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Ryan Bridge: Who do we believe on vaping? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There's a big puffy cloud of smoke hanging over the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: vaping versus cigarettes debate this week. You might have noticed this.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It's all kicked off because the government's handing out free
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: vapes to smokers to stop them getting what we know
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: basically could be a death sentence, and they've done a
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: deal to buy a bunch of them four half a
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: million dollars. Now. Between January last year and July, they
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: gave out three thousand vaping kits and hand them out
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to all the smokers, and nearly half of them stopped smoking,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: which ordinarily you would think would be a good news story.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Not so for Calli Burrows Auckland University vaping researchers. She
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: said this on news Talk ZB Basically, it's not.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if it's working, but I
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: guess I just the main point I think is that
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  Speaker 2: vaping is not a registered medicine for smoking festation. It's
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: not been approved. It's not as stringently registered or regulated
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and tested as other smoking testation products that are already available.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: So to me, it seems quite crazy that they are
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: giving mystery bakes that.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, So yesterday I spoke to Robert Beegelhol, Yes, the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Robert Beegelhol, former boss of the World Health Organization, public
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  Speaker 1: health expert. He said this about these anti vapors.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: It's a mystery, but clearly some of the search is
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: the one you refer to in particular, is a laboratory
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  Speaker 3: based scientist who has no epidemiological, no public health experience,
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  Speaker 3: doesn't have the big picture in mind. One of the
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  Speaker 3: other antagonists to this approach clearly doesn't comprehend the evidence.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a mystery to why someone would to
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  Speaker 3: pose something that is much less harmful, helps people stop,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: and it's cheaper.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but to me, this feels
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit like the COVID days, you know, when
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: you had the so called experts piping up about the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: harms of a disease without taking a helicopter view of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the best way that a society should actually manage the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: risk for the least overall harm. You know, you have
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: your people who are your specialist in your WII area
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and they say this is evil, and we're like, yeah,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: we know that's bad, but what is the best way
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  Speaker 1: for a society to deal with it. That's a very
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: different question, right there's also a political element to this,
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  Speaker 1: I think, because we know there are certain politicians who
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: were out there desperate to paint Casey Costello as some
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: sort of big vape lobbyist in drag. But the choice really,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, when individuals need to come and choose and decide,
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  Speaker 1: if it's really a choice, and you can call it that,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: it seems to come down to the devil we know
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: versus the devil we don't. For more from Early Edition
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it be
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.