Leading journal questions Public Health England’s stance on e-cigarettes

An editorial in the Lancet has questioned the stance taken by Public Health England (PHE) on electronic cigarettes, claiming that it had “fallen short of its mission” to always rely on the highest quality evidence.

The editorial,1 published on 28 August, said that the conclusions of a recent evidence review published by PHE on 19 August,2 which said that e-cigarettes were 95% less harmful than normal cigarettes, were based on an “extraordinarily flimsy foundation” of evidence. On the basis of the review’s findings PHE has said that NHS stop smoking services …