Are Big Pharma Payments Driving Anti-vape Campaign?

“The health of whanau
is not for sale in Aotearoa, yet worryingly, perhaps we’ve
seen the first evidence that it could be,” says Nancy
Loucas, Executive Coordinator of CAPHRA (Coalition of Asia
Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates).

Her
comments follow international drug companies disclosing
their gifts and payments to New Zealand health professionals
– something Medicines New Zealand has promised would
happen for seven years. The total in its first release of
data is nearly half a million dollars’ worth.

Two
key leaders in the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New
Zealand (ARFNZ) and the Royal New Zealand College of General
Practitioners (RNZCGP) are listed as receiving funds from
Big Pharma.

Ms Loucas: “Both of these organisations
are vehemently anti-vape and anti-Tobacco Harm Reduction
(THR). Is this latest disclosure of Big Pharma funds and
gifts a clue or a coincidence?”

ARFNZ’s public
scaremongering about vaping is well
established.

“Not one Kiwi has reportedly died from
vaping, yet 5,000 die every year from smoking-related
illnesses. Despite this, the ARFNZ continues to obsess about
the most effective smoking cessation tool we have. Its
ongoing anti-vape campaign has not helped one Kiwi to quit
tobacco, nor will it help New Zealand achieve Smokefree
Aotearoa 2025,” she says.

Likewise, RNZCGP continues
to push an anti-vape agenda. Its latest call is for vapes to
be restricted to pharmacies or available through Quitline,
like nicotine patches.

“ARFNZ and RNZCGP should
focus on ending the tobacco scourge that continues to wreck
families and communities. Instead, they waste a lot of
money, time and energy on trying to relitigate the
country’s vaping legislation which Parliament well
scrutinised, debated and passed in 2020,” says Ms
Loucas.

CAPHRA says every time these organisations
publicly campaign against vaping, not smoking, it only puts
smokers off switching to the most viable
alternative.

It says New Zealand’s overall smoking
rate has halved over the past decade largely due to vaping
and the regulation of it, with Public Health England
resolute that nicotine vaping is 95% less harmful than
smoking combustible tobacco.

“The approach taken and
narrative promoted by ARFNZ and RNZCGP runs completely
against that of the Minister of Health, Health Promotion
Agency, Vaping Regulatory Authority, and Ministry of Health.
The New Zealand Government and its agencies actively promote
vaping as an effective smoking cessation tool and a key
component of Smokefree 2025.

“One has to wonder
who’s loading the gun for these well-funded anti-vape
proponents to then fire the bullets. We look forward to more
transparency and information on Big Pharma funds and gifts
coming into New Zealand. Afterall, sunlight is the best
disinfectant,” says Nancy Loucas.

In 2010, The
Physician Payments Sunshine Act in the United States aimed
to shine a light on pharma influence, with countries
worldwide in recent years setting up schemes to disclose
drug company freebies and payments to health
professionals.

For a free digital media repository on
tobacco harm reduction in Asia Pacific – including media
releases, images, and graphics – please visit https://apthrmedia.org

About
CAPHRA

The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm
Advocates (CAPHRA) is a regional alliance of consumer
tobacco harm reduction advocacy organizations. Its mission
is to educate, advocate and represent the right of adult
alternative nicotine consumers to access and use of products
that reduce harm from tobacco use.

https://caphraorg.net/

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