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
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