EXCLUSIVE – The report of the High Council of Public Health should not recommend the e-cigarette in the smoking cessation.
Thorny. Vaping in France should not be recommended for smoking cessation by experts from the High Council of Public Health (HCSP), in the midst of writing a long-awaited report on e-cigarettes. Its members must indeed vote on the text of recommendations, the result of a long reflection, which will be given to the sponsors (DGS and Mildeca (1)) within two to three weeks.
A half-hearted report
According to our information, the High Council should not get too wet on this highly sensitive issue. While England is preparing to reimburse an e-cigarette in smoking cessation, in France, extreme caution will once again be required.
Because like society, the members of the High Council are still very divided on the attitude to adopt – precaution or pragmatism. “We feel that there are several chapels, different cultures,” explains an association representative, auditioned for the report. Not all members have the same software. “
Thus, while part of the HCSP tends to make the e-cigarette a risk reduction instrument capable of weaning tobacco users, another leans more towards the preventive approach, in the absence of scientific knowledge on its use. medium and long term toxicity. On the one hand, promote; on the other, prevent. Two approaches which seem indeed irreconcilable.
The High Council has tried to overcome this antagonism by organizing hearings with experts, associations, doctors. “But in the end, the report will be of the same ilk as what the HAS made [Haute Autorité de Santé, ndlr] », Specifies a source close to the file.
That is to say, he won’t say much. In unison with the HAS, it will not advocate the e-cigarette as a tool to help quit smoking, with all that such an approach implies – medical consultations, possible reimbursement of the substitute, information campaign for supervised use … Even if it will not deny the usefulness of the vapoteuse for smokers who seek to reduce or stop their consumption.
Many questions are therefore likely to remain unanswered after the publication of the report, as deputy Michèle Delaunay pointed out on Facebook.
In November, the HAS college wrote to justify its position that “the data in the literature on the efficacy and harmlessness of electronic cigarettes are still insufficient to recommend it for smoking cessation”. Four months later, the French health authorities do not seem to change their opinion.
(1) DGS: General Directorate of Health
Mildeca: Interministerial Mission for the Fight against Drugs and Addictive Behaviors
.
