Who would you trust? A global health organization that bans safer alternatives while leaving cigarettes on the shelves, or the President-elect of the United States who vows to “save vaping again”?
President-elect Donald Trump recently declared on his social media platform:
“I saved flavored vaping in 2019, and it greatly helped people get off smoking. I raised the age to 21, keeping it away from the ‘kids.'”
In stark contrast, Dr. Angela Pratt, of the World Health Organization, praised a move by Vietnamese lawmakers to try and ban alternative nicotine products like e-cigarettes and heated tobacco devices, calling it a victory for health and young people. Yet, she conveniently ignored the fact that traditional cigarettes — the primary source of harm — remain legally available.
Meanwhile, reduced-risk nicotine alternatives that could help smokers quit are now banned outright. Public health professionals want the public to trust them without being trustworthy — that’s a recipe for failure.
The message to working people is clear: your health is expendable. Banning reduced-risk alternatives removes a vital lifeline for millions of smokers, many of whom are from lower-income backgrounds and cannot afford premium smoking cessation therapies. These policies effectively funnel them back to traditional cigarettes.
This isn’t just a Vietnam problem. NGOs worldwide led by Bloomberg Philanthropies have been instrumental in pushing for similar bans on reduced-harm nicotine products in developing countries. While cloaked in the rhetoric of public health, their campaigns frequently target vaping and heated tobacco products, which countless experts agree are significantly less harmful than traditional cigarettes. This anti-nicotine crusade disregards the harm-reduction potential of these technologies, leaving working-class smokers with fewer options and no voice.
Consider this: In countries like India, Mexico, and the Philippines, these NGO-affiliated organizations have been criticized for lobbying governments and pressuring lawmakers to adopt restrictive policies. Vietnam’s recent attempts at a ban appear to follow this playbook, with NGOs providing “evidence” to justify prohibition.
For all their talk of health and equity, these NGOs and global health organizations are complicit in policies that harm the most vulnerable. Working people — those who can least afford to bear the health and financial costs of smoking — are left with no safer alternatives, ensuring that their dependence on traditional tobacco products remains unbroken.
Instead of celebrating bans on reduced-risk nicotine products, it’s time to call out the underlying hypocrisy. Public health policies should prioritize harm reduction and the well-being of all people, not the financial interests of state monopolies or the ideological agendas of well-funded NGOs. The fight against smoking should focus on providing practical, evidence-based solutions that empower individuals to make healthier choices — not on criminalizing alternatives that offer a way out for millions of smokers.
If the goal is truly to save lives and reduce the harms of smoking, then banning reduced-risk nicotine products is the wrong approach. It’s time to demand accountability from those who claim to advocate for public health while enabling policies that perpetuate addiction and inequality. NGOs and governments must stop playing games with people’s lives and start embracing harm reduction as a cornerstone of tobacco control policy.
Vietnam has to decide if it wants to accept the disinformation from the WHO and NGOs or join the global health supply chain in which working people will make use of nicotine delivery systems that are 95-99% less harmful. Should we blame Vietnam for embracing the lies of the WHO and Bloomberg Philanthropies or finally admit that the WHO is not about health truth but appeasing elite donors?
The WHO should be concerned about how the new President might impact U.S. funding — by harming working people and representing the whims of elite donors, they have fewer and fewer supporters across the ideological spectrum of U.S. political leaders. The truth matters.
