Public Health England's E-Cig Review Finds Substantial Health Benefit For Smokers Who Switch To Vaping

Public Health England (PHE), part of the United Kingdom’s public healthcare system, has found that the evidence shows that there is substantial benefit to switching to vaping for smokers.

The finding comes as a result of a new e-cigarette evidence review conducted by leading independent tobacco experts. The review’s findings were unveiled by the U.K. government on February 6, 2018.

In addition to finding to substantial health benefit to smokers who switch completely to vaping, the review also found a lack of evidence to support the notion that e-cigarettes lead to smoking among youth as youth smoking rates are continuing to decline in the United Kingdom.

The other main findings from the review are as follows:

Electronic cigarettes may contribute to at least 20,000 people quitting smoking each year and there’s a chance they may be contributing to significantly more successful new quits each year.
E-cig use has plateaued over the past few years in the U.K., reaching just under 3 million users.
Less than 10% of the adults in the U.K. understand that the majority of the health concerns associated with smoking are arbitrary of nicotine.
Nicotine’s health implications are largely misunderstood by the public.
Thousands of cigarette smokers are under the misconception that vaping is no different from smoking as far as health risks are concerned.
The health risk to bystanders from second-hand vapor is negligible.

Touching on that last point briefly, a congressionally mandated report carried out by the National Academies of Sciences found e-cigarettes to likely be far less harmful than smoking cigarettes. Based on Public Health England’s findings, the evidence reviewed shows vaping to carry no more than 5% of the risk associated with smoking.