WHO’s Earlier Anti-Vaping Statement Draws Response From UKVIA and Other Tobacco Harm Reduction Group

The World Health Organization's call to combat e-cigarettes has drawn strong criticism from tobacco harm reduction advocates.

On December 14, this global health agency issued a statement urging action to prevent the use of e-cigarettes and combat nicotine addiction.

"E-cigarettes as consumer products have not been proven to effectively help people quit smoking at the population level," the WHO wrote. "On the contrary, concerning evidence has emerged that is detrimental to public health."

In its announcement, the WHO described nicotine-containing e-cigarettes as highly addictive and harmful to health. "Although the long-term health effects are not fully understood, it has been established that they produce toxic substances, some of which are known to cause cancer, while others increase the risk of heart and lung diseases," the organization stated.

"Using e-cigarettes may also affect brain development, leading to learning disabilities in young people. Pregnant women exposed to e-cigarettes can adversely affect fetal development. Exposure to e-cigarette emissions also poses risks to bystanders."

To address the impact of e-cigarettes, the WHO encourages governments to ban e-cigarette flavors, limit nicotine concentrations, and impose taxes on e-cigarettes.

Tobacco harm reduction activists were shocked. "The WHO's latest stance on e-cigarette flavors is not only misleading but also seriously out of touch with scientific reality," said Michael Land, director of the World Smokers Alliance, in a statement.

"The WHO's push for a comprehensive ban blatantly ignores a wealth of scientific evidence that highlights the benefits of vaping compared to alternatives. Flavored e-cigarettes have been shown to increase the chances of successful quitting by 230% compared to non-flavored e-cigarettes. It is truly shocking to see such a critical public health tool being overlooked by an organization that should be at the forefront of harm reduction."

The UK Vaping Industry Association stated that the WHO's statement is based on unreliable research and predicts that these measures will have a "catastrophic" impact on public health.

"The WHO's attack on e-cigarettes is both inaccurate and misleading, further hindering smokers from making life-changing decisions to quit smoking," said John Dunne, director of the UK Vaping Industry Association, in a statement. "E-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than cigarettes and have accelerated the decline in smoking rates in the UK over the past decade."

"The WHO's criticism of e-cigarettes is based on unreliable research, and the implication that e-cigarettes have been proven to cause cancer is completely misleading, just like the claim that they harm young people's brain development, which is fundamentally untrue scare tactics."

"Banning flavored e-cigarettes will lead to more smokers and more smoking-related deaths. In fact, according to a March 2023 One Poll survey, 80% of e-cigarette users believe that the availability of flavors is an important part of their quitting process. 24% of respondents said that a ban on flavors could lead them to start smoking again, which could affect over 1.1 million people in the UK."

"Restricting adult access to e-cigarettes has caused catastrophic consequences around the world, such as in Australia, where this practice has led to a massive illegal black market and increased smoking rates."

Earlier this month, tobacco harm reduction experts expressed concerns about the direction of the FCTC in a special report published in Forniche.