Scientists Advise Against Suppressing E-Cigarettes

Open letter from 53 scientists comes in anticipation of WHO’s negotiations on tobacco policy later this year.

May 30, 2014

LONDON – A letter signed by more than 50 researchers and public health specialists is urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to "resist the urge to control and suppress e-cigarettes," according to a report from BBC News.

The letter says that e-cigarettes could be a "significant health innovation," but the U.K.'s Faculty of Public Health says it is too early to know whether benefits outweigh potential risks.

The WHO said it was still deciding what recommendations to make to governments. The open letter from the scientists was organized a part of a run-up to significant international negotiations on tobacco policy later this year.

The letter was signed by 53 researchers, including specialists in public health policy and experts such as Professor Robert West, of University College London, who published research last week suggesting that e-cigarettes are more likely to help people give up smoking than some conventional methods.

West told the BBC that e-cigarettes should be "regulated appropriate to what they are" and that they are "orders of magnitude safer" than tobacco cigarettes. He called for "bespoke regulation," including banning sales for to those under 18 and having marketing directed at those who already smoke.

Some of the letter’s other signatories work on research into tobacco science and smoking cessation. Three were involved in advising the U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on its guidelines about reducing the harm from tobacco.

The letter goes on to say: "These products could be among the most significant health innovations of the 21st Century — perhaps saving hundreds of millions of lives … If regulators treat low-risk nicotine products as traditional tobacco products ... they are improperly defining them as part of the problem. Regulators should avoid support for measures that could have the perverse effect of prolonging cigarette consumption.”

The organizers of the letter quote a leaked WHO document that refers to e-cigarettes as a "threat ... which could result in a new wave of the tobacco epidemic."

The WHO treaty on tobacco control currently covers 178 countries and 90% of the world's population.

A WHO spokesman told the BBC that the organization is currently working on recommendations for governments on the regulation and marketing of e-cigarettes and similar devices, as part of a paper that will be submitted to the parties of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control later this year.

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