The European Commission’s top officials are shamelessly spreading misinformation about vaping, and it’s keeping people smoking. Instead of following the science, they’re parroting propaganda that equates vaping with smoking, ignoring decades of evidence and the lived experience of millions who have quit cigarettes for good thanks to harm reduction.

Take Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, who declared in front of the European Parliament Committee: “Smoking kills. Vaping kills.” This is not just a factual error—it’s a public health disaster. And he’s not alone. Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi told the Environment Committee that vaping “has created completely new health risks that are comparable to, or even greater than, smoking itself”, even citing the long-debunked “popcorn lung” myth as evidence. This seems not to be ignorance; it appears to be deception, designed to scare people away from safer alternatives and keep them chained to deadly cigarettes.

The World Health Organisation is just as culpable. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s Director-General, recently claimed that “tobacco kills no matter how it is packaged”, deliberately conflating vaping with smoking and ignoring the mountain of scientific evidence showing that vaping is way less harmful. The WHO’s relentless anti-vaping crusade has become a global embarrassment. In line with that is this year’s World No Tobacco Day campaign descending into a farce of prohibitionist rhetoric and scaremongering about “industry tricks”. The WHO is completely ignoring harm reduction products, pushing bans, and spreading the myth that vaping is a threat to public health.

The consequences of this misinformation are catastrophic. When smokers believe the lie that vaping is as harmful as smoking, they are far less likely to switch. The result? More preventable deaths, more disease, and more suffering. The EU’s upcoming reviews of the Tobacco Excise Directive (TED) and Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) are a critical opportunity to reverse this deadly trend. Regulation must be based on actual science, not ideology or fearmongering.

The contrast could not be more evident as World Vape Day approaches on 30 May. While the WHO and EU Commission attack harm reduction, World Vape Day celebrates 20 years of innovation, science, and real-life success stories. Millions have quit smoking thanks to vaping. The evidence is overwhelming: vaping works, vaping saves lives, and honest regulation, not prohibition, will finally put an end to the smoking epidemic.

It’s time to stop the lies. The EU Commission and WHO must end their war on harm reduction, listen to the science, and put public health before ideology. Anything less is a betrayal of the millions who deserve a real chance to quit smoking for good.