A European Commission report on smoking and nicotine use is being condemned for unjustified self-contragulation, anti-scientific opposition to tobacco harm reduction and biased authorship. Advocates fear for its impact on future EU policy.
The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, published the report on April 1, as an evaluation of EU tobacco control under the Tobacco Products Directive. It duly determined that EU rules had significantly contributed to a decline in smoking.
“Since 2012, smoking rates in the EU have fallen from 28% to 24% of the population, with an even sharper decline among young people,” stated a press release. “Tobacco-related deaths have also decreased substantially, reflecting the positive impact of stricter rules on product regulation, advertising bans and health warnings.”
“It trumpets a meager reduction in smoking prevalence as a triumph, and disingenuously claims that all the credit is due to traditional tobacco policies.”
Martin Cullip, a British tobacco harm reduction advocate, called the report “an embarrassing document for the EU.”
“It trumpets a meager reduction in smoking prevalence, from 28 percent to 24 percent since 2012, as a triumph, and disingenuously claims that all the credit is due to traditional tobacco policies,” he told Filter.
For comparison, Cullip pointed to the smoking rate in Britain: Over the same time period, it fell from 20 percent to 9 percent, as health authorities recognized nicotine vapes as a safer alternative and millions switched. In Sweden meanwhile, easy access to oral snus saw the smoking rate plummet from 12 percent to below the 5 percent “smoke-free” threshold.
“Considering there are tens of millions of users of vapes, heated tobacco and pouches in the EU, only a fool could deny that they have had an impact,” Cullip said—even if restrictions and bans, including the EU-wide snus ban, have blunted that impact.
The report raised the familiar specter of safer nicotine products being a “gateway to nicotine addiction” for youth—despite the mounting evidence against this.
Far from emphasizing the ability of safer nicotine products to reduce smoking, the report flagged them for introducing “new public health concerns” to which the EU’s regulatory framework must respond—presumably with more bans and restrictions.
And the report raised the familiar specter of safer nicotine products being a “gateway to nicotine addiction” for youth—despite the mounting evidence against this gateway theory, including the experiences of countries where youth vaping has dramatically declined even as vapes continue to drive down adult smoking rates and youth smoke less than ever.
Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, a cardiologist and research fellow at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center in Athens, Greece, noted that the report failed to acknowledge any of the benefits to people switching from cigarettes to safer nicotine products. The EU, he said, has been obstinate in treating tobacco harm reduction as a threat when it should view it as an “ally.”
“Tobacco harm reduction is a valuable tool in reducing smoking, and I hope the EU will soon realize this and adjust its approach and regulatory framework,” he told Filter.
“The Commission had committed to basing its decisions on solid scientific evidence, yet its own report … appears to have been drafted while systematically ignoring that science.”
Dr. Fabio Beatrice, scientific director of the Italy-based Medical Observatory of Harm Reduction, criticized the report’s “fragile” and superficial methodology, which disregarded high-quality evidence like the latest Cochrane review that confirmed the effectiveness of vapes for smoking cessation.
“The Commission had committed to basing its decisions on solid scientific evidence, yet its own Evaluation Report … appears to have been drafted while systematically ignoring that science,” he told Brussels Signal.
The report’s apparent bias should be viewed in the context of its authorship. The European Commission awarded the €3 million evaluation contract to the sole bidder—a consortium of groups including, among others, the European Network on Smoking Prevention and Vital Strategies. The former has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the latter is entirely funded by Michael Bloomberg, the anti-vaping US billionaire. Bloomberg-funded groups like Vital Strategies have a history of opposing tobacco harm reduction and pushing for bans around the world.
It would have been a big surprise if such authors had not attacked safer nicotine products in their report for the EU. Their conclusions could carry a heavy price for Europeans who smoke.
“As usual, the Commission is careless to the point of negligence with the health of more than 100 million Europeans.”
“The evaluation report doesn’t evaluate anything in a way that would be useful to policymakers in the member states and legislators in the European Parliament,” British tobacco harm reduction advocate Clive Bates, of Counterfactual Consulting, told Filter.
The report not only failed to admit the very slow decline in EU smoking rates, he said, but demonstrated no understanding of how safer nicotine products can rapidly replace cigarettes in a “massive market for nicotine that involves one in four European adults.”
“As usual, the Commission is careless to the point of negligence with the health of more than 100 million Europeans, thousands of small businesses, the rise of organized crime, and the credibility of the European Union,” Bates said. “A reckoning is inevitable.”
Photograph by Lindsay Fox via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0
