England urges smokers to switch to e-cigs

Experts in England are trying to move people to vaping after reviewing evidence from government-backed authority Public Health England. Action on Smoking and Health agrees that e-cigs are much less harmful than tobacco.

The report from PHE says that vaping is of negligible risk to bystanders and is at least 95 percent less harmful. The report went on to say that there was much public misunderstanding about nicotine and that fewer than 10 percent of adults understand that the vast majority of harms from smoking are not cause by nicotine.

"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" says John Newton, a professor and director for health improvement at PHE.

This new report hits right after a U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report on e-cigs. This report summarized data from hundreds of scientific studies and also said that e-cigs are likely to be far less harmful than tobacco.

"The greatest quit success is among those who combine using an e-cigarette with support from a local stop smoking service."

Britain's National Health Service is now being asked to ensure that e-cigs are available in hospital shops along with other nicotine replacement products like gum and lozenges.

"We hope this report will... encourage the 40 percent of smokers who've failed to quit but never tried vaping to go ahead and switch" said Action on Smoking and Health.

(Reuters)


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