The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has published a systematic review of approximately 81 studies on vaping, finding associations between e-cigarette use and respiratory problems, nicotine dependence, and harm in babies born to mothers who vaped during pregnancy, and has called on the UK government to impose stricter restrictions on the products.
UK doctors call for tighter vaping restrictions after review links e-cigarettes to child health harms
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has published a systematic review of approximately 81 studies on vaping, finding associations between e-cigarette use and respiratory problems, nicotine dependence, and harm in babies born to mothers who vaped during pregnancy, and has called on the UK government to impose stricter restrictions on the products.
The review, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, examined studies covering health and social outcomes of vaping on children and young people. It identified associations with wheezing, coughing, poor oral and dental health, poor sleep, mental health problems, and eye symptoms.
The RCPCH is urging the government to go beyond its current proposals and limit the types of flavours available in vaping products, rather than only regulating how those flavours are described on packaging.
In July, the UK government launched a 12-week consultation on the appearance, packaging, and display of vapes, aimed at reducing their appeal to children. Under the proposed rules, packs would need to be plain with strict limits on branding, with only simple flavour descriptions permitted, and vapes would be moved out of sight in shops, similar to current rules for cigarettes and tobacco.
The consultation follows the passing of the Tobacco and Vapes Act, which creates what the government describes as the UK's first smoke-free generation by making it permanently illegal to sell tobacco to anyone born after 1 January 2009. According to a poll conducted for the charity Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), almost one in five 11-to-17-year-olds in Britain have tried vaping.
- The source does not state the sample sizes, age ranges, or methodologies of the approximately 81 studies reviewed.
- The source does not specify what proportion of the studies were conducted in the UK as opposed to other countries.
- The source does not state whether the systematic review was itself peer-reviewed prior to publication.
- The source does not detail the precise birth rates or prevalence figures for the harms identified in babies born to mothers who vaped during pregnancy.
- The source does not provide the full polling methodology or margin of error for the Ash survey of 11-to-17-year-olds.
- The source does not state when the government's 12-week consultation is expected to conclude or when any resulting regulations would take effect.