The World Health Organisation (WHO) have published a report on May 23rd 2024 examining vaping and young people.
As you can imagine it is very “Anti Vaping” and not necessarily accurate.
You can download the publication here “Hooking the next generation: how the tobacco industry captures young customers“.
I will be honest, I am feeling a bit nauseous as I write this, so subjecting myself to the 28 pages of anti-vaping bull crap churned out by WHO is not ideal.
But things do get very interesting!
Science Media Centre
The Science Media Centre website published some expert reactions to the claims in the report and it is joyous reading.
You can view the whole article here “expert reaction to the report ‘Hooking the next generation: how the tobacco industry captures young customers’”
The Science Media Centre (SMC) is a collection of scientists who provide accurate and evidence based information. They mainly focus on controversial or poorly informed media output.
Two experts reacted to the report and I will post snippets of their responses.
Prof Nick Hopkinson, Professor of Respiratory Medicine, Imperial College London agrees that the tobacco industry in targeting children.
However Dr Sarah Jackson, Principal Research Fellow, UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, University College London absolutely ripped WHO a new one…
“This report, and the accompanying press release, make claims that do not accurately reflect current evidence on e-cigarettes.”
“…numerous observational studies that find people who try to quit smoking with an e-cigarette are around twice as likely to be successful in their quit attempt than those who try to quit without using e-cigarettes. In addition, population-level trends show that as more people try to quit smoking with e-cigarettes, the success rate of quit attempts increases.”
“The report also suggests it is misleading to suggest that e-cigarettes offer a form of harm reduction compared to smoking cigarettes. Large evidence reviews, conducted independent of industry, consistently conclude that while vaping is not risk-free, it poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking tobacco.”
And finally this is my favourite bit…
“The press release states that ‘e-cigarette use increases conventional cigarette use, particularly among non-smoking youth’. That e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking is a widespread concern, based on observational studies that show young people who vape are more likely to subsequently start smoking than those who do not.
However, little evidence currently suggests this association is causal: just because vaping precedes smoking does not mean vaping causes smoking. If that were the case, we would expect to see declines in smoking decrease or reverse when rates of vaping increase. If anything, we currently see the opposite pattern: larger declines in smoking among age groups with greater increases in vaping.”
High five to Dr Jackson!
