‘Vaping not a healthy smoking substitute’

HealthJustice Philippines, a health group advocating for stricter tobacco control and higher taxes on tobacco products, yesterday stressed that vaping/e-cigarettes are not safer alternatives to cigarette smoking.

The group raised the point after a pro-vaping group, The Vapers Philippines, called on the Department of Health (DOH) to endorse vaping as a safer alternative to cigarette smoking. “The tobacco industry, which has run out of sensible arguments in favor of smoking, is now trying to position vaping as a healthy substitute to smoking. That is a lie. There is no such thing as a healthy substitute to smoking,” said Former Health Secretary Jaime Galvez Tan, a board member of HealthJustice Philippines.

“It would be the height of absurdity for the DOH as far as the national and international scientific and medical community is concerned, vaping or the use of electronic cigarettes is not completely safe because these still emit toxic chemicals,” Galvez Tan added.

Earlier, The Vapers Philippines called on to the DOH to endorse vaping as part of the government’s tobacco control program.

Study says… The group cited a report of the Health Improvement of Public Health England which claimed that vaping was 95 percent less harmful than cigarette smoking.

The same study recommended that e-cigarettes, alongside nicotine replacement therapies, be made available at hospital shops for smokers who want to quit.

The pro-vaping group appealed that the DOH should look into the report so that they could recommend e-cigarettes to smokers who want to quit. ‘Tumor promoter’ Tan, however, cited the World Health Organization’s 2016 report on the Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Electronic Non-Nicotine Delivery Systems which described nicotine as a tumor promoter.

For its part, the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance stressed that vaping” involves the inhalation of nicotine at the same levels as cigarettes and can maintain nicotine addiction.”