Intended for healthcare professionals

Feature Tobacco

Why e-cigarettes are dividing the public health community

BMJ 2015; 350 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h3317 (Published 24 June 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;350:h3317
  1. Jonathan Gornall, journalist, Suffolk, UK
  1. jgornall{at}mac.com

The tobacco industry used to be seen as the enemy of public health, but the move into e-cigarettes and harm reduction has seen some experts shift their views. Are they right or does industry have more cynical motives? Jonathan Gornall reports

Even the man from British American Tobacco (BAT) struggles to keep the sense of wonder out of his voice as he recounts the strange event that took place earlier this year in San Jose, California. The occasion was the 2015 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Sharing the floor at the San Jose Convention Centre were two unlikely bedfellows: Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the UK charity Action on Smoking and Health, and Kevin Bridgman, chief medical officer of BAT’s electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) company, Nicoventures.

“Imagine that happening 10 years ago,” says Will Hill, public relations manager for BAT. “We’re now starting to share podiums with people like ASH at e-cigarette conferences.”

It’s a proposition that fills some in the public health community with dismay.

The subject of the symposium was “E-cigarettes: killing me softly or our greatest public health opportunity?” and Arnott and Bridgman—a former GP who is now working for Nicoventures offshoot Nicovations—were singing from the same hymn sheet.

Arnott’s talk highlighted her concern that “some groups” were calling for an outright ban on e-cigarettes, despite a lack of evidence of harm, “especially in comparison to smoking.” She wanted to focus on “counteracting moralistic dogma and separating fact from fiction.”1

Bridgman’s message was that “regulators should resist the urge to apply highly restrictive measures that would have the perverse effect of prolonging cigarette smoking.”2

For some, such an apparent convergence of views is a sign that the industry’s enthusiastic—and, critics maintain, cynical—embrace of the controversial concept of “harm reduction” in …

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