Report causes fit of the vapers

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is unhappy with new research indicating that eight out of 10 Australian medical health practitioners ‘support the use of e-cigarettes’, according to a report by Emily Brooks for The Huffington Post.

The research, the results of which were released on Thursday and a report of which has been seen by the Post, was conducted on behalf of Nicoventures, a start-up company owned by British American Tobacco. The report said all health practitioners involved in the research were informed of Nicoventures’ involvement.

The research was apparently aimed firstly at gauging Australian doctors and specialists’ thoughts on electronic cigarettes. The health practitioners were then exposed to information, including that from a UK government agency saying that the use of electronic cigarettes was 95 percent safer than was the use of combusted cigarettes, and later asked whether the information had changed their minds.

The report says that Nicoventures ‘wishes to work with the government to introduce a regulated market-place for these products’.

Currently, Australia bans electronic cigarettes that deliver nicotine.

“This is the voice of big tobacco, not the voice of the profession and I have no doubt that if the information they found was unfavourable to big tobacco then their propositions would not see the light of day,” AMA vice president Stephen Parnis was quoted as telling the Post.

“Clearly anything will look good if it is compared with the harm of tobacco because tobacco is clearly so damaging to human health.”

Parnis expressed concern that electronic cigarettes could prove to be a gateway to tobacco smoking, but he seemed not to be implacable.

He said the evidence did not exist to say that electronic cigarettes were usable as smoking cessation agents, but that he would welcome further evidence in this area if it were conducted by an independent body.