E-Cigarette Summit UK 2021: Experts Talk Misinformation, Vape Research & Public Health
A summary of some of the key points discussed at the UK’s E-Cigarette Summit in December of 2021.
On the 7th and 8th of December, vape industry leaders, medical professionals, addiction specialists, researchers, and policymakers gathered at the UK’s virtual E-Cigarette Summit to discuss the present vaping climate in the UK, with emphasis on the future of the industry, regulations, biases, and our current body of scientific evidence.
But what does this all mean for the average vaper?
Let’s take a look at some of the key points discussed at the E-Cigarette Summit (in layman’s terms), and what they mean for you and the future of vaping.
“Most opposition to vaping is based not on evidence but on underlying ideological issues, moral positions, vested interests, political considerations and financial considerations, to name just a few.“
—Dr Colin Mendelsohn, interviewed by Marc Gunther
Opening Keynote: What Will Success Look Like for the Vaping Industry?
The E-Cigarette Summit opened with a keynote speech from Professor Emeritus Robert Beaglehole (University of Auckland, Chair of ASH New Zealand 2025), who talked about the current vaping landscape and what success will look like for the future of the industry and public health.
After working for WHO for almost 5 decades and listening to the personal stories of smokers and vapers alike, Beaglehole has come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t be striving for a nicotine-free world, but for a tobacco-free world, where the focus is on harm reduction from the toxic substances in tobacco that cause over 20,000 deaths every single day.
He argued that the WHO and the FCTC (the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) needs to be at the forefront of tackling this death toll, and that success will only be achieved when all countries embrace this framework and practice tobacco harm reduction strategies.
Currently, too many of the policies we rely on to regulate tobacco products are backed by poor or inconclusive evidence, and that has to change.
Beaglehole made a plea to those who deny harm reduction strategies:
“What if you are wrong? If you are wrong, the cost will be huge and will be measured in millions of preventable deaths. This seems to me a totally unnecessary and unacceptable risk to take, and I would ask you to consider the possibility that you are wrong.”
—Professor Emeritus Robert Beaglehole
Does vaping help people quit smoking?
Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Managing Editor of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, presented a plea at the E-Cigarette Summit to focus on the scientific evidence as misconceptions about harm from vaping continue to rise. The Cochrane Review of E-Cigarettes was published in 2014 and has been revised four times now, adding further proof that vaping is an effective method for smoking cessation.
Initially, research showed that vaping could help smokers quit, albeit with low certainty. Now, the evidence has shifted to moderate certainty, with no clear evidence of harm from vaping. Of course, the longest study period on record was only 2 years, but still: the evidence continues to mount in favour of vaping as a safe method for smoking cessation.
Yet somehow, every year, the public’s harm perceptions regarding vaping steadily rise, while researchers continue to find evidence to the contrary.
While we cannot by any means say that vaping is harmless, there’s no doubt that smoking cigarettes is monumentally detrimental to our health—and for this very reason, it’s important that we embrace vaping as a safer alternative, as we haven’t found anything to suggest that vaping is “just as bad” as smoking.
Dr Hartmann-Boyce argued that there’s a real problem with the public’s opinion of vaping, given that the evidence produced by publicly-funded research is paid for by the people, yet the results aren’t reaching them. She believes that much of this is due to conflicting opinions, especially within the media landscape.
She also stated that when we talk about new evidence in the realm of vaping, we don’t often discuss the harms of smoking, which should be behind every statement we make. We’ve known how harmful cigarettes are for a long time—which, she argued, makes the information less news-worthy, while evidence about vaping is new and therefore more exciting.
Still, she pleaded, we must address the harms from smoking when we talk about vaping as a safer alternative.
Depolarising Vaping Research: The Human Problem
There were several items on the E-Cigarette Summit agenda discussing ideological oppositions and biases with regard to vaping research—notably, how the humans conducting the research are just that: human.
The issue we’re currently facing in the world of vaping research is that while the Scientific Method is clear-cut (as we were taught in school), it tends to work differently in practice. The scientists themselves harbour cognitive biases and personal ideologies—which can be obstructive in the field of vaping research.
For instance, the Scientific Method always starts with a question—but it’s down to the scientists to ask said question. Their personal beliefs and biases influence their methods, questions, and even the conclusions they draw.
Professor Marcus Munafò of the University of Bristol said in his presentation that science should be self-correcting in time, and that in an ideal world, research and evidence would be unbiased. However, we’ve learned from similar instances in the past (he gave the example of studies on antidepressant research, many of which weren’t published if they portrayed the medication negatively) that science is rife with reporting and citation biases, making it difficult to truly know what evidence even exists.
Ultimately, Professor Munafò put the onus on the individual to hold our personal opinions lightly, and to be open to new evidence over time. He said that allegiance bias—our tendency to interpret evidence based on our personal investment in a given topic—blinds us, and we need to bear this in mind when approaching new evidence or someone else who holds a conflicting opinion.
On the topic of biases, Robert West, Professor Emeritus of Health Psychology at University College London, said in a panel discussion: “We also need to be reflective on our biases, and that we see each other in different camps. We all think we’re right, and the other idiots have the wrong position. So we need to hold each other accountable, we need to ensure accountability and transparency.”
“When we are very invested, we can be led astray by our own enthusiasm. There is a need for humility, we need to admit we can be wrong. If we think someone else is wrong, let’s not be battering rams because that will only encourage people to double down.”
—Professor Marcus Munafò, University of Bristol
Vaping & Medicine: Time for Doctors to Get on Board
Dr Colin Mendelsohn, Chairman of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association and author of the book, Stop Smoking, Start Vaping, discussed how as evidence supporting vaping as a smoking cessation aid mounts, doctors must get on board.
Harm reduction is routinely practised for drugs and alcohol abuse in clinical settings. Vaping absolutely fits the definition of a harm reduction strategy, yet so many doctors are uninformed about vaping and therefore do not recommend it to patients, ultimately withholding medical care on the basis of misinformation and personal beliefs.
Dr Mendelsohn said that many doctors get their information from patient accounts and the media, leading to further distrust and concerns about vaping’s effectiveness and potential harms. Four out of five doctors in the US, for instance, wrongly believe that nicotine use contributes to cardiovascular disease, COPD, and cancer.
Mendelsohn argued that it’s the practitioner’s duty to keep their medical knowledge up-to-date and to separate scientific evidence from personal moral beliefs. Above all, he said, doctors cannot deny patients access to medical care based on their own uninformed ideas about vaping.
England: The Frontrunner or the Outlier?
England is among very few countries worldwide to adopt vaping as a method for smoking cessation, with large, accredited bodies like Cancer Research UK promoting vaping as a safer alternative.
The NHS, while far from perfect, now recognises vaping as a safer alternative to smoking, whereas countries like the US (where vape products are largely underregulated) don’t condone vaping at all, citing that the harms of nicotine use among youth populations are too glaring to ignore.
Many from both within and outside the UK have criticised England’s vaping policies, deeming them too “laissez-faire” and naming England as an outlier with regard to vaping laws. However, the UK’s vaping regulations are set to become the stepping stone for other countries to follow suit, should these policies prove successful in lowering the rates of smoking among the British population.
In her E-Cigarette Summit presentation, Deborah Arnott—Chief Executive of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health)—claimed that the UK is the frontrunner, not the outlier when it comes to vaping regulations, and discussed how these regulations set the stage for larger-scale policymaking which other countries might and should adopt in the near future, should we hope to achieve a smoke-free world.
Conclusion
Years ago, when the E-Cigarette Summit was first introduced, many of the voices being amplified were uncertain about vaping—but now, it seems that many are finally coming to the understanding that there are many missed opportunities for harm reduction with vaping, and the future of the vaping industry looks brighter than it did even just a few years ago.
Still, these voices are largely being disregarded by the public and the media all around the world, and it’s important that we all—as a collective vaping community—focus on the importance of educating the uneducated and being open to new developments and science-based evidence, lest we become as polarised as the people we’re trying to reach.
Above all else, the UK’s E-Cigarette Summit shows that evidence for vaping as a safer alternative to smoking continues to mount, and it’s up to us to push our policymakers and government bodies to listen and act accordingly. Many of those in charge are distracted by the prospect of the youth vaping epidemic, the potential long-term harms of vaping, and distorted evidence purported by the media, when the problem actually lies within misinformation and fear-mongering.
The simple truth is that we can become a tobacco-free society if the whole world gets on board—including doctors, researchers, and policymakers—and not just the ever-growing flock of ex-smokers who’ve learned the truth for themselves.
Love reading about the research side of the vape industry? Check out our vape news section for more!
