AAP News
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A landmark study has found that people who vape are at higher risk of cancer than those who do not, casting doubt over whether the habit is safer than smoking.
Public health experts and scientists generally don’t consider e-cigarettes to be safe but early marketing has offered nicotine-based vapes as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes that could supposedly help people quit.
The review, led by the University of New South Wales and released on Tuesday, has found these kinds of vapes are likely to cause lung or oral cancer.
People who use nicotine-based vapes were found to have changes in their tissue indicative of cancer development, including DNA damage, oxidative stress and inflammation.
Researchers also examined case studies of oral cancer in those who only vaped and looked at animal experiments, including one where mice that breathed in aerosols from e-cigarettes developed lung cancer and changes in the bladder consistent with the eventual occurrence of cancer.
Vapes can only be sold in Australian pharmacies to help people quit smoking or manage nicotine dependence.
However, the study also showed growing evidence smokers who switch to vapes don’t necessarily give up cigarettes, meaning they are stuck in a “dual-use-limbo” that means they are at a four-fold increased risk of developing lung cancer.
As vapes have only been available for sale in Australian since about 2008, it will take decades for scientists to gather enough long-term information from people who have only vaped to definitively prove e-cigarettes cause cancer.
But this study has enough data for its authors to urge regulators to act, comparing the situation to early studies on cigarettes.
