Embracing s*****g alternatives wi*l save many lives
Public health policymakers from across the globe are meeting in Panama this week to brainstorm how best to reduce the 8.5 million annual deaths due to smoking-related disease.
Delegates attending the World Health Organization (WHO) tobacco summit would do well to spend time carefully digesting a concise but excoriating analysis of their efforts so far.
Ahead of the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a group of international experts has assessed the progress made by Parties in meeting their agreed obligations to end smoking as quickly as possible.
The experts’ report, the COP10 Scorecard, scrutinises the WHO’s own documents and statistics to reveal that member states are failing dismally to reduce the 1.2 billion tobacco users in the world.
The report attributes much of that failure to the WHO’s evident opposition to technological innovation that could curb the deadly toll of tobacco.
The FCTC explicitly includes tobacco harm reduction (THR) in its definition of tobacco control, emphasising importance of research.
However, WHO’s own Progress Report takes a negative stance on THR products – such as vapes and nicotine pouches – and ignores significant milestones, such as the US FDA’s recent endorsement of all THR categories for public health protection.
Moreover, the WHO overlooks evidence demonstrating that, in countries experiencing a decline in smoking rates, the use of THR products like vapes and nicotine pouches is increasing and displacing cigarettes.
The WHO’s inclination towards bans and other restrictions on THR products contradicts the FCTC’s endorsement of THR, actively opposing lifesaving technologies. This approach leaves millions of smokers without viable alternatives.
The COP10 Scorecard also records a disconcerting growth in misinformation about THR, nicotine-based products and the alleged dangers of vapes. As an example, it cites a recent survey indicating that approximately 70 per cent of physicians believe, incorrectly, that nicotine causes lung cancer.
The issue of disinformation is particularly relevant to Kenya right now, as our legislators consider amendments to the tobacco control bill.
As the COP10 Scorecard stresses, one of the biggest impediments to successful tobacco control is a refusal to draw a distinction between tobacco and alternative nicotine products, which carry a far lower risk to health.
THR is founded on the undisputed fact that the vast majority of the harm from smoking is caused by burning tobacco.
Consequently, the WHO has endorsed smoke-less nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs), such as patches or gums, for decades to help individuals manage their addiction with reduced exposure to the harmful toxins in tobacco smoke.
Now WHO appears to have turned its opposition away from tobacco smoke and onto smokers themselves, denying them the chance to transition to safer products.
Propaganda demonising reduced-risk products is rife. But nicotine does not cause cancer and Public Health England, among others, has stated that vapes are at least 95 per cent less harmful than smoking.
Last month, a report by the distinguished Cochrane network confirmed that alternative nicotine products are the most effective tool for helping smokers to quit. After studying over 27,000 smokers, they found that the use of vapes leads to better chances of quitting than patches, gums, lozenges or other traditional NRTs.
This is the research and evidence our policymakers should be considering, along with the COP10 Scorecard.
If they truly want to prevent the 8,000 smoking deaths in Kenya every year, they must not slam the door on safer alternatives.
Reduced-risk products are saving lives around the world. We must reject the dogma and disinformation that denies this.
—The writer is the chairman of Campaign for Safer Alternatives
