A BRITISH tobacco harm reduction (THR) expert has learned from reviews of scientific evidence that vaping carries just a small fraction of the harm caused by smoking.
Dr. Debbie Robson of Queens College London said the latest independent review commissioned by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, formerly known as Public Health England, the highest health authority in the UK, found that vaping exposes people to much lower levels of toxicants compared to the risks of smoking.
“In terms of health risks, we said that vaping imposes a small fraction of the risk of smoking in the short to medium term. Consistently, vaping exposes people to much lower level, significant lower levels of risk than smoking,” Dr. Robson said.
Dr. Robson, who is a mental health nurse, a co-author of the annual evidence reviews on e-cigarettes, and a trustee of the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), made the statement during the E-Cigarette Summit held on December 9, 2022.
It was the third time since 2015 that the review looked into harm caused by smoking and vaping, following the 2015 and 2018 reports. The latest review included international contributions as well as heated tobacco products.
Dr. Robson’s team, which looked at biomarkers of exposure to measure how much substance or toxicant is present in the body, found that biomarkers are far lower for vaping than for smoking.
The review sought to inform government and policy makers about prevalence and characteristics of vaping among adults and young people in England. It included systematic reviews on the health risks of vaping compared with smoking, and vaping compared with non-use, as well as harm perceptions about vaping and smoking.
The latest report recommended that in terms of policy, the enforcement of age restriction instead of regulations on vaping and smoking be improved to reduce access for both products.
Dr. Robson also said the increased use of disposables should be monitored and researched with improved regulatory oversight. “Where appropriate, proportionate action should be taken to reduce the appeal to young people,” she said.
She said the latest report covered 413 studies since 2018 and used the list of toxicants identified by the World Health Organization, such as carbon monoxide, tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Results of the meta-analysis show that vaping exposes people to much lower level of toxicants, compared to the levels of risk in smoking.
Dr. Robson said, however, that the impact of vaping depends on so many things. “It depends on who is vaping, the person’s previous and current smoking history, medical history and all the comorbidity conditions they’ve got and the reasons that they’re vaping. You also have to take into account where people live and all the background exposure,” she also said.
Dr. Robson said the results of the latest review are important for the people who smoke and who vape, as well as those who think about taking up vaping.
The 10th anniversary edition of The E-Cigarette Summit was held at the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in London, which also marked 60 years since the RCP first published its groundbreaking report, “Smoking and Health,” which laid the foundations for tobacco control.
Participants in the summit concluded that despite decades of tobacco control efforts and public health education on the harms of smoking, the decline in smoking rates has been frustratingly slow and smoking remains the single biggest cause of preventable death.
