Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg opposes Donald Trump. Invited in the mid-day diary on Europe 1, this pneumologist and tobaccoologist clears the electronic cigarette, whose use would be dangerous.

INTERVIEW

For him, there is no question of banning an alternative to tobacco. Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg spoke Thursday at the microphone of Europe 1 against the Donald Trump project to prevent the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes, responsible according to the US health authorities of a true epidemic, especially among adolescents. This pulmonologist and tobaccoologist believes that "the electronic cigarette is innocent" unlike inhalants. "People, by obvious misuse, aberrantly put oily extract of cannabis in electronic cigarettes, it's like mayonnaise and it destroys the lungs, which is why they are sick."

Strict control in France

These liquids, whose list of additives are very numerous, are banned for sale in Europe and are not marketed on our territory. Unlike the 35,000 products authorized for sale by ANSES, the National Agency for Food Safety, Environment and Labor. "It's like people driving a car with ten grams of alcohol and charging the car, the e-cigarette is innocent, it was used as a tool to introduce an unsuitable toxic product into the lung."

Unquestionably harmful to WHO

Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg therefore makes the difference between the electronic cigarette and the products that are added. It ranks 100% behind the opinion of WHO, the World Health Organization, which has found the e-cigarette to be undeniably harmful to its users. But if "the electronic cigarette is not a trivial product, it is a lesser evil compared to the cigarette." And to prove it, the pulmonologist and tobacco expert has his figures. "A young person who starts the electronic cigarette has a one in six chance of becoming a smoker a year later, while one who starts with smoking will be a smoker in one out of every two cases."

The bad American example

So when the United States threatens to ban the sale of electronic cigarettes, as is already the case in San Francisco, Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg wonders about the American method. "There is a collapse in the smoking rate among young people in high schools, at about 3.8%, so the e-cigarette does not appear to be a massive smoking product for teenagers, but rather a competitor or at least one indifferent product.Europe is much more reasonable than the United States, quite excessive in their measures for or against these products. "