A new paper co-authored by fifteen past presidents of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) and published in the American Journal of Public Health encourages the media, legislators, and the general public to re-evaluate negative attitudes toward vaping.
Kenneth Warner, lead author and dean emeritus and the Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, explained that the potential for vaping to increase smoking cessation has been largely overshadowed by media coverage and policies that are too focused on the potential risk of vaping by teens.
Warner and the fourteen co-authors represent a sizeable majority of past presidents of SRNT, one of the world’s leading and most respected organizations dedicated to nicotine and tobacco research.
When asked why the group decided to write the article, Warner pointed to the divisiveness of the issue, and a desire from the authors to “inject some sense of balance, to get public health organizations, the media and legislators to recognize that their appropriate but singular desire to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of kids may actually be harming public health.”
Azim Chowdhury & Caleb Holland – The Continuum of Risk – 2021-08-20.