NEW “heat-not-burn” tobacco products on sale in the UK are harmful to health but are likely to be less risky than smoking conventional cigarettes, a scientific advisory committee has said.

Evidence suggests the products, which heat tobacco in a device to produce a vapour instead of burning it as in conventional cigarettes, still pose a risk to users, the independent Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) announced.

The COT reviewed the two products registered for sale in the UK, Philip Morris International’s IQOS and British American Tobacco’s iFuse. It said it was unable to quantify precisely the risk from heat-not-burn products compared with conventional cigarettes because of the limited data available.

COT chairman Professor Alan Boobis said: “The evidence suggests that heat-not-burn products still pose a risk to users.

“Quitting entirely would be more beneficial.”

The COT also found a drop in risk to bystanders where conventional smokers switch to heat-not-burn products, but said the risk to an unborn child from women using these products during pregnancy was difficult to quantify.