LIFESTYLE | 'Vaping is far less harmful than smoking' -- UK group

An industry group in the United Kingdom has presented a plethora of scientific evidence and experts’ opinions showing that vaping, while not totally risk-free, is far less harmful than smoking combustible cigarettes.

The UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) said that “while vaping is not entirely risk-free, it is significantly less harmful than smoking – which claims around 80,000 lives every year in the UK alone.”

The UKVIA, a leading organization championing the benefits of shifting from smoking to vaping, made the statement after the vaping industry and vapers were excluded from discussions during a parliamentary committee stage of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

The group said the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), a government agency, maintains that vaping is “at least 95% less harmful than cigarettes.” The UKVIA added that vaping poses a “small fraction of the risks of smoking” and “completely switching from smoking to vaping conveys substantial health benefits.”

Sir Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, confirmed publicly that vaping is “much safer” than smoking, and the switch is a “positive health move”, the UKVIA said.
A study by Brunel University London found that the National Health Service “could save more than half a billion pounds per year if just half of England’s adult smokers switched to vaping,” the report added.
A 2019 investigation into reports of vaping causing lung illness in the U.S. found out that the cases stemmed from contaminated, illegal products containing THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, not legal nicotine vaping products.

Alice Davies, a health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said “headlines could be misleading as these cases were due to contaminants in illegal products and not linked to regular nicotine vaping.”

“There was no similar outbreak in the UK and the chemicals of concern are banned in the UK,” Davies said.

The OHID Nicotine Vaping in England: Evidence Update said there were “lessons to be learnt from the mislabeled US EVALI (electronic cigarette or vape associated lung injury) outbreak’ and that communications about EVALI should clearly separate vaping these illicit substances from nicotine vaping.

Cancer Research UK confirmed that “there have been no confirmed cases of popcorn lung reported in people who use e-cigarettes” and that vapes don’t cause lung injury.

The UKVIA also cited the latest data from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a public health charity, showing that “almost 4.5 million adults in Great Britain have used vaping to cut down on or completely stop smoking.”

The National Health Service (NHS) considers vaping “one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking,” while the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities reports that vaping products “remain the most common aid used by people to help them quit.”

James Tucker, head of health analysis at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), was quoted as saying that “vaping has played a ‘major role’ in reducing smoking rates across the UK…which are now at a record low.”

A comprehensive analysis by Cochrane, a global independent network of researchers in health, which looked at data from over 300 clinical trials involving more than 150,000 people, reveals that e-cigarettes are among the most effective aids available to help adult smokers quit.

The UKVIA also denied the correlation between regular vaping and taking up smoking. An ASH UK dossier called “Addressing Common Myths About Vaping,” reviewed by leading scientists, found that vaping is not a “proven gateway into smoking.”

The dossier noted that as e-cigarette use rose in England between 2010 and 2021, smoking rates among young people “continued to fall at least as rapidly as previously.” ASH UK said this “does not support the gateway hypothesis at a population level.”

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