ban e-cigarettes are much like keeping emergency exit closed because the fire stairs are slippery, believes Norwegian researcher.
Several researchers, Karl Erik Lund at the National Institute of Drug Abuse (SIRUS) at the helm, believes it is time that we get a radically smoking measures work.
– Probably could most of these deaths have been avoided if the smokers’ nicotine uptake instead had occurred from an electronic cigarette, says Lund.
Health using e-cigarettes can not be excluded, says the researcher.
See also: E-cigarettes can cause health revolution
– But it is beyond doubt that these cigarettes are dramatically less harmful than regular cigarettes.
ban e-cigarettes are much like keeping emergency exit closed because the fire stairs are slippery, says Lund.
Requires documentation
Norwegian health authorities have so far been steeply against e-cigarette.
of Health argue that they want a precautionary approach to e-cigarette, also because this cigarette can be hazardous to health.
Directorate will also aid in research – before taking a decision. They want evidence-based, controlled studies on the e-cigarette has an effect in smoking cessation.
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| RESEARCH: Banning e-cigarettes are much like keeping emergency exit closed because the fire stairs are slippery, says Karl Erik Lund. Photo: Sirus |
Result is that e-cigarettes with nicotine do not come into legal sales in Norway. We will still have a strict law with respect to sales, distribution and marketing. But getting health research based evidence that this product is less harmful, then they are open for turning.
Arguments go up in steam
Both those who argue for and those who argue against e-cigarettes as a means of smoking cessation, the same bad arguments from a scientific standpoint.
believes professor of medical ethics at the University of Oslo, Bjørn Hofmann.
– Science gives neither party right. There is a lack of empirical evidence to say about the e-cigarette will reduce or increase the damage.
See also: – unscientific opposition to e-cigarettes
– Scientists and governments are competing on who has the burden of proof. While the Health Directorate and the second part invokes the precautionary principle, scientists hope argument, believes ethics professor.
– The structure of these arguments are the same. The problem with them is the same: There is a lack of empirical evidence to say about the e-cigarette in practice will reduce or increase the damage.
must make tradeoffs
Hofmann believes that one must constantly make tradeoffs in health policy.
He refers to another similar example: the use of influenza vaccine during pandemics. Here, the health authorities and health care providers weigh the benefits and potential harm.
– When swine flu epidemic had health authorities make a trade on the basis of lack of evidence. The vaccine was not properly tested, but they faced a potentially serious health threat. It argued one hard that the benefits were greater than the risks.
See also: E-cigarettes do not damage heart
It has since been shown that it probably was not the case, but when faced significant health threat, one is willing to take greater risks.
When it comes to smoking, the threat is more limited, and probably it also plays into that the injuries are self-inflicted.
– That e-cigarette can be harmful should not have a big impact, since many drugs also have negative side effects, says Hofmann.
Long-term studies are not
Electronic cigarettes was launched internationally in 2007. There are no place done long-term studies of the effects of the new cigarette. However, much research is now underway.
researching the long-term effects of e-cigarettes, however, is far from the only one.
the first act many of the most serious diseases in common cigarette smoking, after several decades. What about nicotine-containing e-cigarettes?
Second, neither the tobacco industry or the pharmaceutical industry is behind the e-cigarette. There are small producers who create these artificial cigarettes – not multinational corporations.
rule of thumb in the pharmaceutical industry is that it costs 10 billion to test a new drug to be sold internationally. Small companies behind e-cigarettes have not that kind of resources.
Thus we did not hardly called for the documentation that e-cigarettes are less harmful than regular cigarettes.
Evidence of parachute works
– How much evidence one needs to introduce measures will always be a judgment call, says the professor of medical ethics.
He mentions a somewhat humorous example , taken from an article on evidence-based method that stood in the British Medical Journal in 2003:
In the article the authors showed that it’s never been no controlled, randomized study of whether one should use a parachute when you jump out from an aircraft at high altitude. How can we be sure that it is correct to use the parachute?
Are you an ardent supporter of evidence-based method to provide advice, even when one may end up being dubious about the use of the parachute jump from great heights.
Europe – Norway – on slide
It is not only in Norway there is controversy about the e-cigarette. EU politicians have also long had trouble taking position.
After a long tug of war came just before Christmas on the table a compromise. It may now be sold e-cigarettes in the EU, provided that the packets with e-cigarettes look like regular tobacco packages. And then hitting a big health warning on e-cigarette kits.
How can it be also in Norway. Secretary Cecilie Brein-Karlsen (FRP) in the Ministry of Health told NTB that she believes there is a need to acquire more knowledge, but Brein-Karlsen does not exclude that something will happen:
– We have already started with an investigation of possible regulatory changes, and in this context also consider the sale of e-cigarettes should be allowed in Norway, she says.
Consumer-driven revolution
“A consumer driven health revolution” – that’s what drug researcher Karl Erik Lund calls the new cigarette.
The pharmaceutical industry has long tried to steal customers from tobacco tobacco industry. But smokers have shown little interest nikotinplastere and nicotine gum.
Now, instead e-cigarette become a real competitor to regular cigarettes. Because consumers want it.
In the UK it is estimated that 1.3 million ex-smokers now go around and vapors on e-cigarettes. There is an increase of 50 percent from a year ago.
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