• San Jose Mercury News, Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:47 AM

Health officials worldwide are casting a wary eye on e-cigarettes -- which emit a nicotine vapor with the help of a computer chip -- that a Florida company began marketing last year with the help of steroid-tainted baseball slugger Jose Canseco.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration seems poised to pull e-cigs from the market because the agency considers them "new drugs," Ken McLaughlin reports, which means that they need approval from the FDA. Smoking Everywhere, the company that is marketing the product on the Internet and in mall kiosks, will have to back up its claims with scientific data to gain that approval.

The device is a slender stainless-steel tube. When someone puffs on it, a computer-aided sensor activates a heating element that vaporizes a solution -- usually containing nicotine -- in the mouthpiece. The resulting mist, which comes in flavors, can be inhaled.

Read the whole story at San Jose Mercury News »