Read articles from Australia

April 17, 2023 by abc.net.au

Amelia Yazidjoglou, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University's National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, has conducted a review of 20 different e-cigarette health outcomes across 400 separate studies.

The review found only three studies with information about vaping and pregnancy.

"Unfortunately, we have very little or almost no data around any pregnancy, reproductive or developmental outcome for e-cigarettes," she said.

April 14, 2023 by news.com.au

Australian health authorities have declared there is no chance they will follow a “swap to stop” policy, after the UK offered smokers in Britain millions of free vapes to replace cigarettes.

While Australia Health Minister Mark Butler calls vaping a “public health menace”, his UK counterpart Neil O’Brien sees it as the key to reducing the number of smokers. [...] The Australian Medical Association (AMA) declared its stance on vaping in mid-January, calling for stronger regulation and dispelling their use as a quitting aid.

“Vaping is not harmless, it is not safe, it is not part of tobacco control,” AMA President Professor Stephen Robson said

March 30, 2023 by greens.org.au

We are concerned where we have got to in Australia and the fact is that with the increase in vaping and the creation of the black market that has happened in Australia, which is different to many other countries' approach, we have effectively created a black market by so throttling the supply of vaping products to be prescription-only by a GP. Only 1 per cent of GPs in Australia are registered as prescribers for these smoking cessation products. That is a problem, so what has happened is that smokers who want to get off smoking - long-term, rusted-on smokers who have tried and tried - find it difficult to access a GP and extremely cumbersome so they buy them on the black market.

March 28, 2023 by youtube.com

The prescription model has been rejected by consumers and a thriving black market is supplying dodgy products to adults and children. We need a regulated licensed market selling these lifesaving products to help smokers quit.

March 28, 2023 by medicalxpress.com

Although you can't legally buy nicotine e-cigarettes in Australia without a prescription, and promotion of e-cigarettes in general is restricted, new research suggests more young Australians are using them and finding them easy to access. Lead author Professor Simone Pettigrew from The George Institute for Global Health said that the increasing uptake of e-cigarettes by young adults was a worrying trend. "Our study suggests a need for much greater monitoring and enforcement of Australia's e-cigarette regulations to minimize harm to young people from vaping," she said. [...]

March 27, 2023 by mja.com.au

Due to the increasing use of vapes, particularly among young Australians, my fellow researchers and I set out to determine how these products were being promoted and sold, as both Australian and international research indicated that online purchasing is popular. To find out what was happening in the online vaping retail environment, we identified and investigated 20 unique Australian and New Zealand retail websites. We then reviewed the product range, age verification processes, marketing strategies and claims on these sites.

March 27, 2023 by theconversation.com

On Friday, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) updated its review of proposed reforms to the regulation of nicotine vaping products. It reported the federal government is now “actively considering” the TGA’s advice.

The TGA’s advice has not been released at this time, but a top-level summary of the review consultation submissions was. It restated the review’s scope, focused on changes to border controls for nicotine vaping products, minimum quality and safety standards – including the idea of categorising nicotine vaping products as therapeutic goods.

March 23, 2023 by smh.com.au

Vape flavours would be banned, individual product packages would have warning labels and importers would need a permit to bring vapes into the country under a crackdown being recommended by the Therapeutic Goods Administration to stamp out vaping among young people.

Australia will remain a global outlier in maintaining its prescription-only approach to vaping, but is seeking to toughen import rules and product standards, given a flourishing black market has emerged since regulations limiting vaping to people with a doctor’s prescription were first introduced in 2021.

March 22, 2023 by theguardian.com

The Nationals proposal to address skyrocketing youth vaping rates by relaxing laws to allow retailers to sell the products to adults is “a shocker,” the president of the Australian Medical Association, Steve Robson, has said, while other health experts have criticised the proposal for being aligned with big tobacco.

On Tuesday Nationals leader David Littleproud told the ABC that retailers should be allowed to dispense nicotine vaping products, but that sales should be limited to people 18 and over, and attractive packaging marketed to children should be banned.

March 21, 2023 by afr.com

Health Minister Mark Butler has accused tobacco companies of targeting Australian children with vaping products and promised to work with the states to crack down on black market sales.

As the Nationals push the Albanese government to ease access to vaping products for adults and regulate them in the same way as cigarettes – a move health experts say would be a backward step on Australia’s strong anti-smoking policies – Mr Butler told Labor MPs that vaping had “exploded” in the past five years, and it was damaging health.