Threat of legal action over e-cigarette risk claims

The e-cigarette sales network, eSmokingWORLD, has said that it will take legal action against the French news agency AFP over a story headlined, E-cigarettes ten times more carcinogenic than ordinary cigarettes.

In a press note, eSmokingWORLD said that while describing the results of research conducted by Japanese scientists of the National Institute for Public Health, AFP had said: ‘Electronic cigarette vapours contain carcinogenic substances in quantities which are frequently much greater than in the case of tobacco smoke’.

‘The message of the agency has become a source of many publications on this subject, which rapidly appeared in the European media,’ said eSmokingWORLD.

Two questions, presumably based directly or indirectly on the AFP report have been asked in the European Parliament by Marlene Mizzi, a Maltese politician and Member of the EU Parliament.

In the preamble to her questions, Mizzi said that researchers had found that electronic cigarettes contained 10 times more cancer-causing chemicals than did regular cigarettes.

She asked:

1. Can the Commission clarify whether this estimate is correct?

2. If so, is the Commission considering banning e-cigarettes from the EU market?

eSmokingWORLD said it was afraid the story by AFP might have a negative impact on the opinions of governmental institutions, which were working on the implementation of the new Tobacco Products Directive.