Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, a cardiologist from Greece, has argued that e-cigarettes should be made available to smokers who want to stop using combustible cigarettes but don’t want to give up nicotine, according to Mayalsia’s The Star.
Farsalinos, who is a cardiologist and researcher at the University of Patras’ Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, has indicated that e-cigarettes play an important role in tobacco harm reduction. “Most smokers do not want to go to the doctor,” he said in a media briefing initiated by the Malaysian Organisation of Vape Entity.
Farsalinos also quoted studies that said current nicotine-replacement therapies had a success rate of less than 6 percent, while oral medications had a success rate below 20 percent. He argued that e-cigarette use was a more acceptable method for smokers to reduce smoking, saying e-cigarettes are 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes.
Malaysia’s health minister, Datuk Seri Dr. S. Subramaniam, on Aug. 13 announced that the country’s ministry of health was in discussions with various agencies and parties about the effects different methods of smoking have on an individual’s health. He urged the public to stop using e-cigarettes until comprehensive findings on the risks involved in vaping were released.
Of the 400 Malaysian smokers aged 18 and above surveyed online by Ipsos from June 3 to June 17, 82 percent believed that “e-cigarettes represent a positive alternative to today’s [combustible] cigarettes,” and 75 percent would “consider switching to e-cigarettes if they were legal, met quality and safety standards, and were conveniently available like regular tobacco products,” according to John Boley, co-founder of the consumer advocacy group Factasia.org.