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WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE AGREE ON VAPING?

Why the Confusion About Vaping?

It would be true to say that just about any subject will inspire oppsoing opinions. It would be equally true to say that opinions are often driven by either vested interests or the needd to create the right optics.

Vaping has certainly proved to be divisive.

The oposing opinions have created confusion, leaving many wondering exactly what to think about vaping.

Where did it all start?

Anti-smoking charity Action on Smoking and Health once called for journalists to be more careful with what they wrote about vaping. It seemed like every article written about electronic cigarettes always carried negative comments from supposed experts to balance out any positive ones.

It's little wonder smokers, vapers and the general public became confused. But if science is about finding the truth, why is there such disagreement?

The Politico, a politics focused newspaper, has carried several articles looking at " the toxic world " of ecig science.

While some may say that "toxic" is a bit of an exaggeration, long standing members of the vaping community and tobacco harm reduction advocates will attest that there have been many examples of scientists and public health experts deciding to play the persona and not the ball.

It has been a two-way street for attacks, as Linda McAvan will attest. The former MEP oversaw the EU committee driving through the very first legislation on ecig products, producing reports from 2013. It was a time when few knew about vapes and little research had been conducted.

The information that was in the public domain was broadly positive, yet the risk averse politicians on the committee were more concerned about what might be disocvered about vaping in the future.

McAvan and her peers managed to upset doctors, scientists, advocates and vapers in equal measure by either going too far or not far enough with their plans for the Tobacco Products Directive - a piece of piece of legislation described by one harm reduction expert as, "a gargantuan dog's breakfast , a gluttonous feast of uncooked ideas unfit for human consumption".

In hindsight, it is possible to see the reasons why politicians wished to be more cautious in their approach given the breadth of what everyone didn't know at the time.

What about the conflicting research?

As the years rolled by, the research papers began to appear in their tens, hundreds then thousands. Back then the industry was almost entirely dominated by ex-smokers who had quit smoking with the help of vapes. But as the evidence began to build supporting the reduced harm aspect of the products, the big companies and their lobbyists entered the arena.

Public health experts who had spent a career fighting the tobacco industry suddenly saw cigarette companies moving into the market with their versions of electronic cigarettes and worried that this was just another marketing ploy; after all, these were the same companies that once claimed smoking wasn't linked to cancer despite having evidence to the contrary.

The entry of the tobacco industry immediately cemented a polarisation within the academic and public health communities.

Independent minds saw vaping as a means to end the world's addiction to smoking, others stuck to their belief that nothing this collection of businesses were involved with could ever be for the public good.

While small independent vape manufacturers had prided themselves on their self-regulation, the Johnny-come-latelies were more preoccupied with market share acquisition and engaged in some very dubious practices.

The trouble has been that politicians and public health agencies in most countries adopted a position based on concern and uncertainty.

Professor John Britton told Politico, "You sort of paint yourself into a corner where if you say, at the outset, 'I don't like the look of this, let's ban it,' and then gradually evidence comes along, say, that banning it might not be quite a good idea, you've either got to have the courage to say, actually, 'I've got the call
wrong' and change your position. Or you just hunker down. And the WHO has taken that approach ."

What about personal opinion and vested interest?

The professor's comment partly explains what has gone wrong in research too. A small cohort of vocal public health specialists came out strongly against vaping in 2012/13 (despite one of them admitting that he knew absolutely nothing about it at the time).

Two of them became embroiled in problems during some late night tired and emotional use of social media, then four of them published an incredible attack on one advocate in The Lancet in
response to her article calling for reasoned discussion. Amazingly, considering everyone was ostensibly working to the same end of reducing tobacco-related cancers, battle lines had been firmly drawn.

This spilled over into the research community. The E-Cigarette Summit was set up as an annual event to
discuss the latest findings looking at vaping and tobacco harm reduction. It was swift to exclude any researchers in receipt of funding from the tobacco industry. At the same time, independent researchers were speaking at The Global Forum on Nicotine, doing the same thing. But in 2021, the first event
following the Covid outbreak, emails began popping up in academics' inboxes threatening them with the removal of their research funding or their university posts if they continued to attend.

It just so happens that those independent researchers were all responsible for positive findings supporting ecigs as a tool to quit smoking. Meanwhile, negative studies continue to pour out of the University of California, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and others.

It appears that the reason these institutions were coming up with opposing findings to independent researchers in the UK came down to the nature and scale of the funding they received to conduct their work.

They are all beneficiaries of millions of dollars coming from the billionaire Michael Bloomberg - who has
spent almost half a billion dollars on promoting banning all vapes and also happens to be the World Health Organization's Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases ...hence the WHO's ongoing opposition to all e-cig products.

Personal outlooks, morals hurt feelings and perceived slights have influenced the debate. Influential people who disagree with any form of nicotine use drive one side, pragmatists using evidence-based reasoning are on the other - and societies are caught in the middle, confused.

A Question of Fear

But perhaps the greatest driver of the confusion has been fear. The fear of health issues with vaping being discovered and the fear of vaping increasing youth addiction. That fear has inspired caution in politicians and so has lead to extreme measures including the banning of certain products or of vaping in general.

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