The government is launching a new campaign to convince the UK’s smokers that vaping is not quite as harmful as smoking and a good way to quit, in a bid to counter the scepticism generated by some scientific studies and media headlines.
Public Health England (PHE), which maintains that vaping is 95% less harmful than tobacco, is releasing a short video of experiment which reveals the total number of sticky black tar that accumulates in the lungs of a heavy smoker, collected in a bell jar. By contrast, the identical nicotine intake through vaping releases only a trace of residue.
It would be tragic if thousands of smokers who could quit through an e-cigarette are being put off due to false fears about safety, said Prof John Newton, director of health improvement at PHE.
We need to reassure smokers that switching a good e-cigarette would be much less harmful than smoking. This demonstration highlights the devastating harms caused by every cigarette and helps people that vaping is likely to pose only a fraction of the risk.
PHE says the risks from vaping are tiny compared to smoking. Some studies that have been published focus on the health risks without looking at people cigarettes. A lab study Birmingham University in August, for instance, claimed that vaping could harm cells in the lungs. Everybody is making authors said they did not believe e-cigarettes were more harmful than ordinary cigarettes, they suggested that over 20 or 30 years there might be an effect and urged cautious scepticism about the safety of vaping.
Martin Dockrell, head of the tobacco control programme at PHE, said all the scientists in the field had ambitions enhance health. We like to think of our scientists as being detached about these things, but in fact the scientists in this area for both sides are deeply passionate about it, he said.
Studies about the potential of chemicals in e-cigarettes run prominently in the news media. Some were misleading and others were contradictory, said Dockrell. Folks don’t know who to believe and they believe the thing fitting them best, he was quoted saying. A smoker who finds it hard to quit may n’t want to believe that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful.
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