BRITAIN has sparked a fresh row with nannying bosses at the World Health Organisation – who are trying to ban VAPING.

Anti-smoking charities have taken aim at the controversial global health chiefs for trying to outlaw the safer alternative to smoking – after the WHO said they consider them as harmful as cigarettes.

Action on Smoking and Health UK chief Clive Bates said the WHO will “protect the cigarette trade from competition.”

Britain will be able to stand up to the health officials for the first time thanks to Brexit at a crunch smoking summit on health next week.

It comes a week after the NHS said e-cigarettes could be prescribed on the NHS in to help people stop smoking tobacco products.

The prescriptions, in England at first, would see it become the first country in the world to prescribe vapes as a medical product.

But the WHO branded them “harmful” with WHO boss Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying earlier this year: "Where they are not banned, governments should adopt appropriate policies to protect their populations from the harms of electronic nicotine delivery systems, and to prevent their uptake by children, adolescents and other vulnerable groups."

Mr Bates added: “The only effect of the WHO’s outrageous attempts to prohibit e-cigarettes has been to protect the cigarette trade from competition, to promote black markets, to stimulate harmful workarounds, to nurture criminal networks, to harm young people, and to prolong the epidemic of avoidable smoking-related disease."

He added: “I hope government representatives finally stand up to the WHO, apply real-world policy disciplines and reject their dishonest stance.”

Figures from ASH suggest that less than 5 -per cent of e-cigarette users have never smoked.

But the biggest group of users – at 64.6 per cent – are former smokers.

It follows a row with the WHO earlier this year after the international health bods suggested Britain should give up it’s booster jabs – which have been essential in tackling the current covid wave.

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