To the Editor:

In “Can E-Cigarettes Save Lives?” (column, Oct. 17), Joe Nocera expresses certainty about the health benefits of e-cigarettes and argues that it is time to “forget about the F.D.A.” in regulating these products.

Whether e-cigarettes can reduce the number of Americans who die from tobacco use is far from certain. E-cigarettes may reduce the risk of disease for addicted cigarette smokers, but any benefit will come only if they are shown to be effective at helping smokers stop using cigarettes completely and if they are marketed so they do not re-glamorize smoking among young people. These goals can be achieved only through effective oversight by the Food and Drug Administration, not by circumventing it.

The concern about youth use is serious. In 2013, over a quarter of a million youths who had never smoked a cigarette had used e-cigarettes.

For more than 75 years, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act has required manufacturers, including manufacturers of products that claim to help people quit smoking, to present their scientific evidence to the F.D.A. To our knowledge, not one e-cigarette manufacturer has done so.