Writing in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, 3 paediatricians call on the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) and other Royal Colleges to join other international organisations in expressing concern about “the vaping epidemic”.
Professor Andy Bush from Royal Brompton and Harefield Trust, Jayesh Bhatt from Nottingham Children's Hospital and Professor Jonathan Grigg from the Queen Mary University of London say the RCPCH must do all that can be done to counter the epidemic.
“The position of the e-cigarette lobby is that because it is known that e-cigarettes do not produce 2 known harmful substances (tar and carbon monoxide) and because no safety issues have been discovered, e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco.
“On the contrary, we believe we should align with the large international respiratory societies to say that, unless and until e-cigarettes are proved to be safe, they should be marketed and regulated as cigarettes, because they contain hundreds of unknown and unregulated compounds not found in tobacco,” the authors say.
The letter levels criticism at Public Health England’s (PHE's) policy on e-cigarettes and they say a non-evidence-based ‘consensus’ should not be allowed to determine public policy.
“If we persist in the approach of PHE with its disregard for protecting the respiratory health of adolescents and young children, we are risking a further epidemic of devastating lung disease for today’s children,” they warn.
