A group of renowned tobacco control researchers has endorsed vaping as an alternative to smoking.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Dr. Kenneth Warner, the Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Public Health at the University of Michigan, has published a research review in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Public Health endorsing vaping as a less risky alternative to the smoking of combustible tobacco cigarettes.
Filter Magazine reports that Warner, with some of the most respected nicotine use addiction and tobacco researchers in the United States, has opted to endorse vaping and smoke-free nicotine delivery as a potential strategy to eliminate cigarettes. “Our concern is that much of the public health community—certainly the media, and very much legislators—haven’t really heard the other side of the story,” Warner told Filter reporters.
“Our hope, candidly, is given the origins of this paper, and the authorship of the paper, that it will draw some serious attention,” Warner said, speaking on the behalf of the author authors to the article published in the journal.
Besides Warner, experts like Raymond Niaura of the New York University School of Global Public Health or Neal Benowitz of the University of California San Francisco, are coauthors of the evidence review. Other researchers include Harry Lando (University of Minnesota), Nancy Rigotti (Massachusetts General Hospital), Robert West (University College London), Caryn Lerman (University of Southern California), among several other researchers.
“Opponents focus on e-cigarettes’ risks for young people, while supporters emphasize the potential for e-cigarettes to assist smokers in quitting smoking,” notes Warner et al in the abstract of the evidence review. “Most US health organizations, media coverage, and policymakers have focused primarily on risks to youths. Because of their messaging, much of the public—including most smokers—now consider e-cigarette use as dangerous as or more dangerous than smoking.”
“By contrast, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that e-cigarette use is likely far less hazardous than smoking. Policies intended to reduce adolescent vaping may also reduce adult smokers’ use of e-cigarettes in quit attempts.”
