UK: Top Doctor Worried

England’s outgoing chief medical officer, Sally Davies, has expressed concern about the long-term consequences of vaping, saying it could be a “ticking time bomb.”

Davis shared her views in an interview with Civil Service World after a sixth person is confirmed to have died of a mysterious disease linked to vaping.

Her comments are remarkable given England’s accommodating stance on vaping. In 2015, Public Health England (PHE) published a report suggesting that vaping could be 95 percent less harmful than normal cigarettes, and the agency has promoted e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool.

Davies conceded evidence has accumulated to suggest that e-cigarettes may help as a smoking cessation tool but did not believe the evidence is hard yet.

John Newton, director of health improvement at PHE, previously said that although the agency was aware of the risks, “there is widespread academic and clinical consensus that while not without risk, vaping is far less harmful than smoking.”

Regarding the spate of deaths in America, Martin Dockrell, head of tobacco control at PHE, said, “A full investigation is not yet available, but we’ve heard reports that most of these cases were linked to people using illicit vaping fluid bought on the streets or homemade, some containing cannabis products, like THC, or synthetic cannabinoids, like spice.

“Unlike the U.S., all e-cigarette products in the U.K. are tightly regulated for quality and safety by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and they operate the Yellow Card Scheme, encouraging vapers to report any bad experiences.

“Our advice remains that e-cigarettes are a fraction of the risk of smoking, and using one makes it much more likely you’ll quit successfully than relying on willpower alone. But it’s important to use U.K.-regulated e-liquids and never risk vaping homemade or illicit e-liquids or adding substances, any of which could be harmful.”

Davies is not the first British medical professional to raise concern about vaping. Earlier, Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine urged PHE to stop promoting e-cigarettes as a means to helping smokers quit.

England’s e-cigarette policies have come in for criticism from abroad as well.

Charlotta Pisinger, chair of the European Respiratory Society Tobacco Control Committee, questioned whether e-cigarettes really helped smokers quit.

“It is important to remember that none of these very, very rich tobacco companies and e-cigarette companies have registered their product as a smoking cessation product,” she said. “The only reason why they haven’t done it is [that] they have no evidence that vaping is a good cessation tool. If it was effective, they would have tried to have it approved.”