Mark Oates, founder of consumer campaign group We Vape, said: “This report (‘The carcinogenicity of e-cigarettes: a qualitative risk assessment’ by lead author Professor Bernard W Stewart AM from the University of New South Wales) is not what any serious scientist would recognise as a robust study of vaping.
“Leading experts from the University of Cambridge, UCL, Newcastle University and the University of Nottingham were quick to point out that this ‘research’ is misleading at best, with some describing it as little more than an opinion piece.
“The authors did not study a single real-world group of people who vape.
“There is no defined sample, no clear distinction between former smokers and never-smokers, and no tracking of specific products or behaviours over time.
“Instead, the paper pulls together selected laboratory studies and isolated case reports, and then makes sweeping claims about cancer risk without presenting any real-world evidence of cancer rates in vapers or how any potential risk compares to smoking.
“That is a fundamental gap, and it renders the conclusions disproportionate to the evidence presented.
“This kind of overstatement is irresponsible.
“At a time when vaping is helping drive smoking rates down, misrepresenting the evidence risks deterring smokers from switching to less harmful alternatives.
“We should be guided by the totality of evidence. Real-world data from countries such as Sweden, where safer nicotine products are widely used, shows very low smoking rates and correspondingly low levels of smoking-related disease.
“By contrast, more restrictive approaches elsewhere have coincided with persistent smoking rates and the growth of illicit markets.
“We welcome rigorous, transparent research into all nicotine products.
“But the existing evidence base is clear: while not risk-free, vaping does not involve combustion and exposes users to far fewer harmful substances than smoking.”
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