Health experts who recommended that the Government tighten the regulation of electronic cigarettes failed to declare their financial interests in Big Pharma’s rival products.
A panel of academics met twice to discuss licensing e-cigarettes before the medicines regulator decided this summer to classify them as medicines rather than as consumer products.
Against the wishes of much of the nascent e-cigarette industry, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency ruled that e-cigarettes, which contain liquid nicotine and not tobacco, do not meet safety and quality standards.
At the meetings held at the MHRA’s London headquarters in May 2011 and January this year, the chairman asked the expert panel to declare any interests. Minutes of the meeting in 2011 obtained by The Times under the Freedom of