WHO Updates Ecig Q & A
The World Health Organisation has updated its ‘Q & A’ on electronic cigarettes and vaping - and it is still appalling
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by Dave Cross
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Michael Bloomberg is currently the WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries. This in conjunction with the millions of dollars he has given the WHO gives him influence over WHO policy and the position statements.
“The Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use is implemented though five partner organisations: the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the World Health Organisation and the World Lung Foundation.”
Are e-cigarettes dangerous?
The WHO says that electronic cigarettes “contain harmful emissions.”
It sticks to the false claim that e-cigarette emissions contain “toxic substances that are harmful to both users, and non-users who are exposed to the aerosols second-hand.”
It should be noted that the UK Health Security Agency states: “Public Health England’s 2018 evidence review found that to date, there have been no identified health risks of passive vaping to the health of bystanders.”
The WHO also repeats the thoroughly debunked claim that nicotine severely impacts brain development and causes “learning and anxiety disorders”.
It adds that “nicotine is highly addictive”, independent British research disagrees, and that vapes are a gateway to smoking for teens – again, soundly debunked.
Despite Stanton Glantz having to withdraw his study, the WHO still maintains that vaping causes “heart disease and lung disorders”. There is no concrete evidence to support this from hospital patients.
Also, it ignores the potential of harm reduction by claiming “nicotine exposure in pregnant women can have similar consequences for the brain development of the foetus”, forgetting that vaping is at least 95% safer than smoking and pregnant smokers notoriously struggle to quit smoking.
Do e-cigarettes (ENDS) cause lung injuries?
The WHO sticks with the lie that vaping causes lung injuries: “There is growing evidence that ENDS could be associated with lung injuries and in recent times e-cigarette and vaping have been linked to an outbreak of lung injury in the USA.”
Are e-cigarettes more or less dangerous than conventional tobacco cigarettes?
They still make absolutely no mention of the accepted figure of vaping being “at least 95% safer than smoking”, maintaining the prohibitionist stance that, “the safest approach is not to use either.”
It laughably justifies this approach by saying people could put anything in their liquid, making them dangerous, and products differ from each other.
What are the policy options for regulating ENDS?
The WHO still advocates that vaping should be banned, but where it isn’t, countries should:
- Banning or limiting advertising, promotion, and sponsorship
- Banning flavours
- Limit product characteristics
- Ban vaping where smoking is banned
- “Preventing unproven health claims”
- Ban trade groups from lobbying
What role do ENDS play in smoking cessation?
The WHO still refuses to accept that vaping helps smokers quit, saying the evidence is “inconclusive” – even though every public health organisation in the United Kingdom accepts that the evidence is undeniable.
It wants to stick with the “tried and tested interventions” that have failed generations.
What the World Health Organisation really needs to do is ditch its poisonous funding source and accept the independent evidence from Britain. The ideologically driven lies and half-truths it continues to spread is costing lives.
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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