LOCAL vaping groups have cited groundbreaking research that showed e-cigarettes are 95 percent less harmful than combustible cigarettes in response to claims by anti-vaping proponents that there is no evidence that e-cigarettes are less harmful than cigarettes.
Vishal Daswani, vice president of the Philippine E-cigarette Industry Association, took exceptions to claims made recently by an anti-vaping doctor that most of the chemicals in cigarette smoke are also present in e-cigarette vapor.
“This is untrue. Even Centers for Disease Control says e-cigarette aerosol generally contains fewer toxic chemicals than the deadly mix of 7,000 chemicals in smoke from regular cigarettes,” Daswani said.
Meanwhile, New Vois Association of the Philippines president Emer Rojas said the use of electronic cigarettes and vapes must be outlawed in the Philippines.
“It has been the position of NVAP that e-cigs and vapes must be banned until the Food and Drug Administration will be able to come up with its guidelines to protect public health,” said Rojas.
E-cigs are really a public health risk,” said Rojas, noting a Department of Health report last Friday that a 16-year-old female from Central Visayas has died after using e-cigarettes for six months.
Daswani cited the conclusions of “Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes,” a 2018 consensus study report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, that said there is conclusive evidence that completely substituting e-cigarettes for combustible tobacco cigarettes reduces users’ exposure to numerous toxicants and carcinogens present in combustible tobacco cigarettes.
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