I don't believe any e-cigarette research institute would agree with either of the claims that: 1) vaping is well studied. It is about 10-20 years from being well studied as most of the major research institutes are just starting (or are in grant application stage). 2) vaping is less harmful than the health effects of a high sugar diet (not to discount that a high sugar is very bad)
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent...
I'm just going to say that this looks like the least rigorous assessment that I've ever seen. As far as I can tell, they went to a conference and over a 2 day period collectively came up with a list of "evaluation criteria" which is not at all limited to health. It includes (among other things) crime, environmental damage, family adversities, economic cost, community,etc, etc).
Then they scored each product against each criteria on a 100 point scale. This is not an evidenced based approach. It was a bunch of people sitting in a room arguing with each other how they think it should be scored.
Then they weighted the results. Finally they gave each a final score of "harm" base on a 100 point scale. Cigarettes ranked at 100. Pipe smoking ranked at 21 (nearly 5x "safer" than cigarettes!) ENDS ranked about 4 (based on what I can guess from the graph). There's your "at least 95% 'safer'" tag line.
Oh and the committee included a consultant working with companies on tobacco dependence, another consultant working with smoking cessation products, and another consultant working for an e-sig distributor. Several of the committee received grants from the nicotine industry.
[1] - https://www.karger.com/article/FullText/360220 [2] - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
Here's an example of a gaping gap in research on e-cigs: "To our knowledge, there are no relevant study in humans on carcinogenic effects from pure nicotine including products, such as NRT and e-cigarettes." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/
It's really hard to summarize a body of research if there's barely any research been done in an area.
> After adjusting for these variables, e-cigarette users were 34 percent more likely to have a heart attack, 25 percent more likely to have coronary artery disease and 55 percent more likely to suffer from depression or anxiety. Stroke, high blood pressure and circulatory problems were no longer statistically different between the two groups.
> Cigarette smoking carries a much higher probability of heart attack and stroke than e-cigarettes, but that doesn't mean that vaping is safe
From the CDC (to get a sense of the magnitude of the health effects of smoking [0]:
> People who smoke cigarettes are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do not smoke.
None of these statistics talk about the base rate at all, which (imo) makes them very difficult to interperet, but I am too lazy to look up and factor in the base rate myself, so I just pretend that these statistics are meaningful without them.
To look at this from another perspective; we may not have studied e-cigarettes very much, but we have extensive studies showing the traditional cigarettes are very, very bad for your health. And, even absent empircal studies, we have strong theoretical reasons to believe that e-cigarettes are less bad; and the empirical studies seems to back this conclusion up.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm
You are correct that it's entirely possible that e-cigarettes are not in the same magnitude of impact as tobacco. However, it's also possible it may be just as bad. The research is too early stage. What I do know (anecdotally), is that most of the researchers in the field have a gut feeling that it is a large issue. Specifically, early findings are showing the product has convinced an entire new generation of teens that vaping is cool even while they believe smoking is gross. It is reseting the gains made in the 80s and 90s on reducing teen addiction to smoking. There is also research to indicate it has a strong impact on health. Probably not as strong as tobacco, but if you are more likely to use it as a teen because you perceive it as healthy and cool, the net effect on public health is just as bad. i.e. the individual effect might be less, but the overall net effect on society is more since its a more compelling product (for young people).
We are probably 5-10 years from knowing with solid peer reviewed research of knowing whether vaping is more like eating a few donuts a day or whether it's closer to smoking a pack a day.
Most studies I’ve seen on e-cigarettes have had faulty controls or are designed with unrealistic scenarios in mind, I hope that changes because proper study is certainly warranted.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-nicotine-all-b...
FWIW, my friend's psychiatrist recommends nicotine gum.
Was this same person? "Reuters’ reporter Kate Kelland, who has a history of cozy relations with a group partly funded by agrichemical company interests," ( https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/monsanto-spin-doctors-t...)
> ...
> The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the pathobiologic effects of long-term, high dose nicotine treatment of A/J mice susceptible to tobacco product-induced lung carcinogenesis.
These were mice genetically engineered for increased cancer susceptibility and also given insane dosages. This study is designed to answer whether nicotine is not carcinogenic. That is, if the result was negative then it would suggest any future study would be wasted effort. A positive result doesn't say anything about the safety of nicotine, per se; just that there remains the possibility it may be carcinogenic. That's very different as many absolutely benign substances could also produce this result.
"To our knowledge, there are no relevant study in humans on carcinogenic effects from pure nicotine including products, such as NRT and e-cigarettes." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/
That's the first time I heard that. Do you have any links to this evidence?