EU accused of ‘anti-vax levels of science denial’ over safer nicotine products

STOCKHOLM – Leading international health experts have accused the European Commission of engaging in anti-vaccine-style science denial after it rejected overwhelming evidence that smoke-free nicotine products reduce smoking and smoking-related disease.

The Commission’s response to a parliamentary question from Danish MEP Kristoffer Storm represents one of the most alarming examples of ideology-driven policymaking seen in EU public health in recent years, said Dr Delon Human, physician, leader of Smoke Free Sweden and a former secretary-general of the World Medical Association.

“The Commission’s position contradicts a mountain of unimpeachable evidence and is a textbook case of science denial. Even if well‑intentioned, this statement may unintentionally increase smoking‑related disease and mortality in Europe rather than reduce it,” he said.

“Dismissing safer nicotine alternatives is as irrational and dangerous as denying that vaccines save lives. It ignores regulators, clinicians, real-world data and lived experience.”

Despite acknowledgements by independent authorities – including the US Food and Drug Administration and Cochrane reviews – that smoke-free nicotine products expose users to substantially lower levels of harmful chemicals than cigarettes and help smokers to quit, the Commission claimed that using such products does not reduce health risks.

The statement from the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Olivér Várhelyi (pictured), reads: “Using smoke-free tobacco and nicotine products, as opposed to combustible smoking, is not reducing risk to health.”

Dr Human said: “That is possibly one of the most dangerous sentences that has been uttered by a politician charged with the welfare of 450 million people. Combustion is what causes cancer, heart disease and lung disease. To suggest that inhaling smoke and not inhaling smoke carry the same risk is scientific nonsense and risks condemning smokers to continue using deadly cigarettes.”

Sweden’s world-leading results offer irrefutable evidence that harm reduction works. By embracing safer nicotine alternatives, Sweden has achieved the lowest smoking rates in the EU at 5.3% of adults, less than one-quarter of the EU average.

It now enjoys a massive public health dividend, with dramatically lower rates of smoking-related diseases. The country’s male lung cancer death rate is 61% lower than the European average, with a corresponding 34% lower rate of total cancer deaths.

“Sweden has already shown Europe the way forward,” Dr Human said. “It has provided a roadmap to a smoke-free future that saves lives instead of scoring moral points. The Commission risks moving the EU in the opposite direction.

The Commission has cited concerns about a potential “gateway effect” from smoke‑free products to smoking. Dr Human noted that “no robust evidence supports this claim – and that Sweden’s experience shows the opposite’.

He concluded: “Europe must now decide whether it wants to lead on public health or repeat the mistakes of science denialism. In tobacco control, it is time for the Commission to stop promoting ideology over science and start prioritising lives.”

 

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