Independent expert review confirms Vaping far safer than smoking
There is a lot of mis-information about vaping and e-cigarettes, and it’s always good to get independent facts on controversial and important topics.
Public Health England has published an independent expert review on e-cigarettes. Public Health England is part of the UK government’s Department of Health and Social Care.
The findings in the review may surprise you. If you use vaping, the review will reassure you. If you want to switch from smoking tobacco to vaping, then the review of the facts should encourage you to make the change. The sooner the better for your health and your pocket!
You can read the review in full here.
The main findings are:
- Vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking
- Switching completely from smoking to vaping conveys substantial health benefits
- E-cigarette use is associated with improved quit success rates and an accelerated drop in smoking rates across the uk
- Many thousands of smokers incorrectly believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking; around 40% of smokers have not even tried an e-cigarette
- There is much public misunderstanding about nicotine (less than 10% of adults understand that most of the harms to health from smoking are not caused by nicotine)
- The use of e-cigarettes in the UK has plateaued over the last few years at just under 3 million
- The evidence does not support the concern that e-cigarettes are a route into smoking among young people
PHE’s evidence review adds to a US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report on e-cigarettes, which concluded that the available evidence shows ‘e-cigarettes are likely to be far less harmful than combustible tobacco cigarettes.’
Professor John Newton, Director for Health Improvement at PHE said that someone is admitted to hospital from smoking every minute, with around 79,000 deaths a year in England alone.
“Our new review reinforces the finding that vaping is a fraction of the risk of smoking, at least 95% less harmful, and of negligible risk to bystanders. Yet over half of smokers either falsely believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking or just don’t know,” Professor Newton said.
“It would be tragic if thousands of smokers who could quit with the help of an e-cigarette are being put off due to false fears about their safety.”
Thank you to Public Health England for gathering and sharing the facts on vaping.
Let’s all go Smoke free!