Government's claim vaping is 95% safer than cigarettes 'is wrong'

Public Health England’s claim that vaping is 95% safer than smoking cigarettes is WRONG and outdated, researchers claim

• Tobacco experts said the claim is based on evidence more than seven years old
• E-cigarettes and the liquids used in them have become more potent since then
• The team said people are lured into a false sense of security by the safety claim
• Public Health England, a government department, has used the line since 2015 

Public Health England’s claim that e-cigarettes are 95 per cent safer than tobacco is outdated and misleading, according to scientists.

The government body stands by the claim – but Virginia Commonwealth University researchers said it’s based on old evidence and is no longer relevant.

E-cigarettes have changed ‘significantly’ since the studies on which the 95 per cent line is based, they said in an opinion piece.

But the team did not offer its own estimate on how much safer they are, only adding that vaping is definitely less harmful than smoking cigarettes.

They also said making vaping seem totally safe attracts people who never smoked in the first place, potentially leaving them hooked on nicotine.

The editorial, written by six experts based at the US university, comes as increasing numbers of health dangers are being reported by doctors.

The US is in the middle of a vaping illness crisis, with e-cigarettes thought to have struck down more than 2,500 people and killed 55.

Regulations in the US and UK are different, with American products allowed to contain more nicotine and be more aggressively advertised. 

Public Health England maintains that vaping is ‘at least 95 per cent less harmful’ than smoking tobacco. This image was used in a post on its Public Health Matters blog in October 2019

‘It doesn’t make any sense for us to claim that we know that it’s 95 per cent safer than combustible cigarettes,’ said Dr Thomas Eissenberg, one of the authors.

‘We’ve been studying cigarettes for the last 60 to 70 years and so we have a huge database with which we can look at how many people die from that behavior.

‘We don’t have anything near that kind of history with electronic cigarettes.

‘What we do know is that they are delivering toxicants to the human lung and that over repeated use, in some cases, we see health effects from those toxicants that e-cigarette users are inhaling.

‘People are using the claim as a reason to either keep using e-cigarettes if they started some time ago, or if they’ve never used nicotine before, they hear 95 per cent safer than combustible cigarettes and they say, “Well, that’s safe enough for me” and so then they start using.’ 

Dr Eissenberg is a director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for the Study of Tobacco Products, and published the piece alongside five colleagues.

They said the safety claim had been ‘widely publicized, notably by Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians’. 

They did not do a scientific study of the dangers of e-cigarettes but looked at the evidence on which the 95 per cent claim was first made in 2013. 

And since then, they said, the technology of the devices and the ingredients of the liquids have both changed, and more evidence has come to light of health dangers.

The e-cigarettes or inhaling devices themselves are now up to 20 times more powerful than they were in 2013, the researchers said, meaning they produce more chemicals in a puff.

There are thousands of flavouring liquids being sold around the world and they contain chemicals for which the effects of inhaling them aren’t known.

And liquids may now contain higher concentrations of nicotine, which has its own health risks and is highly addictive.

‘In addition to using different materials and more numerous heating coils, many e-cigarettes today can attain power output that exceeds that of most over-the-counter 2013 models by 10 to 20 times,’ the researchers wrote.

‘Greater power increases the potential harms of e-cigarette use because more aerosol is produced that exposes users to increased levels of nicotine and other toxicants.’

Health dangers scientists have associated with e-cigarettes include those posed by nicotine and chemicals called aerosols. 

MORE THAN 2,500 AMERICANS HOSPITALISED WITH VAPING-RELATED ILLNESS IN 2019

The US’s vaping illness crisis was forced into the limelight last year following a spate of deaths, and 55 people had died by the end of 2019.

Doctors officially recognised e-cigarettes were causing a specific health condition– vaping-associated pulmonary illness (VAPI) – for the first time last year. 

People suffered breathlessness, fever, cough, vomiting, headaches, dizziness and chest pain because of their e-cigarettes and 55 people in 27 states died.

Last year a total of 2,561 people needed hospital treatment because of the illness.

Most of the victims were male and under the age of 35, while the ages of those who died ranged from 15 to 75. 

Officials said a chemical called vitamin E acetate, which is mainly used in cannabis vaping products, was to blame for most of the cases. 

Dr Anne Schuchat, a deputy director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this month: ‘This is a serious clinical condition affecting young people across the country and it’s completely preventable.

‘It is clear that the outbreak represents a new phenomenon and not a recognition of a common syndrome that had evaded our attention.’ 

Nicotine is known to be able to damage brain development, and aerosols, when inhaled, can cause physical damage to the lungs because of heavy metals like lead, volatile organic compounds, and cancer-causing agents.

Vaping has also been linked to damage to blood vessels and an increased risk of stroke or heart attack. 

Public Health England repeated the 95 per cent safer claim as recently as October 2019 in a graphic posted on its Public Health Matters blog.

It has used the tagline since 2015 when it published an expert review of evidence and launched a campaign to encourage smokers to switch to e-cigarettes.

In a press release after a later review, in 2018, Professor John Newton, director for health improvement at PHE said: ‘Our new review reinforces the finding that vaping is a fraction of the risk of smoking, at least 95 per cent less harmful, and of negligible risk to bystanders.’ 

The Royal College of Physicians, a UK-based organisation which represents 37,000 doctors around the world, also stands by the claim.

In a statement to MailOnline today it said: ‘The Royal College of Physicians has previously stated that while vaping may not be completely “safe”, the hazard to health arising from long-term use of e-cigarettes available today in the UK is unlikely to exceed 5 per cent of the harm from smoking tobacco.’

The dangers of e-cigarettes are now being seen in real-life patients, particularly in the US.

Last year a total of 2,561 people needed hospital treatment because of a newly-identified condition called vaping-associated pulmonary illness (VAPI).

People suffered breathlessness, fever, cough, vomiting, headaches, dizziness and chest pain because of their e-cigarettes and 55 people in 27 states died.

Officials say a chemical called vitamin E acetate, which is mainly used in cannabis vaping products, was to blame for most of the cases.

And a study published earlier this week showed that e-cigarette users have been reporting health problems caused by their habit online for at least 12 years.

Until now, the issues – which included asthma, sore throats and coughs and colds – may not have been blamed on vaping, a relatively new phenomenon. 

Dr Eissenberg and his team’s editorial was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

MailOnline has contacted Public Health England for comment. 

E-CIGARETTES ‘NEARLY KILLED ME AT 16’

Ewan Fisher, now 19, was rushed to A&E in May 2017 after vomiting a neon green liquid and gasping for breath just four months after taking up e-cigarettes.

He had to be hooked up to life support in intensive care when his vital organs failed and an artificial lung was needed to pump oxygen through his body.

The teenager, from Nottingham, is believed to have suffered an exaggerated immune response to chemicals found in e-cigarette fluid. 

Mr Fisher was rushed to A&E after vomiting a neon green liquid and gasping for breath just four months after taking up vaping

He was diagnosed with hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), which sees the air sacs and airways in the lungs become severely inflamed.

The condition is triggered by an allergic reaction to inhaled dust, fungus, moulds or chemicals.

It has been linked to the vaping epidemic in the US, which has seen 40 people die and more than 2,000 hospitalised with mysterious lung diseases associated with the devices.

The tale was revealed by Nottingham University Hospitals Trust doctors in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Case Reports. 

Mr Fisher said: ‘I switched to vaping because I thought it would be healthier and I was really into my boxing at the time so wanted to feel fit.

‘In the run-up to going to hospital, I had a choking cough and I was struggling to breathe. My mum was really worried and took me to Queen’s Medical Centre.

‘I was really struggling to breathe and they rushed me into a side ward and it went downhill from there.

‘I ended up in intensive care and needed two forms of life support. I almost died.’

Mr Fisher said his health is now back to about 80 per cent of what it was but that he still suffers from mental health issues because of the ordeal.

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