We speak to experts about a new study of young people vaping

KentOnline / KMTV

Are vapes seriously damaging to those aged 8 to 18?  We speak to Dr Julian Spinks on the 10 year study on The Kent Morning Show.

Transcript

00:00Well our health expert Dr. Julian Spinks joins us now. There he is. Julian, surely

00:07this is the research everyone has needed is it not? I think it's a fantastic news.

00:13Most of us now know cigarette smoking is dangerous and that came from research

00:18which did a similar thing following up in that case actually bus drivers over a

00:23number of years and they could see the difference. I have been on this program

00:27many times actually saying well we really don't know whether vapes are safe

00:31in the long term. We think they're safer than smoking but how dangerous they are

00:35or how safe they are is very difficult. Following things up over 10 years gives

00:41us a good idea of the situation and because we're most worried about

00:44children and teenagers taking up vaping that's the group we need to target and

00:49that's what this research does. But Julian we won't actually know for another 10 years.

00:56And that's the problem with these things. If you introduce something all the tests

01:01that tend to get done are over a few weeks or months but it's only when

01:05you're seeing things over a long period of time you can be much more

01:09certain about whether it's safe or not. And there isn't a way to shortcut this.

01:13We don't think there's animal models you can do which will show in a much

01:18shorter time the dangers. But we've got to start. If we don't start now in 10

01:22years time we'd be still not knowing whether it's safe or not.

01:26And how will that damage be measured? And how can that kind of compare to the damage we know is caused by smoking?

01:34Well I haven't seen the details of exactly how they're doing it but the things you can do, number one,

01:39is actually look and see how many people for example have asthma. The number of

01:44the people who are being studied who end up with a chest infection or being

01:47hospitalised. It may be that they can do lung function tests. That's actually

01:51measuring how well the lungs function. And of course you're following that up

01:55over the the 10 years, comparing it with people who don't vape. So you can see

02:01whether there is genuinely a difference. And with 100,000 there's enough to

02:04really be scientifically pretty certain that the result is genuine.

02:08When we go to the doctors a question we're asked is, do you drink, do you smoke, how

02:12often? I don't think I've ever been asked if I vape. Is that a question you're now

02:17asking? How do you factor that in? That is definitely coming in and if you look

02:23at the routine test that we do or questionnaire that we do when someone

02:27joins the practice now, it actually asks about vaping as well. So we're putting

02:31that in because we're then getting a measure of whether someone is nicotine

02:34addicted as well. Because we know people who vape heavily have a nasty habit of

02:39moving over to cigarettes. And that's something we learned in the United States

02:43and we really don't want that to happen. And I know there's lots of criticism

02:47around vapes outside of health. We were talking about littering and animals

02:51picking it up, that kind of thing. But in terms of the actual effect on health,

02:55have you seen anybody with sort of adverse effects from vaping? The only

03:02thing I've seen so far is people who've moved on to stronger and stronger vapes

03:06and are having very high levels of nicotine coming in and then they get

03:10shakes and insomnia and so on. I think it is too early to know whether you get

03:14lung damage over a period of time. The scientific papers give an occasional

03:18case of people who've developed lung disease, often linked to the cheap or

03:23illegal vapes where they have ingredients which aren't safe. But the

03:28reason we need this study is so that we can really be more confident talking to

03:31people about it. Okay, we've actually heard from Mike Cameron, he's the

03:36co-founder of Smoko, it's a vape shop in Tunbridge Wells. I think we can play a

03:40clip of an interview with him here to get that sort of side of the debate and

03:44we'll pick up after that. There's a growing misconception about e-cigarettes

03:49and vaping in the UK and a lot of that is perpetuated by the mainstream

03:55media and the headlines who are latching on to these stories about bad for

04:02kids, bad for the environment or this or that. I think it's very important to

04:06put things into a measured perspective because in a lot of these

04:12articles, no one's talking about cigarettes or the effect of cigarettes.

04:17They're only talking about vapes versus not vaping and I think it's always

04:22important to understand that the vapes are here to help adult smokers

04:27quit smoking. So if you're going to write a non-biased article as a journalist

04:31then you should report the other side of the coin. Why is this

04:36product here and what are the benefits or the positive effects of it?

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