In this episode of GFN News, Will Godfrey highlights a recent interview between Kiran Sidhu and renowned philosopher Dr. Sridhar Venkatapuram exploring the intersection of philosophy and public health, and the ethical support for tobacco harm reduction using safer nicotine products.
Transcription:
00:04 - 00:37
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome! I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.tv. Today we'll be speaking with Will Godfrey of Filter about a fascinating recent interview with a leading health philosopher. Hi Will, can you tell us more about this?
00:38 - 01:43
[Will Godfrey]
Hi Joanna. Yes, our reporter Kiran Sidhu writes that her interests in tobacco harm reduction and philosophy have long intersected when the THR debate revolves around ethical questions. So she reached out to Dr Sridhar Venkataparam, Senior Lecturer in Global Health and Philosophy at King's College London. In his distinguished career, Dr. Venkataparam has helped pioneer health justice as an area of philosophical inquiry. He's even advised the World Health Organization, but THR hasn't been his principal focus. So it was intriguing to see how he'd respond to some of the biggest THR controversies. He came down fairly heavily on the side of THR, concluding that it would be wrong to ban vapes in an attempt to stop youth use when that would hurt older people trying to quit smoking. And expressing concern that being over restrictive for the sake of protecting young people, besides being ineffective in achieving its ostensible goals, is not balanced.
01:45 - 01:50
[Joanna Junak]
And what did he have to say about some other specific tobacco harm reduction questions?
01:51 - 02:45
[Will Godfrey]
Dr. Venkataparam doesn't support flavor bans, telling Kiran, I think that the genies out of the bottle, people know they come in flavors. So with bans, people will still figure out a way to find flavored products. Restricting flavors in order to reduce youth attraction, he said, is just not going to work. And with disposable vape bans like the one the UK is about to implement, while he thinks more eco-friendly disposables would be desirable, he noted widespread other products that create enormous waste like Nespresso capsules or plastic water bottles. It sounds like we're going to go after vapes policy, he said. He was also clear that misinformation is never justifiable, even in the name of a supposed public health goal. If you're knowingly dishonest, he said, then you lose the trust of the people that you want to help.
02:48 - 02:52
[Joanna Junak]
Why do you see this contribution to the debate as important to highlight?
02:53 - 03:41
[Will Godfrey]
Well, you'll have noticed that Venkataparam's thoughts significantly echo many THR advocates' talking points. I think that's instructive when we're talking about someone who hasn't been closely engaged in the THR battles we've experienced, but is simply a renowned thinker on health ethics in general. Sometimes the fresh eyes of an expert who hasn't been in the trenches on a particular policy debate can really skewer absurdities that we've all had to live with. And of course, we need all the allies we can get. Venkataparan has fascinating thoughts too on areas like marginalization, moralizing tobacco companies, and the question of when it's ethical to intervene in people's lives. So I do recommend checking out the filter interview.
03:42 - 04:01
[Joanna Junak]
Thank you, Will. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. And make sure to check out our social media pages for the latest updates on this year's Global Forum on Nicotine conference. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.