The government is launching a new campaign in order 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 amount of sticky black tar that accumulates in the lungs of a heavy smoker, collected in a bell jar. By contrast, the same 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 to an e-cigarette would be a reduced amount harmful than smoking. This demonstration highlights the devastating harms caused by every cigarette and helps people that vaping is certainly going 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 dangers without looking at people cigarettes. A lab study Birmingham University in August, for instance, claimed that vaping could harm cells in the lungs. Producing authors said they decided not to believe e-cigarettes were more harmful than ordinary cigarettes, they suggested that over 20 or 30 years there might be a direct effect and urged cautious scepticism about the safety of vaping.
Martin Dockrell, head of the tobacco control programme at PHE, said all of the scientists in the area had ambitions to enhance health. We in order to think of our scientists as being detached about these things, but actually the scientists included in this area on both sides are deeply passionate about it, he said.
Studies about the potential health risks of chemicals in e-cigarettes run prominently in the media content. Some were misleading and others were contradictory, said Dockrell. People don’t know who to think and they believe the thing that will fit them best, he said. A smoker who finds it in order to quit may n’t want to believe that e-cigarettes are far less harmful.
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