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(CNN) – The US Food and Drug Administration will hold a massive education campaign for 10.7 million teenagers exposed to e-cigarettes and potential addiction, the agency said on Tuesday.
For the first time, the agency will take the message that vaping is dangerous in high school bathrooms and social media at risk youth to stop what the FDA calls an epidemic of electronic cigarette consumption by minors.
The trend was reported in a report published in 2016 by the US surgeon general, citing a 900% increase in the consumption of electronic cigarettes by high school students between 2011 and 2015.
More than 2 million high school students used electronic cigarettes in 2017, the FDA said.
"We are in possession of data showing a worrying increase in the number of teens using e-cigarettes only last year," said FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. "In short, there is no good news."
While applauding the FDA's decision, Linda Richter, Director of Research and Policy Analysis for the Nonprofit Center on Addiction, said that if the agency had taken action when the trend had been identified, high dose nicotine products, which we now see in children as young as 12 years old. "
"The teens of today were about to be the first generation to widely reject cigarettes, but they became addicted to nicotine due to a decade of lax surveillance of e-cigarette products, "she added.
The dangers of electronic cigarettes
Electronic cigarettes heat a pure liquid called e-juice – composed of flavors, propylene glycol, glycerin and often nicotine – until it vaporizes. Popular flavors such as tutti-frutti, cotton candy and sour gum have attracted younger users to electronic cigarettes, which now often look like USB devices that are easy to hide and use without detection.
Recent studies have shown that e-cigarettes are a direct gateway to traditional cigarettes and present a number of health problems apart from the addictive properties of nicotine. A study in the journal Pediatrics, for example, found five carcinogenic toxins in the urine of 16-year-olds who inhaled electronic cigarette fumes.
"No youngster should ever use e-cigs," said Dr. Jerome Adams, general surgeon, in a video at Tuesday's announcement. "We need to make it clear that using the electronic cigarette can expose them to dangerous chemicals that can cause lung damage when inhaled."
The bathrooms are a first for the FDA
The new campaign is part of an extension of The Real Cost Youth's electronic cigarette prevention campaign, which the FDA says represents a nearly $ 60 million tobacco industry-funded effort .
The campaign will be launched on popular digital sites and social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Spotify, with videos showing disturbing images of damaged lungs and zombie-like students with mouth-sticking vaping products. .
In addition, the campaign will place posters in the bathrooms of at least 10,000 high schools nationwide, the first time the FDA has placed advertisements in the bathrooms.
"For the very first time, we are running the campaign in high schools up to the point of contact where they behave," said Kathy Crosby, who heads the Office of Communication and Education in the area of education. FDA Center for Tobacco Products.
In addition, she added, the ads will be broadcast on educational platforms such as those used by teens to check their grades or sports scores.
"It may be that the flavored vape juice is not as sweet as it sounds," says a video as the strawberries on the screen turn into dried mushrooms.
"Curiously, some students come here to put bullshit in their bodies," reads a bathroom poster.
Mitch Zeller, director of the Center for Tobacco Director, said that this aggressive approach is explained by the fact that, even though young people never think of smoking a cigarette, "about 80% of young people do not see any problem in smoking. Use of electronic cigarettes ".
More surprisingly, Crosby added, use is becoming more prevalent because teens encourage their friends to use electronic cigarettes, a behavior that officials have not seen in years with tobacco products.
The campaign used focus group tests with young people to maximize the impact of ads, Zeller said. The tests showed that highlighting specific health messages, such as chemicals and hazards, was more effective than a general message stating that vaping was bad.
"Spraying can introduce dangerous chemicals, such as diacetyl, into your lungs," says one person.
"Vaping can deliver nicotine to your brain, reprogramming it to implore more and more," says another.
"The booths can have numbers 1 and 2", says another bathroom poster, "but the vapes can have numbers 24, 28 and 82". The little copy below explains: "Vapers can inhale toxic metals into their lungs – like those in the periodic table: chromium, nickel and lead."
Richter said it could be more effective "if the target audience included children under 12, since many 12-year-olds are already smoking," the message added.
Matthew Myers, Chair of the Non-Profit Campaign for Tobacco-Free Children, said, "I think the advertising campaign is extraordinarily positive and courageous for the federal government and will make a difference." Children's flavors and marketing on social media that have also been very effective.
"The voluntary action of companies has never been a solution," he added, "and the FDA must ban their marketing on social networks and suppress the use of flavors."
Gottlieb promised Tuesday to do more, citing warning letters sent last week to more than 1,300 retailers who illegally sold Juul and other electronic cigarettes to minors.
At that time, the FDA also gave the manufacturers of electronic cigarettes 60 days to show how they could keep the devices out of reach of young people or face regulatory action.
"I meet the biggest manufacturers myself and I will not stop until this problem is solved," Gottlieb said. "It's perhaps the most important thing I do as a curator."
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