Video: Professor John Britton: Get It Directly from the Experts!
During the wintry weather 2014-15, Public Health England was engaging in a conversation with relevant stakeholders to discuss the use of e-cigarettes in enclosed open places. The discussion was based on a five draft ethics to guide practice and policies. To encourage this evidence-based debate, PHE invited top tobacco control specialists to provide independent footage and commentaries which is based on the draft principles.
PHE Publishes Independent Specialist e-cigarettes Evidence-based Review
A new Public Health England (PHE) e-cigarette evidence-based review, carried out by leading autonomous tobacco specialists, shows an update on PHE’s 2015 review. (Published 6 February 2018)
The report looks at the use of e-cigarette among adults and young people, the impact on quitting smoking, public attitudes, health, an update on risk and the overall role of nicotine. The report also reviews heated tobacco products.
The major findings of PHE’s evidence-based review Include:
- Vaping has only a small effect compared to the risk of smoking. Also, having a complete switch from smoking to vaping has tremendous health benefits.
- It is likely that e-cigarette is contributing a minimum of 20,000 new quits each year, and much more obviously.
- Over the past years, the use of e-cigarette has been associated with an improved rate of quitting success. There has been a quick drop in the rate of smoking throughout the country.
- Thousands of smokers have the misconception that vaping is as harmful as smoking is. About 40% of smokers haven’t tried vaping.
- There is a lot of public unawareness and misconception about nicotine (Below 10% of adults know that most cases of health challenges from smoking are not from the use of nicotine)
- Vaping in the UK has plateaued over the past few years under 3 million.
- The evidence-based review doesn't support the challenges that vaping is a means into smoking which is observed among teens (the rate of young people smoking in the UK goes down continuously.
A few weeks after a US National Academic of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report of e-cigarette that was when PHE’s evidence review came.
Based on available evidence, their conclusion on e-cigarette safety shows that ‘e-cigarette’s are most likely not as harmful as combustible tobacco cigarettes.’
According to Professor John Newton, Director for Health Improvement at PHE:
- People are admitted to hospital every minute due to smoking, and about 79,000 people die yearly in England.
- Our current review is geared towards establishing that vaping is only a part to the risk of smoking, less than 95% less harmful, and of little or no effect to passers-by. But over 50% of smokers wrongly believe that the harm incurred from smoking is comparable to vaping. Probably they just don’t know.
According to Professor Ann McNeill, lead author and Professor of Tobacco Addiction at King’s College London:
- It raises great concern about the fact that man smokers don't understand what the exact cause of harm from smoking is. During smoking, a smoker inhales a deadly mix of about 7000 smoke components, and about 70 of these are cancerous.
- Many smokers smoke because of the nicotine content of a cigarette. But contrary to what the populace believes, nicotine doesn’t cause any harm if at all. The major cause of many death and disease from smoking is from the toxic smoke that is released. Varieties of ways such as nicotine gum, lozenges, nasal spray and e-cigarette are some of the new ways nicotine can be administered.
According to Professor Linda Bauld, author and Professor of Health Policy, University of Stirling and Chair in Behavioural Research for Cancer Prevention, Cancer Research US:
The use of e-cigarette has raised concerns that young people will be led to smoking. But research in the UK clearly shows that the use of an e-cigarette by teens without prior exposure to smoking is very small, below 1%, and the number of youths involved in smoking is continuously declining appreciably. These trends need to be monitored closely, but for now, data collected shows that e-cigarettes are not an avenue for frequent smoking among teens.
PHE is, however, calling a number of bodies and smokers to act on these pieces of evidence.