Doctors, health professionals, and scientists publish an appeal for the reduction of the risks of tobacco, by taking into account the potential of the e-cigarette.
At the initiative of Dr Philippe Presles, member of the scientific committee of SOS Addictions, 120 doctors, health professionals and scientists are publishing this Wednesday a call in favor of electronic cigarettes.
While smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in France and Europe, the signatories of the appeal agree with the findings of the recent Public Health England report, an agency under the British Department of Health, and according to which vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking.
Make it the main smoking cessation device
Supported by the Interprofessional Federation of VAPE (FIVAPE), they specify in a press release that “with the help of vaping products, the government of Manuel Valls must initiate a real policy of reducing the risks of smoking. It is time to fight effectively against the ravages of tobacco, while the French smoking prevalence is, with 34% of smokers, among the highest in Europe ”, specify these specialists.
To counteract these bad figures, they recall that the report from Public Health England (equivalent to the HAS) found that the electronic cigarette had become “the main device for smoking cessation in Great Britain”. With results to the key, since across the Channel, the population of adult smokers is falling below the 18% mark.
This report therefore recommended the promotion of the e-cigarette to the general public and the medical profession, “on the strength of the observation that it is virtually harmless for smokers and non-smokers”, added these experts.
Against the ban on vaping in public places
A call that the French government did not listen to. In the Health bill which will be voted in the National Assembly in mid-November, the promotion of electronic cigarettes is now prohibited and its use will be banned in certain public places. “Those with children, in public transport and in closed and collective workplaces”, specified to Why actor Jacques Le Houezec, public health consultant specializing in tobacco dependence. And the petition to drive the point home. “In early November, the French government is preparing to do exactly the opposite by banning the promotion of electronic cigarettes and banning its use in public places,” he said.
Signatory of the appeal, Jacques Le Houezec affirms that there is “no scientific basis demonstrating that the vapor released by vapers presents any risk to health”.
And for Dr Philippe Presles, it would even be urgent to follow the English model, because “the damage” of the French “anti-e-cigarette” policy would already be visible: “tobacco sales are on the rise in France, after 3 years of decline undoubtedly linked to the boom in e-cigarettes, ”he says.
The recommendations of these activists are therefore simple. They ask the Minister of Health to approve all the conclusions of the report of Public Health England. They also demand that the French government also practice “a real policy of reducing the risks of smoking, relying on the full potential of the electronic cigarette”.
In France, tobacco kills 78,000 people each year.
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