John Britton, Jacob George, Linda Bauld, Sanjay Agrawal, John Moxham,Deborah Arnott, Ann McNeill, Nicholas S. Hopkinson
European Respiratory Journal 2020; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.00166-2020
Extract
The respiratory community is united in its desire to reduce and eliminate the harm caused by tobacco smoking, which is at present on course to kill one billion people in the 21st century. The stated policy of the European Respiratory Society is to strive “constantly to promote strong and evidence-based policies to reduce the burden of tobacco related diseases”. In our view, the recent ERS Tobacco Control Committee statement on tobacco harm reduction [1], though well-intentioned, appears to be based on a number of false premises and draws its conclusions from a partial account of available data. It also presents a false dichotomy between the provision of “conventional” tobacco control and harm reduction approaches. We therefore respond, in turn, to the seven arguments presented against the adoption of harm reduction in the Committee's statement.
Footnotes
This manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the European Respiratory Journal. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJ online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.
Conflict of interest: Dr. Britton has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Dr. George has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Dr. BAULD has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Dr. Agrawal has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Dr. Moxham has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Dr. Arnott has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Dr. McNeill has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Dr. Hopkinson has nothing to disclose.
- Received January 16, 2020.
- Accepted February 5, 2020.
- Copyright ©ERS 2020
