The Korea Electronic Cigarette Association (KECA) has filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), reports the Korea Biomedical Review.

The KECA, a group of around 4,000 e-cigarette vendors, has sued the government agencies claiming that they had spread misguided information about e-cigarettes which had caused financial damages to the vendors. The health agencies had distributed a press release urging Koreans to stop using e-cigarettes a fact that KECA believes damaged the reputation of small e-cigarette business owners and caused financial problems, reports the Korea Biomedical Review. The KDCA had also published a press release titled “Liquid e-cigarettes spread fine dust more and farther than cigarettes” which KECA also took issue with.
“The fine dust measured by the KDCA was based on the light scattering method, so it inevitably results in higher fine dust concentrations in areas with more moisture,” the KECA said. “Despite such problems, measuring and comparing liquid e-cigarettes with a high vapor content in the same environment as tobacco is an inappropriate research method that does not consider the specificity of liquid e-cigarettes at all. The KDCA’s experiment is as absurd as arguing that the level of fine dust is high when turning on a humidifier.”
Despite previous reports from the government in 2017, stating that e-cigarettes were safer than tobacco, the KECA says that the government is now giving the public a false perception that e-cigarettes are just as harmful.
“We will do our best to win a lawsuit with the government by preparing all the scientific evidence and logic to resolve the injustice toward e-cigarette small business owners who have not been able to voice their voices,” KECA Vice President Kim Do-hwan said.