Vaping Post: What do you retain from the year 2016?
Pierre Bartsch: Belgium was in a tricky situation because nicotine has been forbidden in e-cigarettes until January 2016. Our Minister of Health followed the recommendations of the Belgian Superior Health Council (SHC) that declared the e-cigarette was not a threat for public health, rather a source of hope.
Vaping Post: What are your expectations for 2017?
“I dread the competition that will take place with the forthcoming marketing of heated tobacco products” -P. Bartsch
Pierre Bartsch: I have the feeling that e-cigarette is going to progress. I believe that vapers are now so convinced that e-cigarettes are less harmful than combusted tobacco, baptised “the killer”, that they fear to return to smoking. It’s a good prevention line. I dread the competition that will take place with the forthcoming marketing of heated tobacco products. Big Tobacco companies have unlimited fundings to carry out emission studies, which is not the case of independent manufacturers. Based on my scientific readings, the overall toxicity of heat-not-burn cigarettes is higher than the e-cigarette.
C’est une bonne nouvelle que la cigarette électronique soit considéré enfin comme un espoir et non un frein pour la santé publique.
Heat not burn is just another harm reduction product that can very likely help many people get off of combustable tobacco. Why would someone fear another harm reduction product. Of course this is coming from the EU which has banned snus, the most proven tobacco harm reduction product out there. Consumer choice is a good thing.
“threat” plutôt que “thread” je suppose, bien qu’avec la transposition de la TPD en Belgique (contre laquelle les acteurs de santé ne semblent pas avoir agi), la vape ne tienne qu’à un fil, cisaillé par les avertissements mensongers, les coûts prohibitifs, les interdictions absurdes.
c’est corrigé merci Claude 😉