CDC 2019 Smoking & Vaping Data

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released data from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).  After a short delay, during which I caused the agency to correct an error in their release (here), I can now present the latest figures on smoking and vaping.  Like last year, our government has had the 2019 data for months but has not released any findings.

The prevalence of current smoking was 13.6%, which was not a significant change from 2018 (13.7%); that’s 34.1 million.  Twenty-two percent of Americans were former smokers, the same as the year before. 

Prevalence of current vaping increased from 3.2% in 2018, to 4.3% in 2019.  That translates to about 10.82 million American adult vapers in 2019, up from 8.07 million the year before.  That is the second annual increase and it represents the largest number of vapers since the CDC started tracking e-cigarette use in 2014.

The 10.82 million adult vapers includes 4 million current vapers who are also current smokers.  Think about this: If America’s public health leaders abandoned their war on vaping and instead adopted their British counterparts’ practice of speaking honestly about vastly safer vaping, these 4 million smokers might become completely smoke-free. That would result in an unprecedented smoking decline of 11.7%.    

Despite the misinformation campaign against smoke-free substitutes, the number of current vapers who were former smokers increased from 3.04 million in 2018, to 4.27 million in 2019.  That is over one million more than the year before, and the highest number since tracking started. 

Note that there were 2.55 million never smokers who vaped in 2019, up from 1.71 million the year before.  In addition, the age profile shifted, becoming a little older.  In 2018, over two-thirds of this group were 18-24 years old, dropping to 58 percent in 2019.  About one quarter were 25-34 years old, and ten percent were 35-44 years old. 

Tobacco and nicotine prohibitionists in government and elsewhere continue to portray vaping as dangerous and evil.  Despite this, the number of Americans using this vastly safer smoke-free nicotine delivery system continues to grow, but much too slowly.  The disgraceful and unethical campaign against these products continues to bias smokers against safer options.

 

Discovery & Correction of An Error in the 2019 National Health Interview Survey Release

 

I recently discovered a critical error in the 2019 National Health Interview Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Here is the story.

When the CDC announced the release of the 2019 NHIS on September 23 here, I downloaded and began using the data.  Right away, I discovered an error that made accurate population estimates impossible.  The flaw essentially underestimated the U.S. population by about 100 million.    

I phoned the CDC and was told that staff would investigate the matter.

The CDC typically releases data as a mass of numbers that cannot be used without a statistics program.  The agency provides computer code for three common programs (named SAS, SPSS and Stata) that help researchers massage the data into usable form.  The codes consist of several thousand lines of directions written in the language of each statistics program.  I found a single line of erroneous code in the SPSS input statements.  On September 25, I emailed my CDC contact with details of the problem and the solution.  He replied on September 28, “We do have an error in our program that is affecting the total population and the point estimates.  We are working on a fix and will re-publish the SPSS program soon on our website.” 

On September 29, the CDC corrected its error.  The only acknowledgement of the correction was a message sent to members of the NHIS Users email list.  The agency failed to make note of the correction on their website, and did not change the date stamp on the page, which still reads, “Page last reviewed: September 23, 2020,” rather than September 29, as it should.  This is inadequate, as many users will not be aware of the error; if they use the original program, their work will be inaccurate. 

The NHIS is the premier instrument for assessing the health of the nation.  For decades, the CDC has used the annual NHIS to count the number of current and former smokers, and the surveys are a valuable source of health-related information for researchers across the globe.  The CDC should better document its errors and corrections.

 

The CDC Nicotine Brain Fallacy

 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is out with a false advertisement telling kids that “Nicotine in e-cigarettes can harm brain development.”  The headline says, “It’s not like you can buy a new brain.”  To make it accurate, I’ve added “…for your pet mouse.” 

Let me be crystal clear.  The harm in brain development federal officials talk non-stop about only happens in laboratory torture of mice.  Mouse studies are well known to be of questionable value in predicting human effects.  There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the claim that nicotine causes harm to human brain development, so it is astounding that federal officials traffic in this false narrative.  This nonsense is an affront to 34 million adult current smokers and 55 million former smokers in the U.S., virtually all of whom started when they were teenagers.  There is no evidence that their brain development was harmed, a fact that was specifically acknowledged by a prestigious nicotine researcher Dr. Neal Benowitz at an international tobacco meeting this week.

I have for years catalogued CDC misinformation campaigns regarding smokeless tobacco (examples here, here, here) and e-cigarettes (here, here, here, here).

Today, CDC’s bungling of Covid-19 facts and guidance is pulling back the curtain on that agency’s tragic shortcomings and its readiness to disregard or “warp” the truth. Educated tobacco users have known the CDC has been lying about and to them for years.