{"id":631703,"date":"2026-09-21T19:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631703\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T19:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:42:14","slug":"factfind-are-vapes-nearly-worse-than-cigarettes-%c2%b7-thejournal-ie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631703\/","title":{"rendered":"FactFind: Are vapes ‘nearly worse’ than cigarettes? \u00b7 TheJournal.ie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

VAPES VERSUS SMOKES.<\/p>\n

Since e-cigarettes became more widespread, debates have raged about whether vapes are better for you than lighting up a more traditional cigarette.<\/p>\n

Miche\u00e1l Martin isn\u2019t a fan of smoking either way, and earlier this month, he suggested that inhaling nicotine electronically is almost as bad as doing it the more old-fashioned way.<\/p>\n

But is that true? Is there any evidence to support the claim that the use of e-cigarettes is nearly as harmful as smoking traditional cigarettes?\n<\/p>\n

The Claim<\/p>\n

Miche\u00e1l Martin said this month that vapes are \u201cnearly worse\u201d than cigarettes.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the end of the Fianna F\u00e1il think-in in Tullamore, Co Offaly 8 September, the Taoiseach\u00a0described vapes as the \u201crevenge of Big Tobacco\u201d and said the government should deal with them in a \u201cstronger way\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said:<\/p>\n

\u201cVapes are nearly worse than cigarettes. In many instances, we don\u2019t know what\u2019s in them. They\u2019re damaging to lungs and these are serious issues for society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin also cited advice from former chief medical officer of the United States, Dr Anthony Fauci, and unspecified \u201cothers\u201d to bolster his claim.<\/p>\n

\"bantry-west-cork-ireland-august-13-2026-taoiseach-micheal-martin-officially-opened-the-all-ireland-coastal-rowing-championships-in-bantry-which\"
\n Miche\u00e1l Martin, who as health minister introduced the smoking ban in Ireland in 2003 Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n

The Evidence<\/p>\n

Before we begin, there\u2019s an important behavioural pattern to take account of.<\/p>\n

Although smoking is one thing and vaping is another, a lot of people who vape also smoke (or used to smoke), which can complicate the results of studies on the harms caused by each.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s Healthy Ireland Survey<\/a>, conducted by polling company Ipsos B&A among a nationally representative sample of people,\u00a0found that just 17% of people who vape have never smoked.<\/p>\n

The studies quoted in this article take account of this, but it\u2019s still worth mentioning that there\u2019s a high crossover between both habits.<\/p>\n

In search of evidence for Martin\u2019s claim, we first asked the Department of An Taoiseach and Fianna F\u00e1il what he was basing his comments on, but received no reply by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

Our next port of call was to ask the Health Service Executive what its position is. On its website<\/a>, it says that\u00a0\u201dcompared to cigarettes, vaping may be less harmful\u201d and that vaping delivers nicotine \u201cwith fewer toxins than cigarettes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Note that this advice is phrased as a possibility, rather than definitive; the same page still says that \u201cwe are still learning about the long-term risks of vaping\u201d.<\/p>\n

And it doesn\u2019t exactly say that vaping is harmless either: in fact, the health service lists a number of negative health effects associated with e-cigarette use, including damage to the heart, lungs and blood vessels and exposure to toxins.<\/p>\n

We also asked the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland if they could provide any advice or an expert voice whom we could ask.<\/p>\n

The group did not explicitly say whether e-cigarettes were safer than smoking, but directed us to two policy papers<\/a> which emphasised that<\/a> they should not be used to stop smoking.<\/p>\n

The papers also said that children who vape are more likely to start smoking, and called for legislation to further regulate vapes.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t much other Irish evidence available, but other international bodies and academics have carried out studies of their own.<\/p>\n

Two of the biggest studies carried out on vaping versus smoking have been carried out in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

A 2022 review commissioned by<\/a> the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), concluded that while vaping is not risk-free, it is substantially less harmful than smoking tobacco in the short to medium-term.<\/p>\n

Its authors looked at studies of what are known as \u201cbiomarkers of exposure\u201d (which measure potentially harmful substance levels in the body) and \u201cbiomarkers of potential harm\u201d (which measure biological changes to the body) due to vaping and smoking.<\/p>\n

They found that levels of nitrosamines \u2013 the chemical compounds that are classified as probable human carcinogens \u2013 specific to tobacco, as well as other toxicants related to tobacco smoking, were found at much lower levels in people who vape.<\/p>\n

The second study,\u00a0published in 2024 by the Royal College of Physicians in London<\/a>,\u00a0also reviewed similar biomarkers of exposure and of potential harm in vapers and smokers.<\/p>\n

It noted that there is \u201cclear evidence that e-cigarettes cause less harm to health than combustible tobacco\u201d and that\u00a0vaping nicotine \u201cis not associated with a high frequency of adverse health effects\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, it did stress that there were some mixed results, and that research on the health effects of vaping is limited by small sample sizes and a lack of evidence around the long-term risks of vaping.<\/p>\n

A third and more recent study from the United States sways the other way. That paper, by the National Library of Medicine<\/a>, was published earlier this year and cited a number of previous studies \u2013 including the RCP mentioned above \u2013 that suggest e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional cigarettes.<\/p>\n

It concludes that there is a growing body of literature that suggests vapes are \u201cassociated with disease outcomes indistinguishable from or approaching\u201d regular smoking.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not quite the same as \u201cnearly worse\u201d than smoking, as Miche\u00e1l Martin suggested \u2013 but it\u2019s certainly closer than previous studies suggested.<\/p>\n

The results of the 2026 paper are a bit more nuanced than that headline conclusion.<\/p>\n

In direct vaping-versus-smoking comparisons, it found only one instance where the negative outcome between the two was directly comparable: the risk of metabolic dysfunction.<\/p>\n

Other instances found in favour of vaping, including the risk of oral disease (0.89 times as likely compared to smoking), asthma (0.84 times as likely), cardiovascular disease (0.76 times as likely), stroke (0.62 times as likely), and COPD (0.55 times as likely).<\/p>\n

The paper therefore didn\u2019t establish that vaping is generally or \u201cnearly\u201d more dangerous than smoking. There were a handful of statistically similar risks, but for several outcomes, vaping was found to carry significantly lower risks.<\/p>\n

To complicate matters, roughly three-quarters of the estimates were from cross-sectional studies in which researchers tried to infer what caused a disease, or tried to disentangle a person\u2019s previous history of cigarette smoking.<\/p>\n

What experts say<\/p>\n

In addition to the studies above, The Journal spoke to experts to ask about Martin\u2019s claim comparing the dangers of vaping to smoking.<\/p>\n

We asked the HSE and the RCPI for Irish experts who could speak about this, but none were available before publication.<\/p>\n

However, we spoke to three international experts who have been involved in high-profile studies into the effects of vaping and smoking.<\/p>\n

Dr Nicola Lindson, an associate professor at the University of Oxford whose research focuses on tobacco addiction and smoking cessation interventions, said that the \u201cbreadth of the evidence gives confidence\u201d that vaping is not as harmful as smoking.<\/p>\n

She explained how the nature of smoking cigarettes itself contributes to this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that one of the reasons smoking is so harmful is the combustion process inherent in smoking tobacco which generates many of the harmful chemicals,\u201d Lindson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no combustion involved in vaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she also pointed out that there were still harms associated with vaping, which could be hard to judge given the number of people who vape and smoke, and that some health effects of vaping may not emerge for many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot say that we are confident about all effects of vaping without long-term and unconfounded data,\u201d Lindson added.<\/p>\n

We also contacted Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts and an expert in evidence-based medicine and health policy, particularly in tobacco control, e-cigarettes and diabetes.<\/p>\n

She said that current scientific evidence shows that vaping e-cigarettes is \u201cconsiderably less harmful\u201d than smoking, though she added that it is not risk-free.<\/p>\n

Hartmann-Boyce explained that there are variations in vapes (such as flavour and device type) that may impact their risk profile, making it hard to say the percentage to which they are less risky than cigarettes overall.<\/p>\n

But she also said that misperceptions of the harms of vaping could stop people from switching from smoking, which could in turn reduce health risks to smokers and the people around them who may be being exposed to secondhand smoke.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important to remember that, as a consumer product, cigarettes are uniquely deadly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is estimated that they kill one in two people who [become lifelong smokers].<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is too early to make any firm statements about the absolute risks of vaping, but the evidence we have so far shows that regulated, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are considerably less harmful than smoking \u2013 which isn\u2019t hard to achieve given how deadly cigarettes are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, we also spoke to Prof Stanton Glantz, a tobacco control advocate and founding director of the University of California\u2019s Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education, who was involved in the National Library of Medicine study cited above.<\/p>\n

He largely agreed with the Taoiseach\u2019s claim and said vaping \u201cdoes cause some of the same diseases as smoking\u201d and that \u201coverall, sole vaping is nearly as harmful as smoking\u201d and that dual use (along with cigarettes) is \u201cmuch worse\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, Glantz also said that the use of e-cigarettes on their own was not as harmful as smoking.<\/p>\n

\u201cE-cig use by itself is nearly as damaging or as damaging than smoking, but not more damaging,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VAPES VERSUS SMOKES. Since e-cigarettes became more widespread, debates have raged about whether vapes are better for you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[27511,15689,268117,103,61,60,1843,11400,20000],"class_list":["post-631703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-vaping","tag-factcheck","tag-factfind","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-micheal-martin","tag-smoking","tag-vapes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}