Cape Town - More than 120 public health and medical professionals and authorities from 31 countries, including South Africa, have added their names to a letter urging the World Health Organisation (WHO) to investigate the effects of e-cigarettes.
The letter was delivered to WHO director-general Margaret Chan in Geneva this week. It said: “We, the 122 signatories, are writing to express our support for WHO’s evidence-based approach to determine the best way forward for public health to respond to Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS).”
It says a recent statement by a group of “specialists in nicotine science and public health policy” makes several assertions about ENDS’s marketing, emissions, harms and use that are either contradicted by available evidence, or for which no evidence is available.
“It is fundamental that WHO and other public health authorities not buy into the tobacco industry’s well-documented strategy of presenting itself as a ‘partner’.
“If the tobacco industry was committed to reducing the harm caused by tobacco use, it would announce target dates to stop manufacturing, marketing and selling its ‘more harmful’ products, rather than simply adding e-cigarettes to its product mix and rapidly taking over the e-cigarette market.
“By moving into the e-cigarette market, the tobacco industry is only maintaining its predatory practices and increasing profits,” it continues, adding that there is a “fundamental and irreconcilable conflict of interest” between the interests of the tobacco industry and public health.
The letter states that public health embraced cigarette filters and “low tar” cigarettes as harm-reduction strategies before manufacturers provided evidence, and at a time when the manufacturers were well aware that these technologies did not actually reduce harm, but were designed to promote cigarette sales by reassuring a concerned public that the new products were safer. “The negative consequences of these acts remain in cancer and heart disease hospital wards throughout the world.
“The aggressive marketing and promotion of e-cigarettes to youth is well-documented – and evidence from the US and Korea shows rapid growth in youth e-cigarette use, including disturbing rates among youth who have never smoked a cigarette,” it says.
One e-cigarette manufacturer warns parents that “kids may be particularly vulnerable” to the flavouring in its products.
The health professionals say manufacturers of ENDS are making a range of false and unproven claims. The evidence, they add, is insufficient to accept the assertions that ENDS are effective as a smoking cessation device.
“It is important to note that nicotine itself is not harmless, which is why strict regulatory measures are in place to control the marketing of nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation… Acute poisoning from nicotine is well established.” - Weekend Argus