Vaping is “unlikely to be risk free,” finds evidence review

Nicotine vaping is far less harmful than smoking cigarettes in the short and medium term but is “not risk free” and more long term studies of effects are needed, researchers have concluded.

Scientists at King’s College, London, who analysed over 400 published studies for an evidence review, said the findings should reassure smokers who had switched to vaping that they had “made a good choice” in substantially reducing health risks.

But they also urged people who had never vaped or smoked not to take up vaping or smoking, saying care was needed in framing public health messages to avoid unintended effects, for example “less harmful” being translated to a perception of “safe.”

They said many people still did not understand the magnitude of relative risk between vaping and smoking. Around a third of 11 to 18 year olds and a third of …