Nicotine based smoking cessation treatments available to Scottish children

This is not a new story: nicotine replacement therapies have been approved for people as young as 12 since 2005. General Practitioners in Scotland were sent updates on good practice in 2007, in order to remind doctors that, following research, NRT was considered safe for 12–18-year-olds and pregnant women as well as other adults.

I came across this story when the Herald reported it in 2007. I wrote it up here (the link to the Herald story is at the foot of the page), and it is clear that the comments (mostly very critical of prescribing NRT to young people) have been edited out.

Two of the people mentioned in the Herald piece, Linda Bauld and John Britton are both leading figures in tobacco control, involved with the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies. Their interest in tobacco control as a growing concept is clear, even though they don't have direct personal commercial interest in nicotine products.

Recommending nicotine for young people doesn't seem sound to me but not being a medic I'm not in a position to make detailed comment.  However, I don't like the fact that comments have been censored from the Herald article (the words '0 comments' imply that no comments were ever made, which is patently false).