BMA says "keep smoking" or get a prescription

[gibla53]

A really interesting read ..... thanks for sharing that

Alan

[trogger]

To put a balanced view across on this (and probably get shot down in flames) I would be a little less critical of the BMA.

There has obviously been some pressure put on them to make a statement and they should as they are there to advise the medical profession.

The problem with e-cigs is that there hasn't been enough research into them - us users know that they are 100 times better than regular cigs in that we feel better, cough less and generally breath better than we have for years. From a scientific viewpoint we know (or believe) that there are fewer chemicals created by them and therefore we are inhaling fewer toxins and likely to be doing ourselves less harm as a consequence.

Until further research has been completed we will never get anyone in an official capacity to condone the use of e-cigs, it's just too risky. We live in a society that seems to be becoming more litigious every day, professionally no one will say they are safe because there is no proof to show that they are. There is a big difference between less harmful and safe!

This moves us to research into e-cigs. The big pharma companies spend billions of pound on research and validation every year, it's the main reason any non-generic drug costs so much money, they need to get this money back (and of course - as we live in a wonderfully capitalist world they need a nice chunk for shareholders too). So, there is currently no benefit for the pharma companies to invest money into research on e-cigs (unless it has a negative outcome and can help them to promote their own NRTs).

In the UK we have the MHRA (FDA in the US), they have a government budget and are in the position where they should be ensuring these things are safe - the only problem is that e-cigs are not currently licensed as medical devices and so other than recommend that they are re-classified the MHRA can't really do much about them.

The question I would ask is, do we want a regulated e-cig industry that would undoubtedly be safer but would also be less flexible and more expensive, or do we want what we have at the moment which is pretty much unregulated and works on trust between us the users and the suppliers (usually online), a bit risky, nice and cheap and lets face it quite fun as a hobby!

Apologies for the rambling - I'm not going to read it back and edit so please forgive any grammatical slips.

And for the record I don't work for any governmental or pharma company but I do have a bit of experience in validation.