The World Health Organization (WHO) stepped up its war on “Big Tobacco” yesterday, calling for stiff regulation of electronic cigarettes as well as bans on indoor use, advertising and sales to minors.
In a long-awaited report that will be debated by member states at a meeting in October in Moscow, the United Nations health agency also voiced concern at the concentration of the $3 billion market in the hands of transnational tobacco companies.
The WHO launched a public health campaign against tobacco a decade ago, clinching the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Since entering into force in 2005, it has been ratified by 179 states but the United States has not joined it.
The treaty recommends price and tax measures to curb demand as well as bans on tobacco advertising and illict trade in tobacco products. Prior to Tuesday’s report the WHO had indicated it would favour applying similar restrictions to all nicotine-containing products including smokeless ones.
In the report, the WHO said there are 466 brands of e-cigarettes and the industry represents “an evolving frontier filled with promise and threat for tobacco control.”
It urged a range of regulatory options, including banning e-cigarette makers from making health claims such as that they help people quit smoking, until they provide convincing supporting scientific evidence.
Smokers should use a combination of already-approved treatments for kicking the habit, it said.
While evidence indicates that they are likely to be less toxic than conventional cigarettes, the use of e-cigarettes poses a threat to adolescents and the fetuses of pregnant women using them, it said.
E-cigarettes also increase the exposure of bystanders and non-smokers to nicotine and other toxicants, it said regarding Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems that it calls ENDS. “In summary, existing evidence shows that ENDS aeorsol is not merely ‘water vapour’ as is often claimed in the marketing for these products,” the WHO said in the 13-page report. E-cigarettes should be regulated to “minimise content and emissions of toxicants.”