US vaping review is long overdue
SEVEN people in the US have died from vaping-related illnesses, sparking fears in the UK users will return to tobacco.
While the cases in the States have not yet been linked to a specific product or ingredient, American health officials urged consumers to quit altogether.
However, British vapers should not panic.
Products here, including food, undergo far less stringent controls than they do in the UK.
The first American e-cigarettes emerged more than a decade ago, with the assurance they would be less harmful than cigarettes and could even help people quit smoking.
But the US Food and Drug Administration has yet to review any of the products to determine whether they offer a benefit for public health.
While e-cigarettes in the US don’t contain tobacco that makes cigarettes carcinogenic, they do carry several other chemicals – the long-term health effects of which have not yet been tested.
The reports of the deaths in the US and more than 450 cases of lung illness tied to vaping have prompted calls for e-cigarettes to be banned in the UK.
While vaping isn’t completely risk-free, it remains far less harmful in Britain than smoking tobacco.
All UK e-cigarette products are tightly regulated for quality and safety by the government’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
Ideally, everyone would give up even vaping, but it would be wholly wrong to see the protections that the UK stringently enforces go up in smoke because lax American healthcare plays with fire.