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Published: 03 March 2025

ETHRA’s monthly roundup of news: ETHRA letter to SANT - Bulgarian ban - French fiasco - Should we just let the last smokers die? - Irresponsible unpublished vaping study backlash - Teen Vaping Has Virtually Eliminated Teen Smoking - A full guide to vapes - Cochrane podcast. Read on for more.

Read more: ETHRA February news roundup

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Published: 19 February 2025

On Thursday, February 6th, EU Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra (Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero, Clean Growth and Taxation) participated in a meeting of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Tax Matters. At the meeting, French MEP Pierre Pimpie, asked the Commissoner about the future of the Tobacco Excise Directive. In his response Commissioner Hoekstra made the extraoridinary and false statement that “Smoking kills, vaping kills”. Such a statement is extremely dangerours and damaging to the understanding of the relative risks of vaping compared to smoking, particularly when it is delivered in a meeting with policymakers.

For this reason we decided to write to the Commissioner and to all members of the European Parliament's Public Health Committee (SANT) to provide them with scientific evidence on the relative risks of vaping compared to smoking. We also provided ETHRA's proposal for the taxation of non-combustible nicotine products. Our letter is copied below and supporting documents are linked. 

A replay of the meeting is available here

A transcript of the relevant comments is here

Read more: False and misleading statements about vaping

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Published: 04 February 2025