Washington (AFP)

The chief medical officer of the United States judged in a report published Thursday that there was not yet enough evidence that electronic cigarettes in general helped people to stop smoking, refusing to promote their use in the same way as the nicotine patches and behavioral therapies.

The conclusion goes against what the British government, for example, recommends to smokers, while e-cigarettes are under attack in the United States and other countries because of their popularity among young people and the risk potential for respiratory disease. Public Health England, the British health agency, explicitly recommends vaping to quit smoking, based on studies of long-term smokers.

"E-cigarettes, a group of products constantly changing, are used in multiple ways. It is therefore difficult to generalize on their effectiveness on the basis of clinical trials using a particular e-cigarette," concludes the signed report. by the "general sucker", Jerome Adams.

"There is at this stage no adequate evidence to conclude that e-cigarettes, in general, increase the number of people quitting smoking," the report continues.

The report cites studies concluding that certain e-cigarettes help smokers, but according to the chief doctor, these studies do not allow to conclude in a rigorous manner that all the vaping products are also effective.

"There are thousands of different products in the e-cigarette and vaping categories, thousands. We really need more research to determine which devices have the potential to help quit, for whom and under what circumstances. "Jerome Adams explained in a press conference.

The methods that have been proven to be effective are behavioral therapies, drugs approved by the FDA and containing nicotine such as skin patches, gums and sugared almonds, as well as text support. and online.

"The behavioral therapies and the seven FDA-approved drugs work independently, but when used together, they greatly increase the likelihood of someone quitting," insisted Jerome Adams.

The increase in tobacco taxes, warnings on cigarette packages and bans on smoking in public spaces also work, conclude the scientific experts who wrote and re-read the report, in which more than 150 experts participated, according to Jerome Adams.

The government of Donald Trump recently announced the ban on some of the e-cigarettes currently on the market, those that have refills or cartridges closed, and flavored with tastes other than tobacco and menthol, particularly used by young people. The minimum age to purchase vaping and tobacco products will also be raised by the fall from 18 to 21 years old across the country.

According to the US government's annual tobacco-youth study, 27.5% of last-year high school students said they had vaped in the last 30 days in 2019, compared to 11.3% in 2016.

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