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Scott Gottlieb, MD, Commissioner of the FDA, said the soon-to-be-published national survey data will show not only a dramatic increase in the use of e-cigarettes by teens, but also a disturbing consumption of fuels and other cigarettes tobacco products. the week.
At a press conference announcing a new campaign to prevent the use of e-cigarettes among young people, Gottlieb denounced the decline in years of tobacco use among middle school and high school students.
Survey data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released earlier this summer, showed a steady decline in teen smoking. But there was concern that the data could fail to capture the explosive growth of electronic cigarette consumption among young people.
"We are in possession of [new] data that shows a worrying increase in the number of teens using electronic cigarettes in just one year. And none of the other things we're doing with children and tobacco is going in the right direction, "Gottlieb said," Not the number of kids using traditional cigarettes, cigars or chewing tobacco. In short, there is no good news. "
Calling the use of e-cigarettes by teens as an "epidemic," Gottlieb recently announced that the FDA was considering several steps to address this problem as part of a global effort, including the withdrawal of some cigarettes flavored electronics to the market review for the majority of electronic cigarettes currently sold.
The agency recently sent more than 1,300 warning letters and complaints to retailers who illegally sold electronic cigarette products to minors during a nationwide infiltration targeting the United States. outlets and outlets online.
FDA officials also sent letters to makers of the JUUL e-cigarette and four other brands of best-selling electronic cigarettes, asking companies to submit plans within 60 days to deal with the problem. use of their products by adolescents.
"We are committed to taking drastic action to deal with the use of these products by young people," Gottlieb said. "And the manufacturers have a narrow window to act or behave, I will meet the biggest manufacturers myself, and I will deliver this message in person."
The advertising campaign announced this week is the most visible action of the agency aimed at educating teenagers about the dangers of vaping.
The ads, which are part of the "Real Cost" campaign unveiled in 2014 to combat the use of combustible cigarettes among teenagers, will target teens on social networks and even in bathrooms where vaping is common .
Advertisements will not be broadcast on more traditional media, such as television, to avoid giving the idea to adult cigarette smokers who want to get rid of the habit that products should not be used to quit smoking.
The message to teens: E-cigarettes, even if they are not as dangerous as combustible cigarettes, pose health risks. Among these: the risk of addiction and exposure to harmful chemicals and the potential risk of exposure to nicotine for the developing brain.
Kathleen Crosby of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products said focus group tests have confirmed that teens who easily recognize the dangers of smoking and would not consider getting into the habit are attracted to electronic cigarettes.
"We want this campaign to get teenagers out of their free mentality – the notion that the use of electronic cigarettes does not have any health consequences," she said.
The new campaign will include what she called "hyper-targeted" teenagers aged 12 to 17 on social media sites such as YouTube, Spotify and Facebook. When high school students use social media platforms at school, they will see the ads, she said.
Posters – some simply informative and others with what she calls "irreverent" messages – will be placed in 10,000 school washrooms across the country. "Curiously, a poster reads", some students come here to put shit in their body."
President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Children, Matthew Myers, described the ads as "not important and indispensable" to fight the epidemic use of electronic cigarettes among young people.
"The FDA must be commended for a hard-hitting campaign that uses images and language that will speak to adolescents," he said in a written press release.
But Myers added that the FDA needed to do more to fight the use of e-cigarettes among teens, including banning electronic cigarette manufacturers from selling products with flavors and using advertising themes and attractive images. for kids.
He also called on the FDA to reconsider its decision to let the electronic cigarettes introduced on the market before mid-August 2016 remain on the market without revision in the coming years.
But others said the ads may not have the desired effect. Gizmodo Rhett Jones, a writer (and smoker since his teens), suggested that the campaign "makes the vaping cooler than it is … filled with all kinds of radial effects and badass transformations that will appeal to kids." today".
2018-09-20T17: 00: 00-0400
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