A very public debate is raging in the laboratories, pubs, homes and media over the benefits or banning of e-cigarettes. But thankfully sense seems to be prevailing as new research claims that not only is vaping safer and cleaner, but as a result could save upwards of 50,000 smoker’s lives over the coming years.

Last week WHO, the World Health Organisation, announced that they felt a blanket ban should be introduced against e-cigarettes being used in workplaces and public buildings, sending shockwaves through the industry; but were they right?

Absolutely not, say University College London’s (UCL) Professor Robert West and Dr Jamie Brown who published a rebuke to the WHO announcement in the British Journal of General Practice this week stating that their claims were “distorted” and “alarmist commentaries dressed up as evidence”.

But who are these gentlemen to make such assertions? Only a couple of the country’s foremost experts on the subject who have been conducting leading research into smoking and e-cigarettes for years! But they are also not alone, as more and more from the scientific and medical communities start to speak out in favour of e-cigarettes. Inan independent assessment of the research used by WHO,carried out by the National Addiction Centre at King’s College London and the Tobacco Dependence Unit at Queen Mary University,and published in the journal Addiction, the assumptions made by the World Health Organisation were described as“misleading”.

WHO’s announcement was simply a knee-jerk reaction to the soaring popularity of a practice which makes bold claims about helping smokers to quit, but that some feel had not been investigated deeply enough to endorse. But their review of e-cigarettes has immediately been disputed as not only wrong, but also based on misinterpretation of data. So what are the issues WHO and others were worried about, and are they right to be concerned?

  1. Suggestions that e-cigarettes could be as harmful as tobacco are just plain “bizarre”

Professor West and Dr Brown’s own research suggests that over 6,000 premature deaths could be prevented for every million smokers who change to vaping. And with the mass of toxins in cigarettes compared with the four ingredients in the e-liquids that form the vapour in e-cigarettes (all of which are considered safe by the FDA in America), claims that vaping is as harmful as smoking are just“bizarre”.

  1. Claims that e-cigarettes are ‘re-normalising’ smoking are evidentially refuted

Some fear that vaping will make smoking so cool that non-smokers will take it up. However, the Smoking Toolkit Study, conducted monthly to assess those smoking from within the 16+ age group in England, shows that since the introduction of e-cigarettes quitting rates have in fact increased and total numbers of smokers have fallen.

  1. Concerns that e-cigarettes could hold people back from quitting are based on misinterpreted data

As e-liquids contain varying strengths of nicotine, some have worried that smokers could simply transfer dependence to vaping, discouraging quitting. Despite the fact that this ignores the plethora of harmful chemicals that cigarettes contain which e-liquids do not, Professor West and Dr Brown say that this view is based on a misinterpretation of survey data. They have said that, if reviewed correctly,the data shows that people who vape are in fact more likely to quit. UCL ran a five-year study on e-cigarettes and smoking between 2009 and 2014 which concluded that those looking to quit were 60% more likely to be successful when using e-cigarettes rather than over-the-counter nicotine replacement therapies or willpower alone.

So, this today is our call to WHO to rethink your sweeping claims. And, in the face of mounting and irrefutable evidence supporting vaping as a money saving, quit aiding, lifesaving solution to smoking, we feel your lab coat wearing chaps should probably take another look at the research that some esteemed colleagues seem to think they’ve misunderstood at a fundamental level!

Anthony Mixides