Fear-driven narratives in the media risk seriously undermining tobacco harm reduction efforts, heard delegates at this year’s Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN) in Warsaw. ‘The bad news is that having the facts on our side is clearly not enough,’ said Jacob Grier, a journalist covering tobacco policy for publications like Slate and the Atlantic.
‘Pervasive misconceptions’ that products like vapes and snus are as harmful as – or even more harmful than – cigarettes could see tobacco harm reduction failing to fulfil its ‘huge’ potential, with a significant disconnect between the evidence and the hostile narratives that continued to dominate both the media and policy. ‘Journalists seek novelty, so if something isn’t new it isn’t news,’ Grier told the conference. ‘Millions of people dying from smoking isn’t a story, but a few dozen people dying from adulterated vapes generates months of media coverage.’
Public Health England stated in 2018 that vaping was ‘95 per cent’ less harmful than smoking tobacco, and anti-smoking charity ASH backs vapes as an effective quitting tool – while also expressing concerns about levels of youth vaping. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) position, however, is that ‘strong decisive action is needed to prevent the uptake of e-cigarettes’.
Vapes, heated tobacco products, tobacco pouches and pasteurised snus all delivered nicotine without combustion, leading to ‘substantially reduced’ health risks compared to smoking, delegates heard, with an ever-growing body of evidence supporting their use in smoking cessation. Professor of medicine at the University of Catania, Riccardo Polosa, accused bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) of ‘actively misleading’ the public on the relative risks. ‘They select their references and distort the evidence,’ he told the conference. ‘There is one single objective, in my opinion, which is to create their own science that supports the abstinence-only narrative. But this has terrible consequences for millions of smokers who would otherwise switch to much less harmful products.’
A study led by Brighton and Sussex Medical School earlier this year concluded that media stories which repeated ‘misconceptions as conventional wisdom’ were deterring young people from switching to vaping from smoking, while a 2023 survey of almost 12,300 people commissioned by ASH found that nearly one in four smokers believed vaping was ‘as or more’ risky than smoking – up from 27 per cent the previous year.
‘Ill-informed and often misleading representations can be seriously damaging to individuals and communities at large,’ said GFN director Paddy Costall. ‘A balanced and informative approach, rather than a polemic, enables people to make better decisions and thus improve their health. Critical, inquisitive and responsible journalism can play a major role in public understanding and can really help create the conditions where individuals’ decisions are more informed. However, misrepresentation – whether accidental or deliberate – does not serve individual or public health.’