In his Congressional testimony on May 22, FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary said, “There are high schools in America now where kids are saying half of the kids are addicted to these vaping products.”
During the 2024 campaign, President Trump promised to save vaping. Now that job falls to Dr. Makary, whose agency “oversees the safety of more than $3.9 trillion worth of food, tobacco, and medical products produced in the U.S. and abroad.” With so much on his plate, he can be forgiven for not having all the facts yet on youth vaping.
Last December, I took a deep dive into vaping among American high schoolers, using the CDC’s 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey (here), the latest available dataset.
My analysis demonstrated that some 73,092 of the nation’s 15.8 million high schoolers vaped frequently enough (20-30 days in past month) to be at risk for being addicted. That represents only 0.5%, not 50%.
No one is comfortable with youth vaping, but Dr. Makary and his team should understand that vaping has contributed to the disappearance of smoking among American high schoolers, and the rate among young adults is similarly minimal. This means that in 25 to 30 years, smoking-related diseases will nearly disappear, too. It’s time for the FDA to focus on adult smokers over age 40, whose risk grows with each cigarette. Going smoke-free will give them the chance for longer and healthier lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment