• Experts confirmed that scientific evidence has proven the ability of smoke-free alternatives to help millions quit smoking
Amman – A number of representatives of the British Parliament, doctors and health organizations concerned with combating smoking launched an attack on the recent report issued by the World Health Organization in which it calls for banning the availability of electronic cigarettes, stressing that the organization based its report on distorted scientific evidence to fit its previously specified conclusion to ban these products. Or to put in place strict laws regarding their regulation and treatment with the same laws as more dangerous traditional cigarettes.
For its part, the Philippines-based Public Health Advocacy Organization announced its rejection of the report, saying: “The organization stands as an obstacle to the significant progress that has been made in the field of public health over the past two decades regarding smokers switching to alternative smoke-free products.” The head of the Quit Forever organization, Dr. Lorenzo Mata Jr., emphasized that a lot of scientific evidence has proven that alternative smoke-free products, including electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco, and chewing tobacco, have helped millions of smokers in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and Sweden to quit. Successfully, denouncing the World Health Organization’s continued rejection of electronic cigarettes despite all this evidence.
In addition, the World Health Organization provided data indicating that the global market for electronic cigarettes witnessed growth from $7.806 billion in 2015 to $22.349 million in 2022, while significant growth occurred between 2018 and 2022, in the market for disposable electronic cigarettes. By 116%, to include more than 550 thousand different products.
Dr. Mata added that the World Health Organization’s diagnosis of the situation is flawed, because it failed to acknowledge the significant reduction in exposure to harmful substances resulting from smokers switching to electronic cigarettes and other smoke-free alternative products, or to acknowledge the fact that these alternative products work better for many. of smokers compared to traditional smoking cessation treatments. He said: “E-cigarettes do not threaten public health, although they are not completely risk-free. Rather, they provide smokers with a safe way out to quit, and classifying these innovative products as a new threat to public health is worrying. Talk about That continuing to smoke traditional cigarettes is better than switching to electronic smoking is “obviously wrong.” Dr. Mata noted that many countries, including the Philippines, have chosen to embrace scientific evidence and regulate the use of innovative smoke-free alternative products such as e-cigarettes to provide smokers with better options to quit smoking.
For her part, Member of Parliament and Under-Secretary of Health in the United Kingdom, Andrea Leadsom, said: “There will be discussions about progress made in the field of tobacco control during COP “In helping adults to stop smoking, the priority is to help and protect our citizens from the dangers of smoking. Britain has a world-leading approach to reducing the harms of tobacco and nicotine and will continue to do so.”
As for the British Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party in the South, Andrew Lower, he said: “We know that the World Health Organization has a skeptical approach towards low-risk products, including e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, and nicotine pouches, believing that these products represent a health risk, and that “In contrast to the approach taken by the UK to tobacco control, which is an international leader in smoking control.”
The Quit Forever organization stressed that countries that banned alternative products, including electronic cigarettes, did not succeed in eliminating electronic smoking, but rather unintentionally created an unregulated underground market that poses risks to public health due to the absence of regulatory standards, calling on state governments to regulate Trade these modern products.
Commenting on a similar WHO report that had been published earlier, Director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London, Professor Peter Hajek, said: “Given the enormous benefits that this shift will bring to public health, it is surprising that the World Health Organization It has adopted an anti-vaping stance that risks derailing this progress, as the new report calls for a ban on potentially less harmful alternatives while allowing the free sale of tobacco. This report misrepresents the evidence and should come with a prominent health warning.
Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, Professor John Britton, confirmed that the World Health Organization still fails to distinguish between tobacco smoking addiction, which leads to millions of deaths annually, and nicotine addiction, which does not.
