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The U.S. surgeon general has warned against surging e-cigarette use among teenagers, calling it a "major public health concern" in a new report:
The U.S. surgeon general is calling e-cigarettes an emerging public health threat to the nation's youth. In a report being released Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy acknowledged a need for more research into the health effects of "vaping," but said e-cigarettes aren't harmless and too many teens are using them. "My concern is e-cigarettes have the potential to create a whole new generation of kids who are addicted to nicotine," Murthy told The Associated Press. "If that leads to the use of other tobacco-related products, then we are going to be moving backward instead of forward."
[...] Federal figures show that last year, 16 percent of high school students reported at least some use of e-cigarettes - even some who say they've never smoked a conventional cigarette. While not all contain nicotine, Murthy's report says e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco-related product among youth. Nicotine is bad for a developing brain no matter how it's exposed, Murthy said. "Your kids are not an experiment," he says in a public service announcement being released with the report.
It's already illegal to sell e-cigarettes to minors. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration issued new rules that, for the first time, will require makers of nicotine-emitting devices to begin submitting their ingredients for regulators to review.
Also at USA Today, NYT, The Hill, and The Washington Post.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday December 09 2016, @01:47PM
Yes, teenage vaping has probably gone up. What the guy fails to address is by how much teenage smoking has come down.
Also... No consensus on the risks or advantages of vaping? Excuse me? There is an overwhelming consensus on vaping being at least 95% safer than smoking among health professionals. Again, vaping probably ain't good for you if you start doing it as a non-smoker, but that's not the point: the point is, how much safer is vaping compared to smoking.
It's all about getting future smokers to pick something safer if they absolutely feel the need to start sticking something into their lungs, and getting current smokers to stick something safer into their lungs. It is NOT about the additional risk to non-smokers who might suddenly feel the urge to vape just because vaping is readily available and cheap: those are essentially non-existent.
In short, another half-baked statement designed to spread fud about vaping. You can almost see the cold hand of the tobacco and pharma industry on the guy's shoulder...
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday December 09 2016, @01:58PM
But teens are no health professionals, so those nuzmbers don't apply to them. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kilo110 on Friday December 09 2016, @02:07PM
I suppose the issue is kids who pick up vaping that wouldn't have taken up smoking. Vaping is seen as safer than smoking and perhaps more fun and enjoyable considering all the different flavors out there. Therefore there would be less hesitation to try them.
I've never touched cigarettes, and as an adult, I personally have no interest in vaping. But I do wonder what I would've done had vaping been around while I was a teenager.