New gold-standard global evidence review makes it clear: Vaping is the best way to quit smoking
New findings from the Cochrane Review – the global gold standard in independent medical evidence reviews – should change the debate for good in Australia on vaping as a quitting tool for smokers, Legalise Vaping Australia said today.
“The Australian medical establishment is far behind their global peers on this,” LVA campaign director Brian Marlow said.
“This updated review by Cochrane which was led by highly respected academics and it finds vaping is more effective than other methods in getting smokers to quit cigarettes.
“Cigarettes are still the number one killer in Australia, causing more than 20,000 deaths every year. These are people’s brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, colleagues and volunteers and they are dying because they cannot quit cigarettes.
“Vaping is their best chance of getting off the cigarettes. And people don’t die from vaping.”
The latest Cochrane Review reviewed 78 studies including 40 randomised controlled trials, and more than 22,000 participants were analysed.
Its conclusions were that e-cigarettes seem to “work better than no support, or behavioural support alone, and they may not be associated with serious unwanted side effects”.
Mr Marlow said: “Many in Australian health circles including the Australian Medical Association, in their blind opposition to vaping, have sought to question the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool.
“This argument should now be dead and buried. Even lung doctors overseas now support vaping as a quitting aid. So anyone trying to make this case in Australia should be called out.”
New Zealand, which has had legal, regulated sales of vaping, this week announced another 56,000 Kiwis quit cigarettes in the past year. The national smoking rate in NZ is now 8%, the lowest in the OECD. Australia’s rate is nearly 11% by comparison.
The full Cochrane Review and its plain-language summary are available here: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub7/full?highlightAbstract=vaping%7Cvape
Brian Marlow is available for interview: 0439 138 826
Expert Reactions to Cochrane Review:
Assoc Prof Jamie Hartmann-Boyce (Lead Author) - “For the first time, this has given us high-certainty evidence that e-cigarettes are even more effective at helping people to quit smoking than traditional nicotine replacement therapies, like patches or gums”
Prof Nicholas Hopkinson, Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Honorary Consultant Physician, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College – “These findings strongly support making e-cigarettes available [to smokers] one of the options to help them to quit. Smoking cessation services can continue to be confident supporting smokers to switch to e-cigarettes