Michael Brady October 30, 2019
Leading medical organizations urged
Congress and the Trump administration to increase the regulation of vaping
products on Wednesday.
The American Medical Association,
the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physicians want
more e-cigarette regulation because they're worried about the short- and
long-term health consequences of vaping, especially for children. They asked
Congress and the administration to ban flavored vaping products, including mint
and menthol flavors, and raise the national age to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes
to 21.
The group also wants stricter
regulation of marketing practices that target children, and to tax e-cigarettes
like tobacco products.
"We need swift and decisive
action," said Dr. Sara Goza, president-elect of the American Academy of
Pediatrics. "Every day we wait, more and more children will be put at
risk."
A recent spate of vaping-related lung injuries
has led to widespread public concern over the use of e-cigarettes, especially
among kids.
Flavored vaping products, which
include fruit and candy flavors, are particularly worrying for health
professionals and regulators because they're more appealing to children than
tobacco-flavored products. Many health professionals and public officials want
to put a stop to the sale of flavored e-cigarettes to cut down on the number of
children who take up vaping, a proposal supported by the president.
Kids might be less likely to start
vaping if they don't think e-cigarettes taste good. Skeptics, including leading
health professionals, believe that vaping companies knew that so they developed
flavors that children would like.
"We need to be intellectually
honest about the impact of developing products that have flavors that are
particularly attractive to children," Dr. Patrice Harris, president of the
American Medical Association.
The group called for the ban to
include mint and menthol-flavored products because they're worried that kids
will increase their use of those flavors when other flavors are banned. Mint
and menthol e-cigarettes are already popular among teens.
E-cigarette companies are fighting
the ban.
The Food and Drug Administration announced last month
that it would enforce premarket authorization for non-tobacco flavored
e-cigarettes to drive unauthorized flavored products off the market. During
Wednesday's press conference, the medical organizations asked the Trump
administration to "speed up" the process.
Legislation introduced by Sen. Dick
Durbin (D-Ill.) in 2018 called the Stopping Appealing Flavors in E-Cigarettes
for Kids (SAFE Kids) Act would limit e-cigarette flavorings and ban cigar
flavorings. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) introduced the SAFE Kids Act to the
U.S. House of Representatives in March.
Most vaping-relating lung injuries
are linked to the use of black-market e-cigarettes, which often contain THC.
But there isn't enough scientific evidence to establish a causal linkage
between lung injuries and e-cigarette use. There's also no evidence on the
second-hand effects of vaping. The AMA, AAP and ACP want the government to
aggressively regulate e-cigarettes because they're concerned about the unknown
risks associated with vaping.
They're also concerned about the
known effects of nicotine, which e-cigarettes contain in high amounts. Nicotine
can impair the cognitive development of adolescents and make them more likely
to develop other addictions or more severe addiction. The group argued that
alone should be grounds for more regulation.
"Young people are
experimenting with e-cigarettes, which could result in another generation at
risk of nicotine dependence," said Harris.
The healthcare leaders were dubious
about any proposal to cap the amount of nicotine that e-cigarettes can contain
because of the known harms of nicotine.
"A lower amount of poison is
still poison," said Dr. Jacqueline Fincher, president-elect of the
American College of Physicians.
The group also said that the FDA
has the powers it needs to regulate black-market products effectively and that
the existence of black-market products shouldn't "stop us from doing the
right thing." While unauthorized THC products have been associated with
the unknown lung illness sweeping the country, kids start using conventional
e-cigarettes before they move onto products containing THC.
"We need to make sure we're
not getting these children addicted (to nicotine) in the first place,"
Goza said.
Vaping companies claim that they
intend their products to be used by adults to help them quit smoking, but the
FDA doesn't approve e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. There's also little
evidence that vaping helps people stop smoking.
"As physicians, we start and
end with the science," Harris said. "There is no data that these
products help with smoking cessation."
Goza and Fincher are set to meet
with administration officials on Wednesday to discuss the harmful effects of
vaping.
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