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Health officials have endorsed e-cigarettes for the first time, claiming they are a game-changer in the battle with smoking, according to The Times (August 19).

Doctors should be able to prescribe e-cigarettes, Public Health England said yesterday, as it tried to debunk the myth that €vaping€ was as bad for the health as inhaling tobacco smoke.

If all of England's eight million smokers switched to e-cigarettes overnight more than 75,000 lives a year would be saved, experts said. Not only are e-cigarettes 20 times less dangerous than tobacco, they are also among the most effective quitting aids, they added.

Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said: €Smoking remains England's number one killer and the best thing a smoker can do is to quit completely, now and for ever. E-cigarettes are not completely risk-free but when compared to smoking, evidence shows they carry just a fraction of the harm.€

His comments came as Public Health England published an independent review of the evidence on e-cigarettes. Ann McNeill, of King's College London, said: €In my view smokers should try vaping, and vapers should stop smoking entirely. E-cigarettes could be a game-changer in public health in particular by reducing the enormous health inequalities caused by smoking.€

[update 3.40pm]

RPS responds

Responding to the review, Royal Pharmaceutical Society director for England, Howard Duff, said: "E-cigarettes are currently unlicensed products with no standardisation of safety, quality or efficacy. As such, we believe they should not be sold or advertised from pharmacies.

€We echo the views of PHE and support the original intention of the MHRA to regulate e-cigarettes as medicinal products as an aid to smoking cessation. The licensing process would align e-cigarettes with other nicotine reduction therapies and ensure quality control and standardisation of products.

€E-cigarettes contain less harmful toxins than tobacco but still contain nicotine, which is an addictive substance. As they are a very new product, no-one can be sure of the consequences of long-term use on health and further research is needed to determine this.€