IrishTimes: World Health Organisation misrepresenting evidence?

[LoveVanilla]

Is vaping dangerous or not? And is the World Health Organisation misrepresenting evidence?

...This was but one “scary” headline to appear following an unusually forthright press release from the WHO on the subject of e-cigarettes/vaping. And, notably, the odd format of its press document, in a question and answer style, was not backed by any new research or high-powered commission report.

For those of us who follow and interact with the WHO on a weekly basis, it is an unusual move for the UN agency. More PR than medical science...

...spreading “blatant misinformation” about the potential risks and benefits of e-cigarettes.

“There is no evidence that vaping is ‘highly addictive’,” Peter Hajek, director of the tobacco dependence research unit at London’s Queen Mary Hospital, said. “Less than 1 per cent of non-smokers become regular vapers. Vaping does not lead young people to smoking – smoking among young people is at [an] all-time low. There is clear evidence that e-cigarettes help smokers quit,” he added.

According to John Britton, director of the UK Centre for Tobacco & Alcohol Studies and a consultant in respiratory medicine at the University of Nottingham, “WHO misrepresents the available scientific evidence”.

I have to say I am surprised at the WHO’s one-sided intervention against a background of genuinely different views held by respected medics on both sides of the Atlantic. I just hope that whoever was behind the initiative sought backing from the office of WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Watch this space – the vaping wars have just begun.