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** 15 October 2020
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** UK
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** Decline of vaping raises smoking fears (#1)
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** Areas across England go backwards on key cancer target (#2)
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** International
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** Number of tobacco companies in Iran on the rise (#3)
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** UK
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** The number of e-cigarette users in Britain has dropped by 400,000 in 12 months, with campaigners saying that an unfounded belief that they are no less harmful than smoking is stopping people using them to quit cigarettes. The figures came as an international evidence review found that e-cigarettes were 70% more effective in helping smokers to quit than nicotine replacement therapy.

Public health charity ASH, pointed to YouGov polling, which showed that in March there were 3.2 million e-cigarette users in Britain, down from 3.6 million the year before. ASH said that “unfounded concerns about the relative safety of e-cigarettes” were a likely cause, with only 39% of smokers correctly believing that vaping is less harmful than smoking.

Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive of ASH, said: “About a third of smokers have never even tried an e-cigarette and less than 20% are currently using one. If many more smokers could be encouraged to give e-cigarettes a go, the latest evidence indicates that many more might successfully quit.” She called on doctors and nurses to promote vaping as a quitting tool: “Health professionals . . . can give smokers the confidence to try an e-cigarette by letting them know that they can help them manage cravings and that they are a much safer alternative than continuing to smoke”.

A Cochrane Review, considered a gold-standard method of collating evidence on a topic, was published yesterday (14 October) stating that e-cigarettes were better than the standard treatment of nicotine replacement therapy as a quitting tool. Dr Caitlin Notley, from the University of East Anglia’s Norwich medical school, part of the review team, said: “This might be because e-cigarettes mimic the behaviour of smoking as well as providing nicotine to ex-smokers. Although we don’t yet have long-term evidence on health harms of switching to e-cigarettes, the evidence clearly demonstrates that e-cigarettes are much safer than tobacco [...] Short-term harms of e-cigarettes, such as a sore throat or feeling nauseous, are of a similar magnitude to the short-term side-effects of nicotine replacement therapy.”
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** Dr Nick Hopkinson, reader in respiratory medicine at Imperial College London and chair of ASH, said: “I see people every day whose lungs are damaged by smoking — many have tried to quit repeatedly. E-cigarettes can help those who might otherwise struggle to quit.”
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Source: The Times, 15 October 2020
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** See also:
Cochrane Library - Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation ([link removed])
ASH - The Cochrane Review of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation, explained ([link removed])
ASH - Factsheet: Use of e-cigarettes (vapes) among adults in Great Britain 2020 ([link removed])
Reuters - Vapes more effective to quit smoking than gum or patch, review finds ([link removed])
Daily Mail - Vape use falls by 400,000 in 12 months - as unfounded health fears scare people from using e-cigs to quit normal cigarettes ([link removed])
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** Dozens of local commissioning areas have gone backwards on a key cancer metric over the last five years, an analysis of national data reveals. The Five Year Forward View, a major national strategy published by NHS England in 2014, said local leaders needed “to take early action to reduce the proportion of [cancer] patients currently diagnosed through A&E”. The document outlined new care models to support GPs in diagnosing patients earlier, because cancer patients identified in emergency departments “are far less likely to survive a year than those who present at their GP practice”.

Nationally 18.8% of cancers were diagnosed in emergency departments (ED) in 2019-20, down from 20.1% five years ago. However, official NHS statistics show that in 35 CCG areas the proportion of cancers diagnosed in ED has increased. For example, the proportion of ED diagnoses in North East Lincolnshire CCG increased from 16% in 2014-15 to 21.3% in 2019-20.

Multiple factors influence the likelihood of a cancer being diagnosed in ED rather than being caught early, such as social and cultural factor, poor understanding of symptoms and symptoms only appearing in advanced stages, as is often the case for lung cancer. Early cancer diagnosis remains a core part of NHS plans, with the 2019 long-term plan setting a target to diagnose three in four cancers in stage one or two by 2028. Currently just 55% of cancers are caught early.

Professor Peter Johnson, the NHS national clinical director for cancer, said the NHS pre-COVID had begun setting up rapid diagnostic centres around England to provide “fast track pathways to streamline and manage referrals as effectively as possible”. There are currently 34 in England. The NHS is also piloting lung health checks in areas with the highest rates of lung cancer mortality and morbidity, targeted at people between 55 and 75 who have smoked at some point in their lives.

Source: Health Service Journal, 14 October 2020
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** International
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**
The number of cigarette manufacturers in Iran has increased from 7 companies with an annual output of 29 billion cigarettes in 2015 to 23 companies with an annual output of 55 billion in 2020. Whilst domestic cigarette production in Iran fell by 12.4% between 2019 and 2020, exports increased by 184% over the same period.

According to a report by the Persian economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad, citing statistics by the Industries Ministry, two leading international manufacturers of cigarettes, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International, accounted for more than 60% of total cigarette production in Iran last year. The report estimates the total turnover of the tobacco industry in Iran at 300 trillion rials (around $1 billion) last year.

Source: Financial Tribune, 14 October 2020
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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