Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR) asks: “Are misconceptions about vaping harming our greatest opportunity to help reduce Yorkshire’s leading cause of early death?” Released today to mark National No Smoking Day, YCR has produced a thirty-two-minute film demystifying vaping and is working with the national media to combat myths about electronic cigarettes.
“The message is very clear. Vaping is better than smoking cigarettes”
Dr Amir Khan
YCR has teamed up with TV celebrity doctor Amir Khan, a working GP in Bradford, who until recently shared a sofa with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain (until the host parted ways with ITV under a cloud yesterday).
Khan stated: “As doctors, we learn about the dangers of smoking right from the offset. It can affect almost everybody system in a detrimental way. We know that cigarettes contain about 6,000 different dangerous chemicals. My view on vaping is that it is definitely better than cigarettes, I think for me as a GP vaping is a good halfway point between smoking and stopping smoking. If vaping helps you to stop smoking in the long term that is a good thing.”
YCR’s Paul Lambert commented: “Vaping has been around for more than a decade now and a Public Health England study revealed it is 95 per cent less harmful than smoking. It’s not risk-free but compared to smoking there’s a clear winner. There is a bit of a misunderstanding among smokers about vaping. We want to reinforce the idea of stopping smoking now. There are nicotine patches and other methods, but vaping is a much less harmful way of consuming nicotine.”
YCR’s Dr Kathryn Scott added: “We strongly believe there is a duty to the public to produce clear and evidence-based information on vaping products, so people know the facts. Vaping products can and should be used to help people quit for good.”
Vaping Demystified
Public Health England’s Martin Dockrell has been a staunch harm reduction advocate since joining PHE. He has been supporting the use of vaping to combat tobacco disease and death and features in the film. He said: “We have been following the evidence about vaping as it has been evolving, and what has become increasingly clear is that vaping is far less harmful than smoking and perhaps twice as effective as licensed medicines at helping smokers to quit.”
The film goes through all of the current myths surrounding vaping and also explains why they are being propagated and who by.
The New Nicotine Alliance’s vice chair Louise Ross said: “This short film is packed with good information about vaping – please do share it with your networks so we can turn the tide on misinformation about switching from smoking to vaping – it will save lives.”
Once again, Britain leads the world when it comes to putting across the facts about how vaping can reduce the harm smokers do to their bodies.
Source: planetofthevapes