6.6 million lives could be saved in the US over the next ten years by switching smokers to vaping

Georgetown University Medical Center

Levy DT et al., ‘Potential deaths averted in USA by replacing cigarettes with e-cigarettes,’ Tobacco Control 2018; 27:18-25.

• If smokers in the US switched from smoking to vaping it could prevent 6.6 million smokers from dying prematurely from tobacco-related illnesses and save 86.7 million life years.
• The researchers developed a model to show the number of lives that could be saved if smoking was to be replaced with vaping over 10 years.
• Key findings:
  • It predicted that in the absence of vaping, 26.1 million people will die from tobacco in the US between 2016 and the end of the century.
  • If smoking is replaced by vaping, 6.6. million deaths could be prevented by the end of the century. 
  • Even under the researchers’ more pessimistic scenario, 1.6 million premature deaths could be averted and 20.8 million fewer life years lost.

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