Long time vaper, Terry Walker, has appeared on this blog in the past. He's written in this time to discuss the impact that vaping has had on his health. Look out for a follow-up tomorrow for his harm reduction proposal.
In 1962 The Royal College of Physicians reported the link between smoking and lung cancer, heart disease and gastrointestinal diseases.
In 2007 the Tobacco Advisory Group of the RCP argued for the application of harm reduction strategies for tobacco dependence. In 2015 Public Health England stated that using e-cigarettes was considered 95% less harmful than tobacco.
It is now 5 years since I traded tobacco for e-cigarettes, following problems with my breathing. I was diagnosed as having a borderline case of COPD ( Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), the disease that killed my only son, aged 47.
I remember reading somewhere, that after stopping smoking tobacco, the lungs can take up to five years to recover, to a degree. As a retired R & D scientist I took steps to ensure annual monitoring of my lungs to find out how they are faring.
There has been much postulating, in the press, about how dangerous e-cigarettes can be to our health, and that little is known how they will affect people, so their use should be banned. Well I find my results very interesting, and in contrast with this theory.
Background: I smoked about a quarter of a million strong, unfiltered cigarettes, over 69 years before trading tobacco for e-cigs 5 years ago due to breathing difficulties. Within 3 days I stopped using tobacco products, but lung function tests showed my breathing was only 50% of normal!
| Year | % of normal breathing rate |
| 2012 | 50% |
| 2014 | 80% |
| 2015 | 82% |
| 2016 | 88% |
| 2017 | 88% |
I have lobbied WHO, Public Health England, CMO for GB, EU etc. without response but did get a positive, and encouraging response on 6/3/17, from the Chairman of the Science & Technology Select Committee, who is shortly, to hold an enquiry into electronic cigarettes.
I also supplied them with my Harm Reduction Proposal for the prescription of e-cigarettes by NHS. Yesterday they sought my permission to use my findings as evidence in their inquiry, which I granted.
-Terry Walker