Bates: ’95 Percent Safer’ Stands

Contrary to its claim, a recent critique does not debunk the statements made by Public Health England (PHE) and the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) that vaping is at least 95 percent less risky than smoking, according to Clive Bates, director of Counterfactual Consulting.

Writing on his blog, Bates examined the authors’ propositions and found them wanting.

“Not a single word of their paper addresses the supposed foundation of their critique—that PHE/RCP are wrong, and the risks of vaping are likely to exceed 5 percent of those of smoking,” Bates wrote.

While the paper contains several baseless assertions that are irrelevant to the “at least 95 percent lower” relative risk claim (gateway effects, smoking cessation efficacy and secondhand aerosol exposure), it says nothing about the relative magnitude of smoking and vaping risks, according to Bates.

“No analysis, no data, no evidence—nothing that discusses relative risk and why PHE/RCP are supposedly wrong. Niente. Nada. Rien. Nichts. Nothing,” he wrote.