New Study Explores Vaping Evidence
World renown experts in tobacco control and e-cigarettes have delivered a new paper detailing the truth about vaping. Published in the journal Nature, the quartet write about nicotine e-cigarettes as a tool for smoking cessation. In the paper, they list off the facts that prove vaping works for smokers as a quit tool and that ecigs are far safer than using tobacco products.
Who are the authors of the Nature paper?
·Nancy Rigotti, MD, “is an internationally known expert in tobacco use, tobacco cessation, and tobacco control public policy”
·Kenneth Warner is the Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Public Health and Dean Emeritus at the University of Michigan
·Neal Benowitz is a physician and professor of medicine at the University of California
·Professor Ann McNeill is a British academic and tobacco policy expert. She is a professor of Tobacco Addiction at King’s College London, deputy director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, and has been responsible for all of the government’s annual electronic cigarette evidence updates
What do they say about vaping to quit smoking?
They point readers to the randomised controlled studies looked at as part of the Cochrane living systematic review process.
The authors of the Cochrane review state: “There was high certainty that [smoking] quit rates were higher in people randomised to [electronic cigarettes] than in those randomised to nicotine replacement therapy”.
They follow this up by stating: “Studies in both the UK and the US have associated increases in smoking cessation of 10–15% with the use of e-cigarettes.”
What do they say about harm?
They highlight that both the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the Department of Health and Social Care in England “have concluded that e-cigarette use is likely to be much less harmful than smoking.”
They point out that most studies claiming to find a risk were conducting by exposing cells and animals directly to e-liquids and “it is difficult to extrapolate these effects to human exposures”.
Acknowledging that vaping may cause some harm, the group are clear that studies indicate it clearly safer than smoking for people with cardiovascular problems, pulmonary problems or who are pregnant.
What about laws?
The quartet say that because the UK operates a system whereby all products for sale have to conform to exacting standards set down by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the UK can maintain proper safety standards over what people are allowed to buy.
The approach of public health bodies
Warner, Benowitz, McNeill and Rigotti highlight that government health agencies and professional societies in England and New Zealand interpret the evidence favourably, balancing the known evidence against potential risk.
Problems elsewhere in the world are where a cautious tone limits healthcare professionals’ enthusiasm to recommend e-cigarettes for cessat
What do they recommend?
“We believe that governments, medical professional groups, and individual healthcare professionals in countries such as the US, Canada and Australia should give greater consideration to the potential of e-cigarettes for increasing smoking cessation.
“E-cigarettes are not the magic bullet that will end the devastation wrought by cigarette smoking, but they can contribute to that lofty public health g
“However, acceptance of the promotion of e-cigarettes as a tool for smoking cessation will likely depend on continuing efforts to reduce access to, and use of, the products by young people who have never smoked. The two objectives can and should co-exist.”