further extrapolate that this relationship suggests supermassive black holes precede and are foundational to galaxy formation.
Stephen A. Silver, San Francisco
A shadow over Six Flags
Regarding the Oct. 14 news article “Six Flags shuts down rides at 6 parks”:
I grieve for the family of the man who died after he was ejected from the Goliath roller coaster at the Six Flags Over Georgia amusement park. My heart also goes out to the riders on the car who must endure the horrific memory of witnessing the accident.
I grew up near Atlanta in the 1970s, when Six Flags was a brand-new, shining spectacle, and my family made annual trips to the park. It was virtually impossible to experience all the park had to offer, which included mammoth roller coasters, life-size puppet shows and live western-themed stage shows at the Crystal Pistol Theater. But we tried. Oh, how we tried. At the end of the day, we were exhausted and exhilarated.
There have been other tragedies at amusement parks. Thankfully, they are a rare occurrence when compared with the amount of rides. However, this tragedy forever taints the meaning of a place that aimed to provide joy for its visitors.
Vin Morabito, Scranton, Pennsylvania
Why I love my e-reader
Michael J. Coren’s Oct. 15 online column, “What you miss when you read on a screen,” listed some of the disadvantages of reading on electronic devices. I’d like to share some of the advantages.
First, I read in bed a lot. I am often reading 400-, 500- or 600-page histories and biographies. Holding a book of that size is like holding a brick, while my e-reader or tablet weighs only a few ounces. Second, I have about 600 books in my e-reader’s library. I am able to take my entire library wherever I go. After a certain amount of time, I get bored and need to switch gears. I’m often reading multiple books at once, so having one device holding multiple books is perfect for me.
And with an e-reader, it’s easy to increase the size of the print. I’m almost 80, and many books (especially paperbacks) print words the size of a grain of rice. An e-reader makes the small-print problem immediately go away by pressing a button.
Like a lot of things, the medium a person uses to read is up to that person. No car fits everyone’s needs. Different people want different things, and an advantage for one person is a disadvantage for another person. One must choose what is best for them.
Regardless of the medium one chooses, time spent with a book is never wasted time.
Robert Dawson, Pontiac, Michigan
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