Vapouround magazine VM16 | Page 124

FEATURE MAKING WAVES Public Health England’s latest landmark report makes it onto Talk Radio as part of a wider media presence for vaping By Leo Forfar Public Health England’s latest evidence update has been everywhere, with the mainstream finally embracing a statistic often cited in vaping circles: that e-cigarettes are at least 95% safer than smoking. Advocates and promoters of the vaping industry have been taking advantage of this invaluable surge of momentum, seeing it as an opportunity to point out that now is the time for e-cigarettes to be pushed as the next great tool for smoking cessation. Increased taxation, public bans and other restrictions are doing their job and bringing smoking rates down, but for an addictive substance like nicotine, replacement and harm reduction remains both the quickest and most effective option. We’ve seen vaping advance in official government press releases, on broadcast television, online and in various avenues of popular culture over recent months. We can now add talk radio to the growing list of frontiers where vaping has made its presence felt. On February 6, the story was a feature of Eamonn Holmes’ show on talkRADIO. Holmes dedicated a segment to discussing how far the UK should go in its support for vaping, following PHE’s evidence update. Holmes’ summation of the story emphasised that the findings of King’s College London and Cancer Research UK imply that “vaping poses a fraction of the risk of smoking.” Joining the show via phone was Doctor Alex Bobak, who was wholly supporting of PHE’s decision, describing it as “great news.” Vaping, according to Doctor Bobak, had managed to grab the attention of smokers in ways that other methods hadn’t, and their use represented a new stage in cessation. He described the developments as exciting. The doctor also said that “It’s just a tragedy that 79,000 people die every year in the UK from smoking. It’s completely unnecessary. We’ve been doing all we can to try and get people to stop, but this (vaping) is something which really has caught 124 | VM16