Many smokers overestimate e-cigarette risks, MPs hear

Many smokers are overestimating the risks associated with e-cigarettes because of a “misrepresentation” of current evidence, experts have told MPs.

Paul Aveyard, coordinating editor of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group, told the House of Commons science and technology committee that he was concerned because half of smokers believed e-cigarettes to be as harmful as conventional cigarettes.

“That’s really a terrible misrepresentation of what we know already,” said Aveyard, giving evidence to the committee’s inquiry into e-cigarettes on 9 January.

Jamie Brown, deputy director of University College London’s tobacco and alcohol research group, told the committee …