Why is the WHO so wrong about e-cigarettes?

Michael Bloomberg and his philanthropy are a malevolent influence on the World Health Organization, critics say.

Marc Gunther
The Great Vape Debate
6 min readMay 2, 2024

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The World Health Organization’s AI chatbot opposes tobacco harm reduction

Meet S.A.R.A.H., the World Health Organization’s new Smart AI Resource Assistant for Health. She’s online 24/7, speaks eight languages, and offers advice on topics ranging from COVID vaccines to mental health to diets.

Should I switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping e-cigarettes, I ask her.

“E cigarettes are still considered unsafe and there is not enough evidence to determine if they are safer than smoking tobacco,” she says.

This is wrong or, at the very least, misleading. Yes, e-cigarettes are unsafe, especially for young people. But health authorities including the U.S. National Academies of Science and Medicine, the CDC and the FDA have all said that e-cigarettes are safer than smoking combustible cigarettes.

Just this month, the UK’s Royal College of Physicians published a review of the evidence about e-cigarettes and concluded: “Using e-cigarettes for harm reduction to reduce morbidity and mortality from combustible tobacco is based on clear evidence that e-cigarettes cause less harm to health than combustible tobacco.” [emphasis added]

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Marc Gunther
The Great Vape Debate

Reporting on psychedelics, tobacco, philanthropy, animal welfare, etc. Ex-Fortune. Words in The Guardian, NYTimes, WPost, Vox. Baseball fan. Runner.