官方请求加快电子香烟药物许可审核

电子烟是一种模仿卷烟的电子产品，它是通过雾化等手段，将尼古丁等变成蒸汽后，让用户吸食的一种产品。在一个新的事物研发的时候，总是伴随着争议与期待，到底电子香烟能否成为“资深烟民”的戒烟良药？

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

regulatory监管的

inadvertently非故意地

nicotine尼古丁

inhaler吸入器

pipeline渠道

Officials call for faster medicinal licensing of ecigarettes （599 words）

By Mark Odell

Health officials have called for a review of ecigarette licensing to speed up their availability on prescription after concluding they can help smokers quit.

A report commissioned by Public Health England estimated they are 95 percent less harmful than tobacco but observed no product has secured approval to make it available on prescription in the five years since procedures were put in place to license tobacco replacement products.

“Much of England's strategy of tobacco harm reduction is predicated on the availability of medicinally licensed products that smokers want to use,” said the report.

It called for a review of the licensing process put in place by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in 2010, citing concerns the current cost of obtaining a licence would limit innovation and favour products produced by big tobacco companies

“The fact that no licensed ecigarettes are yet on the market suggests that the licensing route to market is not commercially attractive. The absence of non-tobacco industry products going through the MHRA licensing process suggests that the process is inadvertently favouring larger manufacturers…which is likely to inhibit innovation in the prescription market,” the report said.

Last year, a new type of nicotine inhaler backed by British American Tobacco won MHRA clearance. However, the product, Voke, is not yet commercially available in the UK and is not defined as an ecigarette because it uses the propellants found in asthma inhalers to deliver nicotine.

According to the report, BAT has submitted an ecigarette product for approval and rival products are also in the pipeline but “it is unclear at what stage the applications are”.

The one-off cost of the application process is estimated by the MHRA as between £252,000 and £390,000, along with annual costs of between £65,000 and £249,000 per product.

“A review of the…licensing process therefore seems appropriate, including manufacturers' costs and potential impact. This could include a requirement for MHRA to adapt the processes and their costs to enable smaller manufacturers to apply, and to speed up the licensing process,” the report said.

The report also warned that new EU legislation, which is likely to come into force in the UK in 2017, would take ecigarettes containing high nicotine doses off the market “potentially affecting heavier smokers”.

Among other conclusions, the study by teams from King's College London and Queen Mary London found the message that ecigarettes are much less harmful than tobacco was not getting through to smokers.

Instead, research questioning their safety has contributed to recent slowing demand.

“Ecigarettes are not completely risk free but compared to smoking, evidence shows they carry just a fraction of the harm,” said Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England. “The problem is people increasingly think they are at least as harmful and this may be keeping millions of smokers from quitting.”

Local services that help people to stop smoking should “look to support ecigarette users in their journey to quitting”.

However, a report last year by the World Health Organisation said it was too early to conclude whether ecigarettes helped smokers quit. It also said they should be banned in public buildings.

There is also concern that the use of ecigarettes would encourage young people to start smoking. The report by PHE said there was “no evidence” to support this.

The WHO report found there were not enough data to establish whether the trends for the growing popularity of ecigarettes in the UK and the gradual decline in nicotine use were “causally related”.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.What's the percent of ecigarette less harmful than tobacco by Public Health England estimated?

A.50%

B.-95%

C.95%

D.-50%

答案(1)

2.Whose product won MHRA clearance last year?

A.British American Tobacco

B.Chinese Tobacco

C.Japanese Tobacco

D.Germany Tobacco

答案(2)

3.What factor has contributed to recent slowing demand of ecigarette?

A.price

B.fashion

C.government tax

D.safety

答案(3)

4.Whose report last year doubted whether ecigarettes helped smokers quit?

A.WTO

B.MHRA

C.WHO

D.UK government

答案(4)

* * *

(1)答案：C.95%

解释：文章第二段，电子烟比烟草的危害小得多。

(2)答案：A.British American Tobacco

解释：文章第六段，BAT的新产品赢得MHRA clearance。

(3)答案：D.safety

解释：由于安全性被质疑使销售量下降。

(4)答案：C.WHO

解释：是World Health Organisation 认为现在下结论还为时尚早。