The Food and Drug Administration began a campaign Tuesday to warn youth about the dangers of vapor products.
The Real Cost Youth E-Cigarette Prevention Campaign is aimed at educating the 10.7 million kids between the ages of 12 and 17 years old who have used e-cigarettes or are open to trying them, according to an FDA press release, which said the digital campaign will include “hard-hitting advertising” on social media sites popular among teenagers such as Facebook and Instagram.
“[Health and Human Services] is committed to comprehensive efforts to protect America’s youth from the dangers of using any tobacco or nicotine-containing products,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said. “We congratulate the FDA on the launch of this new, hard-hitting campaign about the risk of addiction and other health consequences that can result from youth using e-cigarettes.”
A major component of the campaign, according to Azar, is to give a perspective on e-cigarettes that does not look to market to minors.
“Making sure e-cigs aren’t being marketed to, sold to, or used by kids is a core priority and the guiding principle behind our efforts,” Azar said.
Last week, the FDA threatened to pull e-cigarettes and other vapor products from shelves and ban them completely after discovering illegal sale of vapor products to minors both online and in stores, and a growing trend in use among youth.
“[W]e have an obligation to act on what we know. And what we know is very disturbing,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement on the campaign. “Kids’ use of e-cigarettes has reached an epidemic level of growth.”
Gottlieb also warned that minors who are using e-cigarettes now are at risk of transitioning and developing an addiction to cigarettes.
“The National Academy of Medicine report from earlier this year found that kids who use e-cigarettes are more likely to try combustible cigarettes. And that jeopardizes the extraordinary public health gains we’ve made in reducing smoking rates in this nation,” Gottlieb said.
Earlier this year, the FDA asked the public for feedback on vapor products, vaping, and specifically the use of flavor in these products, which Gottlieb said was conducted to “better understand” how flavors in vapor products impact youth initiation to vaping.
However, the comment period was flooded with anti-vaping bot comments that could have compromised the validity of the responses.
