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Speaker 1: On the Daily Maverick. They often publish articles taken from

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Speaker 1: the Conversation website, which contains some really interesting writing about

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Speaker 1: science and science related topics, a lot of health related

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Speaker 1: topics in health and science. And it was by somebody

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Speaker 1: at the University of Sydney, Bernard Stewart, who has a

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Speaker 1: lot of expertise in cancer, and he conducted a meta study,

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Speaker 1: had a look at all peer reviewed research published between

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen and twenty twenty five, and found growing evidence

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Speaker 1: that nicotine based e cigarettes are likely to cause oral

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Speaker 1: and lung cancers. One thing that struck me about my

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Speaker 1: time in France is how little the vaping culture has

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Speaker 1: caught on there. French people smoke a less smoke, but

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Speaker 1: ornut they really do. They smoke a lot. And the

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Speaker 1: only nasty thing about France is that if you're as

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Speaker 1: rabbit and anti smoker as I am, you can't really

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Speaker 1: indulge in the pavement culture because the pavement tables is

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Speaker 1: where the smokers are allowed to sit and smoke, and

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Speaker 1: it's very unpleasant sitting and trying to eat and drink

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Speaker 1: amongst them. So you go into the dark, dingy interior

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Speaker 1: and probably of the people who are either smoking or vaping.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't doing research, but I would guess maybe ten

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Speaker 1: percent were vaping, whereas in South Africa, I think it

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Speaker 1: would be the other way around. If you take a

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Speaker 1: population of one thousand and nine hundred of them would

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Speaker 1: vape and the other hundred would smoke. But we can

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Speaker 1: talk to pulmonologist that you see, TEA Professor Richard Vanzale Smith,

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Speaker 1: who's done his own research into the dangers of vaping. Hello, Richard,

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Speaker 1: Hi John, Thank you having me, Given what you've told

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Speaker 1: me and what you've told my colleagues on the radio station.

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Speaker 1: This meta study by Bernard Stewart won't have surprised you

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Speaker 1: at all.

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Speaker 2: No, not at all. It's a nicely put together study

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Speaker 2: where they looked at each of the components, looked at

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Speaker 2: human looked at animals, look at mechanisms, and so from

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Speaker 2: a scientific point of view, it's a it's a very

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Speaker 2: nice review of all the reasons why we ever thought

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Speaker 2: that vapering wasn't going to be one hundred percent safe

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Speaker 2: and is what it is?

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Speaker 1: How risky is it? I mean, is it possible to

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Speaker 1: do a Grade three accessible answer to that?

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Speaker 2: No, So let's go back to some basics. Ninety percent

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Speaker 2: of people who have lung cancer is because of smoking,

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Speaker 2: so ten percent of lung cancers occur in non smoking people.

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Speaker 2: If you smoke, you have a thirty times higher risk

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Speaker 2: of cancer, So that's the status. But to a grade three,

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Speaker 2: I think what this paper is showing.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, then then ignore the request and just tell

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Speaker 1: us in your aurach.

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Speaker 2: So I think to a grade three I could answer

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Speaker 2: that to say, the pendulum which marketing was saying that

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Speaker 2: these things are so, so, so much safer than cigarettes,

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Speaker 2: is starting to move a whole lot closer to tobacco than

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Speaker 2: I think the marketers would like. These authors conclude, and

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Speaker 2: I quote them because I was quickly looking at the

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Speaker 2: article that say moreover cancer aside, the range of diseases

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Speaker 2: are tributable to vaping, which can no longer be caricatured

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Speaker 2: as safer than smoking, and their reference to twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: four New England Journal paper which comes to the same

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Speaker 2: conclusion that there's growing evidence that this ninety five percent

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Speaker 2: safer which we always said was rubbish, is complete rubbish,

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Speaker 2: and that the super safe vaping marketing is really mischaracterizing vaping,

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Speaker 2: and that the risks are never going to be as

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Speaker 2: the same as tobacco, but are way closer to tobacco

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Speaker 2: than fresh air than I think the industry would like.

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Speaker 1: How much closer? How much less risky is it? I

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Speaker 1: do neither. I indulge in other risky behavior. So it's

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Speaker 1: not as if I'm a health saint by any description.

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Speaker 1: But so it's not safe. It's nowhere near as safe

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Speaker 1: as industry still claims. It's not as risky as traditional cigarettes.

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Speaker 1: Where in the gap between the two does it sit

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Speaker 1: with current knowledge?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a very difficult question. And the

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Speaker 2: reason I say that is that you're certainly going to

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Speaker 2: have less chance of, for example, cancer or emphisema just

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Speaker 2: because of the constitutes. Some data says that the risk

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Speaker 2: for cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, stroke, diabetes problems are the same,

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Speaker 2: And then you get other weird things that vaping causes

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Speaker 2: that tobacco doesn't cause. So you are reducing some risks

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Speaker 2: on the one side, and you are increasing risks on

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Speaker 2: the other side. And so it depends which risk you

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Speaker 2: are wanting to avoid and which you are prepared to gain.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's where it becomes really tricky. When

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Speaker 2: you're trying to counsel someone who's stopping smoking about switching

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Speaker 2: to vapor is a safer alternative? Is absolutely no in

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Speaker 2: any way good reason to start vaping if you don't.

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Speaker 2: But it's the proportionate risk that if you're a smoker,

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Speaker 2: how much safer you would be if you vaped? And

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Speaker 2: that's a very difficult answer. But ninety five percent safer,

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Speaker 2: I think is way gone. My estimate maybe forty fifty

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Speaker 2: percent safer. But that's a complete thumb suck, and I

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Speaker 2: wouldn't stand next to a judge and swear on that

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Speaker 2: with any scientific rigor.

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Speaker 1: But if you think you're going to start vaping and

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Speaker 1: at whatever emotional and psychological benefits vapors gain from performing

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Speaker 1: this action, and you think it's going to be safe, think.

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Speaker 2: Again, Absolutely you're in big trouble from a whole variety

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Speaker 2: of other things that we don't know about. And I

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Speaker 2: think the other element. I mean, I say this because

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Speaker 2: this is the area that I've researched. The addictive nature

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Speaker 2: of these newer vaping products with different nicotines synthetic nicotines

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Speaker 2: is much higher, and certainly for the young individuals, that

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Speaker 2: addictive risk probably trumps any long term cancer, lung disease issues, and.

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Speaker 1: The because I I it's it's it's no, it's it's not.

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Speaker 1: It's not a temptation to become moralistic over this. If

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Speaker 1: it is a temptation, then I must avoid it. And

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Speaker 1: I hope I don't sound moralistic over it. And it's

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Speaker 1: easy for me to say quit it, and why don't

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Speaker 1: you quit it? Because I know started it, and it's

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Speaker 1: very easy to stop something you never started. But I

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Speaker 1: hear a lot of people talking about the addictive nature

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Speaker 1: of vaping, and again, what does current research tell us

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Speaker 1: about how much or how much less or the same

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Speaker 1: is the addiction risk physiological and psychological put together of

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Speaker 1: vaping versus traditional cigarettes.

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Speaker 2: I think the data, certainly in adolescence is very clear

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Speaker 2: it is significantly higher, and I think in adults as well.

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Speaker 2: So the nicotine in vaping products is a nicotine salt,

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Speaker 2: not a free base, which means it gets absorbed quickly,

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Speaker 2: and this is designed by the companies. They change the

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Speaker 2: formulation of nicotine that it's easier to absorb, it gets

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Speaker 2: in faster and gets into the brain quicker. They are

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Speaker 2: also synthetic nicotines that do the same, so the addictive

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Speaker 2: properties of vaping, I think are significantly higher than traditional

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Speaker 2: tobacco cigarettes. Again, not to say you can't. I mean

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Speaker 2: people get off cocaine, people get off heroin, people get

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Speaker 2: off alcohol, people get off drugs. What we tend to

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Speaker 2: do is to kind of ignore nicotine tobacco as an

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Speaker 2: addiction because it doesn't cause any trouble. We throw our

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Speaker 2: hands up when people are crashing cars or destroying families

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Speaker 2: because they're addicted to alcohol. But we tolerate nicotine addiction

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Speaker 2: as it were as a society, and so I don't

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Speaker 2: think we've recognized that it's something that we really need

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Speaker 2: to be dealing with, and it can be dealt with.

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Speaker 2: It's not impossible to get off tobacco. It's just not easy.

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Speaker 2: Doesn't mean you can't.

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Speaker 1: James is asking about terrea, not a word or concept

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Speaker 1: that's familiar to me. Heated tobacco. James has read that

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Speaker 1: that is a lot safer than normal cigarettes. Would that

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Speaker 1: fall under the umbrella that you've been talking about.

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Speaker 2: No, so that heated tobacco is tobacco. So all of

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Speaker 2: the cancer risks that occur with tobacco occur with heated tobacco.

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Speaker 2: It's just not burnt. It's just heated. So even farmers

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Speaker 2: who farm with tobacco have a risk of getting cancer

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Speaker 2: from exposed to tobacco leaves, so all the carcinogens are there.

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Speaker 2: It is probably slightly safer than burnt tobacco. But it's

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Speaker 2: a different product from a vaping product because it is

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Speaker 2: actually tobacco product, whereas vaping is a nicotine product, not

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Speaker 2: a tobacco product.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for that explanation and for the

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Speaker 1: chat we've just had. Professor Richard Van Sale Smith is

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Speaker 1: a pomonologist at UCT