Study Says Ecigs Benefit Users
Study Says Ecigs Benefit Users: New research claims that electronic cigarettes lead to a 21% benefit
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by Dave Cross
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The study was carried out by a team led by doctor David T. Levy – a professor at the Department of Oncology, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington. Their paper titled “The Application of a Decision-Theoretic Model to Estimate the Public Health Impact of Vaporized Nicotine Product Initiation in the United States” was published in the Nicotine & Tobacco Research journal.
The team used a computer model to predict the probably outcome of the widespread adoption of vaping as an alternative to smoking in order to estimate the benefits to society.
“Our study indicates that, considering a broad range of reasonable scenarios, e-cigarettes are likely to reduce cigarette smoking and not lead to offsetting increases in harm from the use of e-cigarettes and more deadly cigarettes,” said Levy.
“When we consider the plausible positive and negative aspects of e-cigarette use, we find vaping is likely to have a net positive public health impact. Unlike the previous studies, the current study distinguishes between young vapers who would not otherwise have taken up any nicotine product, and those who use e-cigarettes, who would otherwise have smoked traditional tobacco cigarettes. When both vaping groups are taken into account, the researchers found that benefit outweighs the harm.”
“Our model is consistent with recent evidence that, while e-cigarette use has markedly increased, cigarette smoking among youth and young adults has fallen dramatically,” Levy added. “Under most plausible scenarios, vaporised nicotine products [VNP] use generally has a positive public health impact. However, very high VNP use rates could result in net harms.”
Warning of the dangers posed by legislators and anti-vaping zealots, he went on to explain: “Overregulation of e-cigarettes might actually stifle the development and marketing of safer products that could more effectively displace cigarettes.”
The paper concludes: “The model incorporates transitions from trial to established VNP use, transitions to exclusive VNP and dual use, and the effects of cessation at later ages.” And, “based on current use patterns and conservative assumptions, we project a reduction of 21% in smoking-attributable deaths and of 20% in life years lost as a result of VNP use by the 1997 US birth cohort compared to a scenario without VNPs.”
It is only a theoretical model, giving the authors’ best guesses, but it is one that adds weight to a harm-reduction approach to legislation rather than a prohibition model favoured by the likes of Martin McKee and Simon Capewell.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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