To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the known medical risks of vaping.
Answered on
21 March 2023
The Department’s assessment of the medical risk of vaping is based upon a series of evidence reviews commissioned over the past several years. The latest, The Nicotine Vaping in England: 2022 evidence update report was published in September 2022.
This current report focuses predominantly on the potential health risks of vaping. It carried out reviews on biomarkers of exposure to nicotine and potential toxicants; biomarkers of potential harm to health cutting across several diseases, including cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases; biomarkers specifically associated with cancer, respiratory, cardiovascular or other health outcomes; poisonings; fires and explosions; nicotine and flavours.
The report concludes that in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking, but that vaping is not risk-free, particularly for people who have never smoked.