Activists urge WHO to give vaping a chance

Seventy public health experts and anti-smoking advocates urged the World Health Organization to adopt a more positive attitude towards cigarettes and other alternatives to smoking "that could lead more quickly to an epidemic of diseases caused by smoking.

Their joint letter to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO, aims to influence this week's conference on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Geneva, which defines the international health policy in this area.

The appeal illustrates what Clive Bates, former head of the UK's Action Group on Tobacco and Health and a signatory of the letter, described as a "big divide in the public health community."

On one side, the "risk reduction" approach advocated by the 70 signatories. This means that getting nicotine through products that do not burn tobacco, especially through vaping, is far less dangerous than smoking – and should be encouraged to wean people from smoking.

The other approach dominates thinking within the WHO and the Framework Convention that it administers. This favors strong regulation or an outright ban on what are known as various nicotine delivery systems (Ands) or even (nicotine delivery systems) because their health effects do not occur. have not been sufficiently studied and that they can be a bridge for nicotine addiction and tobacco.

According to a report prepared by the convention secretariat for this week's meeting, global sales rose from $ 2.76 billion in 2014 to $ 8.61 billion in 2016 and are expected to exceed $ 26 billion in 2023 Terminals are banned in 30 countries and availability varies widely.

In their letter, risk-reduction advocates, most of whom are university or medical faculty, urged WHO not to let uncertainty about the long-term effects of ecigarettes block their introduction. .

"It is true that we will not have complete information on the impacts of new products before they have been used exclusively for several decades – and given complex patterns of use, we run the risk of never have any, "they wrote. "But we already have enough knowledge based on the physical and chemical processes involved, the toxicology of emissions and the exposure markers, to be sure that these non-combustible products will be much less harmful than smoking."

Bates said the suspicion of ecigarettes inside and outside WHO was compounded by the fact that their development was almost entirely in the private sector. "We also have the baggage of the tobacco industry in these products," he said.

WHO can not force governments to take specific measures to remove (or promote) e-cigarettes, but any decision taken at the Framework Convention meeting will play an important role in public debate.