The Trump administration's ban on flavored electronic cigarettes would not only affect teenagers who vape; it would help their peers breathe used aerosols

The Trump administration moved to ban the sale of flavored electronic cigarettes this week, citing the rise of teen vaping and Respiratory diseases related to vaping who have afflicted hundreds of people in recent months.

But it's not just teenagers who use e-cigarettes and who face health risks. Like the use of traditional combustible cigarettes, the use of aerosol-based electronic cigarettes (an activity known as "vaping") also puts people at risk for inhaling the disease. aerosol from time to time, a substance that may contain harmful chemicals, sometimes carcinogenic, according to disease control and prevention centers.

And, according to new research from Susan Mello, assistant professor at Northeastern, the exposure of teenagers to used aerosol was even more prevalent in 2018 than their use of the electronic cigarette at the same time.

The occasional aerosol exposure presents "its own health risks to our children," said Mello, who collaborated with researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, the University of Illinois Urbana and Michigan State University to produce a study which was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Electronic cigarettes, also called vapes or vape pens, are battery powered devices this work by heating a liquid in an aerosol that the user inhales and then exhales. The cloud that is expired by the user, although it looks like a thick smoke, is actually an aerosol.

Using data from National Survey of Youth Smoking, The researchers found that about one-third of high school and college students said they were exposed to an aerosol spray in 2018, a significant increase over the previous year, when it was not too late. about a quarter of students reported secondary exposure to the substance.

Survey participants were asked about the frequency with which they breathed the vapor of a person using an electronic cigarette in public places inside public places during the last 30 days. They were asked the same question about second-hand tobacco smoke.

The percentage of students who inhaled an occasional aerosol is still lower than the percentage of students who reported being exposed to second-hand smoke in 2018 (just under 50%), but the Exposure to one or the other is dangerous, says Mello, who studies perceiving health risks based on information provided by the media.

"It's like comparing driving at 100 mph with and without the seatbelt," she says. "Both are dangerous – a little less. The real comparison for used aerosols should not be secondhand smoke; it should be clean air.

The US Food and Drug Administration this month issued a warning letter Juul, one of the largest electronic cigarette companies, claiming that it had violated the regulations in force. illegal marketing its vaping products are a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes.

Aerosols from electronic cigarettes contain many ingredients, including "ultrafine particles, volatile organic compounds, flavorings, heavy metals such as lead and nicotine and other carcinogenic chemicals," says Mello.

The companies that make electronic cigarettes and the liquid they vaporize are constantly changing recipes, making the effects of the devices particularly difficult to study, says Mello.

"Unlike cigarette smoke, which we have been studying for over 70 years, we do not have enough data to assert the long-term effects of second-hand aerosol exposure," says Mello.

Public health agencies such as the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "focus on communicating the harms associated with exposure to nicotine and aroma, especially among teenagers," says Mello.

One Juul pod, which, according to the company, is intended to last about 200 puffs, contains as much nicotine as a pack of 20 regular cigarettes.

And, says Mello, there is "not enough" people sufficiently aware of the dangers of spraying or exposure to used aerosols.

But the proposed ban on flavored electronic cigarettes "is absolutely a step in the right direction to stem the vape epidemic of young people," said Mello. "By removing them from the market, young people will have less vaping and helping health advocates continue their fight against those who sell electronic cigarettes."

For media inquiries, please contact Mike Woeste at [email protected] or 617-373-5718.