Latest / The Front / Vaping causes cancer - so why can’t young people quit?

Transcript

Vaping causes cancer - so why can’t young people quit? · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, April one, twenty twenty six. Cheaper fuel prices
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: kick in today after the Federal government's two point six
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: billion dollar move to ease the pain caused by war
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: in Iran. That'll make Jim chalmers fifth budget more of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a spendeth on than he originally wanted. But the treasure
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: is also reveling in a sixty billion dollar windfall. All
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the details are live now at the Australian dot com
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: dot a u. Vaping is bad for you, really bad.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: New research shows e cigarettes are likely to cause lung
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and oral cancers, and scientists are urging vapors to quit
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: now instead of waiting for disease to develop. Today Senior
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: health reporter Penny Tims on how this shakes up our
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: ideas about big tobacco and a new generation with a
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: seriously dangerous habit. Penny Tims is a senior health reporter
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: with The Australian and this sounds like an absolute bombshell,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: apparently sucking in a whole lot of chemicals with a
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: little red light and then puffing out a giant cloud
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: of steam is not good for you.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I know, who would have thought, right, who would have thought?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: What's the latest on vapes?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Look, this is.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Some really astounding research coming out of Australia. So essentially
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: there's been a group of scientists from Australia who have
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: deemed that it is likely that nicotine vapes do cause cancer.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Now specifically we're talking about lung and certain oral cancers.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: And this is actually the first time that such definitive
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: proof has really been put forward by the scientific community.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: So it's likely to get some controversy, but that's ultimately
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: what's been put forward by these scientists from Australia.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Vapes haven't existed for a very long time, and one
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of the things we know about smoking is that you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: might go through many, many decades of smoking in relatively
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: good health apart from having a hacking cough and cut
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: of orange fingertips. How do scientists know that vapes are
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: causing cancer? Is it that quick to develop?
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: It's not, And this is one of the really tricky
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: parts of this entire research. So this is not definitive proof.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: And the reason it's not definitive is that it takes
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: decades for that proof to come through and vapes have
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: really only been on the market for about twenty years,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: and for really that first ten years of their sale,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: they weren't that popular. And so it's really only been
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: in the last ten years or so that we've seen
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: them really take off, and especially in the last five years.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: And so you.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Need a population of people who have only smoked vapes
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: in order to get that definitive proof, and we.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Don't have that yet.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: So these scientists have said, look, we don't have time
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: to wait. It took one hundred years for them to
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: figure out that cigarettes caused cancer, and they said, we
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: don't have time to wait like that. Essentially, they're now
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: looking at different markers in the body, so buyer markers
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: and all these other different variants that give them some
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: clues about cellular change and have said that those cellular
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: changes are happening already and that that should be an
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: early borning sign and that the world really needs to
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: take notice of that and not repeat the mistakes of
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: the past.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: With big tobacco, Big.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Tobacco shifted its business model to vapes kind of starting
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in the early nineteen nineties when we started seeing evidence
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: with tobacco. Companies had known that their products were A
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: addictive and B carcinogenic. They then faced plane packaging legislation
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: around the world, rules on where you could smoke. It's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: now impossible to really smoke inside any building almost anywhere
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: in the Western world at least, and so big tobacco
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: companies changed their business model to manufacture vapes. But they
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: have always said that vapes were a cessation tool and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: in fact, what they were doing helping their customers to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: not smoke anymore, if that's what they chose. The big
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: tobacco companies are all about choice. That's part of their rhetoric.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Is there any evidence that vapes weerever actually a cessation tool?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Was the whole point to get people addicted?
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: This is such an interesting point.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: There is new research that has come out of Ohio
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: University in the last couple of years that have shown
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: that they're not actually that great for cessation, that they
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: are not doing that job. This has always been a
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: huge argument, and it's really really intense the arguments. You
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: get lobbied by either side who say yes, they're fantastic
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: for it.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Or no they're not.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: What this research out of Ohio had shown was that
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: people who did turn to vaping to try to reduce
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: smoking or cut it out completely.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Fifty percent actually.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Then just took up both and so then they had
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: this double whammy of sort of flirting between cigarettes and
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: vabes and then their chance of getting these cancers that
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: astronomically risen. And so a lot of doctors and a
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: lot of scientists have sort of said, look, the proof
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: just is not there. We keep on hearing this rhetoric
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: from big tobacco that it is helping, and there's definitely
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: a lot of supporters on there. In the UK, for example,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of support for this notion that vapes
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: are fantastic for reducing smoking. But our scientists here just say, look,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: the data is just not backing that up. There's just
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: not the proof to say that that has actually happened.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It's so sad to see people kind of caught in
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the attempt to quit smoking. Of course, there are phone
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: hotlines and websites and self help books. I've got a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: friend who took up nicoretes, the gum and patches to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: stop smoking. So now he smokes, wears a patch and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to choose nicorettes. He needs to I think needs to
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: add vaping too his repertoire because there's a bit of
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: time still left in the day. But Australia really took
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: quite serious action about vapes in recent years. Has that worked.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: This has been another interesting point to see whether or
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: not of laws to make vates illegal unless they're for
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: therapeutic reasons. So far, the data is really limited, but
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: it's actually suggesting that maybe it is working.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So the data that we've sort of.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Seen is that from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: two we were seeing some pretty extraordinary rates. So there
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: was a high school study that was done of high
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: school students across the nation and it showed that thirty
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: percent had tried vaping in that twenty twenty one to
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty two year period. Thirteen percent of those age
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: twelve to fourteen had vaped in the past month, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: when you look at sixteen and seventeen year olds, that
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: rose to twenty two percent.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: That now has actually.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Gone down somewhat in the most recent survey that was
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: conducted in twenty twenty four. So it is going to
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: be interesting to see whether or not this newer generation
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: does actually start to continue turning away from vates. But
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: at the same time, there's this age group of eighteen
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: to twenty four year olds that have actually just astronomically
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: taken it up, and so we're seeing this huge rise
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: in that one particular age group, just above the teens,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: and so that's really quite concerning because you know, if
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: they continue to turn to these bapes and then turn
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: to cigarettes as well, their risk of developing cancer does
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: increase quite considerably.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Those were people who entered their early teens in the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: era of plane packaging legislation and you know, big legislative
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: change here in Australia brought in by the Gillard government
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: which dramatically reduced smoking rates officially, and we are going
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: to ensure that.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: In Australia there are no remaining avenues for tobacco companies
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: to market and promote their products, particularly to young people.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: Go on other days where people can pretend that cigarettes
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: are glamorous.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: But what happened at the same time is that the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: government started ramping up the cigarette excise, which means a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: legitimate packet of cigarettes at the supermarket of the Servo
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: are now sixty dollars maybe. So now there's a huge
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: black market and there's a low barrier to entry. You know,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: it's not considered criminal, even though it is to go
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and buy a packet of cigarettes at a dodgy convenience
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: store that are manufactured in god knows where. So the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: fact that the eighteen to twenty four year olds are
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: taking it up, also despite the fact that they're quite
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a healthy group of people in other ways, is really sad,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: isn't it It is.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It's really really sad.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: And I think that one of the really concerning things
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: from my perspective. So I read a lot of studies
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: and investigations into what is in these cigarettes and what
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: is in these vapes. And the one problem with the
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: laws that we do have is that while it does
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: seem as though perhaps they are helping to reduce some
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: vaping and smoking numbers, the products that are here are
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: unregulated and that's a real concern because of the studies
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: that have been done, we've seen really high levels of
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: nicotine in these vapes, extremely high, So people aren't realizing
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: just how much nicotine they're getting out of these vapes.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: It's way higher than what you get in a cigarette.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: And I just don't think that younger people are really
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: aware of that addictiveness. And until they decide that they
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: do actually want to come off them, and then it's
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: really hard because if you come off vapes, there's not
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: really much help in your nicotine level, in your nicotine
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: addiction is probably really, really high. And so I've heard
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: anecdotal stories of people saying, you know, I went to
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: my GP to ask for help, and my GP is
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: kind of stuck because my nicotine addiction was just so high.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: And it's really problematic.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: And as you said, like, I think we've got this
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: generation that is so obsessed with health, and I think
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: that's a fantastic thing. They're so engaged with it, But
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: there's this one side of it. You know, it doesn't
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: matter how healthy you are in certain parts of your life,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: if you've got this one glaring problem, it doesn't reduce
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: your cancer risk.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Coming up. Big tobaccos always insisted they could help provide
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the solution. Were they right. All along the tobacco companies
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: would say, well, you know, unfortunately, you can't regulate this
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: black market and you can't control what's in these dodgy products.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: We are a legal industry. Regulate us, let us sell
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: products without a massive exercise that makes them unaffordable and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: then you can monitor the results and do all the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: cessation campaigns you want to do. Are they right?
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Look, a lot of the scientists and researchers who I've
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: been speaking with on this issue for years now, they
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: don't think that that's right. They don't think that the
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: cigarettes and the fates should be available. They do not
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: think that at all. They all are pretty supportive of
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Australia's approach that being a banning, and that has actually
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: surprised me because I was sort of of that thinking
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: that perhaps it would be better to actually know what's
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: in the products and reduce that black market, so that
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: at least you know the products that are on the streets,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: you know what's in them. But a lot of the
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: scientists have just sort of said, look, we don't think
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: so it's pretty strong the evidence is showing that there
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: is being some cut through. Sydney University does a lot
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: of research into this area and they've certainly said that
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: their most recent studies have certainly shown that the messaging
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: is getting through about the health impacts of smoking and vaping, and.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: They're pretty overall hopeful that things can start to come down.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: With a caveat that authorities really do need to ensure
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: that they are doing these raids on these tobacconists that
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: are selling very obviously shapes.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And they're marketed at children too. They've got flavors like,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you know, blueberry and sort of candy floors. Yeah.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: In Sydney there was a store that was found to
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: be just down the road from the PM's electorate office
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that was sort of flogging itself and sort of you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: had all these little toys.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Everywhere, and you know they were trying to attract children.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: It's so disturbing when you look at just how potentially
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: damaging this can be, and you don't want young kids
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: addicted to this stuff at such a young age. Oh
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: my goodness. Their bodies are developing, their bodies are growing.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: They still need to ensure that, you know, they're organs
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: and everything go strong and healthy and set them up
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: for a really long and happy life.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: But in some healthy addictions like chocolate and alcohol, exactly exactly.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Go back to the phones. Boom scroll.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Penny Tims, thank you very much, Thank you. Penny Tims
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: is a senior health reporter with The Australian. You can
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: check out the nation's best coverage of wellbeing, lifestyle and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: medicine right now at the Australian dot com dot you
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: slash health