UserWiki:Richardpruen: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Email-dhsc-20-nov-2024.pdf|thumb|alt=Hi folks, Since the government promised to be evidence led, I thought this new evidence was vital for vaping policy. In this paper the authors examined respiratory symptoms in e-cigarette users without a history of smoking from the VERITAS cohort. While vapers reported slightly more frequent symptoms than non-vapers on the Respiratory Symptom Experience Scale, the difference was not clinically significant. Disposable e-cigarettes were the most common device type, with fruit flavors preferred by most users. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-80221-8 The VERITAS cohort https://veritascohort.coehar.org/ aims to provide long term data on vaping in never cigarette users <100 cigarettes in their life, and is important because most vapers are past cigarette smokers and significant confounding exists due to this. The first data above shows 'the difference between groups was not clinically significant', further proof that in the long term, vaping is vastly safer than smoking, and the effects on non-smokers are tiny, not clinically significant. It is vital that you factor this information into policy because adults who are convinced not to switch face death 50% of the time. Adolescent nicotine use is falling, and if they do use any product, then smoking should be the least available to them, as it is the most harmful. Vaping in adolescents is lower than alcohol use, and alcohol is far more toxic in both the short and long term. The current age of sale laws means the UK has the lowest regular use of vapes in underage in the world; we should keep doing that, but be aware that there is little harm from vaping when you compare that to the death faced by cigarette smokers. The tax and ban policy will not work; it will lead to illegal markets, just like Australia has seen; once control is lost, it will be harder to regain. Sweden, on the other hand, did not reduce nicotine use, which is average for the EU, but has seen reductions in smoking-related diseases and cancer. They have also achieved the smoke-free goal 17 years early: The UK will reduce death and disease more rapidly being more like Sweden than like Australia. I would like you to focus on reducing death and disease quickly, and without sacrificing the older cigarettes smoking population, this is possible, if Sweden can do it, so can the UK. Thank for your time. -- Richard Pruen <richard@pruen.co.uk>|Email to DHSC 20 nov 2024]]

DRAFT: [[File:Letter minister for health 11th Feb 2025.pdf|thumb|alt=Subject: Ongoing Vaping Policy Dear Ashley Dalton, I am contacting you as a vaping consumer and advocate for saving lives; vaping saved my life (I am happy to share medical records to prove that), and I aim to pass that on to as many as possible. I am not paid in any way by anyone to do so. I have worked in the vaping industry, helping to develop standards and testing against them (I ran BTC battery testing until 2016). This was good for consumer safety, but the industry did not necessarily favour it. I am also part of a group funded by ASH advocating for smoking cessation in people living with severe mental illness; 40% smoke cigarettes, double the national number. I was disturbed to hear some of the testimony given in parliament. Much of the information was incorrect or deliberately misleading. You must do better when debating a serious health matter; accurate and science-backed information is critical to saving lives. You should use the research OHID paid for using taxpayers' money, not anecdotal (often second-hand) accounts from teaching staff or parents frightened by the media. Consumers are not represented; I would ask you to consider involving NNA (New Nicotine Alliance) as they are a consumer-only group that is not funded by the industry. info@nnalliance.org Charity Registration Number: 1160481. It seems fair since UKVIA (industry trade association) and tobacco control NGOs were involved, but there was no one for consumers. Sadly, the media is almost all negative and presents harm because that sells papers; the truth is that in 12 years of monitoring by the MHRA yellow card early warning system, not one single disease/symptom has been detected as linked to vaping nicotine. There have been less than 20 admissions to hospital per year, and none fatal, compared to 15 per day for household cleaners (some sadly fatal). I agree that you should keep a close eye on frequent vaping among adolescents; thankfully, that remains low and does not show worrying trends (see graphs below). Experimentation with vaping is preferable to cigarettes, and still, too many are starting to smoke tobacco. Unlike tobacco, vaping is unlikely to cause deaths since 20 years of study shows no such issue. Vaping has (with open devices) the off-ramp of tapering nicotine slowly (around a third of folks quitting smoking with vapes also stop vaping this way; see ONS data that you must have access to). It is essential to accept the vastly lower risk from vaping when considering legislation that will steer adolescents in a particular direction. Assuming they will do extra homework if they can’t experiment is faulty. They will likely do something more risky instead, such as alcohol. Alcohol, for example, results in accidents, intoxication and deaths. This is sadly human nature, and harm reduction at least keeps the risks as low as possible. It is also vital to ensure that illicit vapes and illegal tobacco sales are kept to a minimum; buying vapes from ‘dealers’ opens all manner of unwanted possibilities, including other more harmful illegal drugs offered at the same time. Thus, great care is needed to avoid a ban on a product type resulting in supply shifting to criminal-controlled illicit sales. Australia is a perfect example of open gang war and fire bombings. A legally regulated market that renders illegal supply unprofitable is the best solution; there is no enforcement cost in that case, and consumers should be protected against entirely unregulated products. In Sweden, the use of nicotine is about the same as in the EU as a whole, but the rates of cancer are lower, particularly in men, since they switched earlier, and the trend is now apparent in the data. It is worth looking at Sweden because it has had a harm-reduction product for a long time, and trends and population data are readily available. It is obvious that nicotine is not the problem; combusted tobacco is the killer, particularly cigarettes; switching existing users to safer products is the priority; you can save vast numbers of lives and treatment costs. I suggest you research the history of THR in Sweden, allowing users to initiate nicotine use with a safer product works; they have the lowest cancer rates in the EU by a good margin. (see the following graphs) The UK can still do the same with vaping by not restricting it too much. Yours sincerely, Richard Pruen|Letter minister for health 11th Feb 2025]]

Revision as of 09:50, 20 November 2024 view source Richardpruen (talk \| contribs) Administrators, administrator, Bureaucrats, developer, Interface administrators, Push subscription managers, Administrators (Semantic MediaWiki), Curators (Semantic MediaWiki), Editors (Semantic MediaWiki), Staff, Suppressors, Administrators, Translators, Upload Wizard campaign editors, users, x-notes 11,067 edits add email to DHSC ← Older edit		Revision as of 10:45, 11 February 2025 view source Richardpruen (talk \| contribs) Administrators, administrator, Bureaucrats, developer, Interface administrators, Push subscription managers, Administrators (Semantic MediaWiki), Curators (Semantic MediaWiki), Editors (Semantic MediaWiki), Staff, Suppressors, Administrators, Translators, Upload Wizard campaign editors, users, x-notes 11,067 edits add draft letter Newer edit →
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	[[File:Email-dhsc-20-nov-2024.pdf\|thumb\|alt=Hi folks, Since the government promised to be evidence led, I thought this new evidence was vital for vaping policy. In this paper the authors examined respiratory symptoms in e-cigarette users without a history of smoking from the VERITAS cohort. While vapers reported slightly more frequent symptoms than non-vapers on the Respiratory Symptom Experience Scale, the difference was not clinically significant. Disposable e-cigarettes were the most common device type, with fruit flavors preferred by most users. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-80221-8 The VERITAS cohort https://veritascohort.coehar.org/ aims to provide long term data on vaping in never cigarette users <100 cigarettes in their life, and is important because most vapers are past cigarette smokers and significant confounding exists due to this. The first data above shows 'the difference between groups was not clinically significant', further proof that in the long term, vaping is vastly safer than smoking, and the effects on non-smokers are tiny, not clinically significant. It is vital that you factor this information into policy because adults who are convinced not to switch face death 50% of the time. Adolescent nicotine use is falling, and if they do use any product, then smoking should be the least available to them, as it is the most harmful. Vaping in adolescents is lower than alcohol use, and alcohol is far more toxic in both the short and long term. The current age of sale laws means the UK has the lowest regular use of vapes in underage in the world; we should keep doing that, but be aware that there is little harm from vaping when you compare that to the death faced by cigarette smokers. The tax and ban policy will not work; it will lead to illegal markets, just like Australia has seen; once control is lost, it will be harder to regain. Sweden, on the other hand, did not reduce nicotine use, which is average for the EU, but has seen reductions in smoking-related diseases and cancer. They have also achieved the smoke-free goal 17 years early: The UK will reduce death and disease more rapidly being more like Sweden than like Australia. I would like you to focus on reducing death and disease quickly, and without sacrificing the older cigarettes smoking population, this is possible, if Sweden can do it, so can the UK. Thank for your time. -- Richard Pruen <richard@pruen.co.uk>\|Email to DHSC 20 nov 2024]]		[[File:Email-dhsc-20-nov-2024.pdf\|thumb\|alt=Hi folks, Since the government promised to be evidence led, I thought this new evidence was vital for vaping policy. In this paper the authors examined respiratory symptoms in e-cigarette users without a history of smoking from the VERITAS cohort. While vapers reported slightly more frequent symptoms than non-vapers on the Respiratory Symptom Experience Scale, the difference was not clinically significant. Disposable e-cigarettes were the most common device type, with fruit flavors preferred by most users. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-80221-8 The VERITAS cohort https://veritascohort.coehar.org/ aims to provide long term data on vaping in never cigarette users <100 cigarettes in their life, and is important because most vapers are past cigarette smokers and significant confounding exists due to this. The first data above shows 'the difference between groups was not clinically significant', further proof that in the long term, vaping is vastly safer than smoking, and the effects on non-smokers are tiny, not clinically significant. It is vital that you factor this information into policy because adults who are convinced not to switch face death 50% of the time. Adolescent nicotine use is falling, and if they do use any product, then smoking should be the least available to them, as it is the most harmful. Vaping in adolescents is lower than alcohol use, and alcohol is far more toxic in both the short and long term. The current age of sale laws means the UK has the lowest regular use of vapes in underage in the world; we should keep doing that, but be aware that there is little harm from vaping when you compare that to the death faced by cigarette smokers. The tax and ban policy will not work; it will lead to illegal markets, just like Australia has seen; once control is lost, it will be harder to regain. Sweden, on the other hand, did not reduce nicotine use, which is average for the EU, but has seen reductions in smoking-related diseases and cancer. They have also achieved the smoke-free goal 17 years early: The UK will reduce death and disease more rapidly being more like Sweden than like Australia. I would like you to focus on reducing death and disease quickly, and without sacrificing the older cigarettes smoking population, this is possible, if Sweden can do it, so can the UK. Thank for your time. -- Richard Pruen <richard@pruen.co.uk>\|Email to DHSC 20 nov 2024]]

			DRAFT: [[File:Letter minister for health 11th Feb 2025.pdf\|thumb\|alt=Subject: Ongoing Vaping Policy Dear Ashley Dalton, I am contacting you as a vaping consumer and advocate for saving lives; vaping saved my life (I am happy to share medical records to prove that), and I aim to pass that on to as many as possible. I am not paid in any way by anyone to do so. I have worked in the vaping industry, helping to develop standards and testing against them (I ran BTC battery testing until 2016). This was good for consumer safety, but the industry did not necessarily favour it. I am also part of a group funded by ASH advocating for smoking cessation in people living with severe mental illness; 40% smoke cigarettes, double the national number. I was disturbed to hear some of the testimony given in parliament. Much of the information was incorrect or deliberately misleading. You must do better when debating a serious health matter; accurate and science-backed information is critical to saving lives. You should use the research OHID paid for using taxpayers' money, not anecdotal (often second-hand) accounts from teaching staff or parents frightened by the media. Consumers are not represented; I would ask you to consider involving NNA (New Nicotine Alliance) as they are a consumer-only group that is not funded by the industry. info@nnalliance.org Charity Registration Number: 1160481. It seems fair since UKVIA (industry trade association) and tobacco control NGOs were involved, but there was no one for consumers. Sadly, the media is almost all negative and presents harm because that sells papers; the truth is that in 12 years of monitoring by the MHRA yellow card early warning system, not one single disease/symptom has been detected as linked to vaping nicotine. There have been less than 20 admissions to hospital per year, and none fatal, compared to 15 per day for household cleaners (some sadly fatal). I agree that you should keep a close eye on frequent vaping among adolescents; thankfully, that remains low and does not show worrying trends (see graphs below). Experimentation with vaping is preferable to cigarettes, and still, too many are starting to smoke tobacco. Unlike tobacco, vaping is unlikely to cause deaths since 20 years of study shows no such issue. Vaping has (with open devices) the off-ramp of tapering nicotine slowly (around a third of folks quitting smoking with vapes also stop vaping this way; see ONS data that you must have access to). It is essential to accept the vastly lower risk from vaping when considering legislation that will steer adolescents in a particular direction. Assuming they will do extra homework if they can’t experiment is faulty. They will likely do something more risky instead, such as alcohol. Alcohol, for example, results in accidents, intoxication and deaths. This is sadly human nature, and harm reduction at least keeps the risks as low as possible. It is also vital to ensure that illicit vapes and illegal tobacco sales are kept to a minimum; buying vapes from ‘dealers’ opens all manner of unwanted possibilities, including other more harmful illegal drugs offered at the same time. Thus, great care is needed to avoid a ban on a product type resulting in supply shifting to criminal-controlled illicit sales. Australia is a perfect example of open gang war and fire bombings. A legally regulated market that renders illegal supply unprofitable is the best solution; there is no enforcement cost in that case, and consumers should be protected against entirely unregulated products. In Sweden, the use of nicotine is about the same as in the EU as a whole, but the rates of cancer are lower, particularly in men, since they switched earlier, and the trend is now apparent in the data. It is worth looking at Sweden because it has had a harm-reduction product for a long time, and trends and population data are readily available. It is obvious that nicotine is not the problem; combusted tobacco is the killer, particularly cigarettes; switching existing users to safer products is the priority; you can save vast numbers of lives and treatment costs. I suggest you research the history of THR in Sweden, allowing users to initiate nicotine use with a safer product works; they have the lowest cancer rates in the EU by a good margin. (see the following graphs) The UK can still do the same with vaping by not restricting it too much. Yours sincerely, Richard Pruen\|Letter minister for health 11th Feb 2025]]