Prof. Riccardo Polosa, Founder of the CoEHAR, and Carmine Canino, President of ANPVU, National Association of ecig consumers, have sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides, regarding her statements on the effectiveness of e-cigarettes to quit smoking.
Less than a month ago, the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, replied to a formally submitted parliamentary question by the Swedish member of the European parliament Sara Skyttedal (Group of the European People’s Party) regarding e-cigarettes and snus.
In the parliamentary question, Skyttedal wondered if the Commission share Parliament’s view that other nicotine products play a role in reducing the use of cigarettes.
Commissioner Kyriakides replied that on the one hand, there are supporting evidence for the harmful consequences of e-cigarettes consumption, and, on the other hand, weak evidence for the support of electronic cigarettes’ effectiveness in helping smokers to quit.
An answer that prompted an immediate reply from prof. Riccardo Polosa, founder of CoEHAR, and Carmine Canino, President of the ANPVU Association, National Association of e-cig Consumers.
Both astonished to the reply that “reaffirming the now consummate approach of the precautionary principle towards vaping products, it does not take into consideration that even the US health authorities (i.e. Food & Drug Administration – FDA) have begun to certify them as useful tools fro quit smoking“.
Regarding Scheer’s opinion, the petitioners underline that: “according to the scientists of the Center of Excellence for the acceleration of harm reduction (CoEHAR), SCHEER’s opinion is blatantly misleading, as remarked by a paper recently published in the Harm Reduction Journal, which underlines how the conclusions advanced by SCHEER are conditioned by the omission relating to the benefits for individual health and at the population level deriving from the replacement of smoking with electronic cigarettes“.
At the end of the letter, Polosa expressed confidence in a “more conciliating and serene evaluation of the opportunities offered by harm reduction strategies for the health of all European citizens“.
Read the full letter
