FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has again mistakenly blamed
e-cigarette companies for teen vaping. Addressing
the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Gottlieb issued a direct threat:
“They better step up and step up soon – to address these trends along with
us. So far, I must say, I’ve mostly been
disappointed by the tepid response from companies that know that a meaningful
portion of their sales are being derived from kids. The e-cig companies have a chance to do
something about it. The window is open.
But it won’t be open for very long.” (here) The commissioner also tweeted about
“additional regulatory policy measures and new enforcement actions as part of
our ongoing campaign.” (here)
FDA survey data show that Dr. Gottlieb’s concern is misplaced.
The charge that “a meaningful portion” of e-cigarette sales
are made to children is undermined by a 2014 FDA survey: of 12.9 million adult
(here)
and 770,000 teen current e-cig users (here),
only 9.9% of teens had bought their own e-cigs.
The 76,000 teens who purchased
products from retailers accounted for only 0.5% of all users and an even
smaller fraction of all sales.
The fact that over 90% of teens obtained e-cigarettes from
social sources, such as friends or family, makes “policy measures and new
enforcement actions” against retailers entirely misguided. It is illogical for the FDA to hold retailers
responsible for teen e-cigarette use.
The federal government has pursued the elimination of tobacco
sales to children for decades. Beginning
in 1997, Washington required states to report underage sales via the Synar
Program (here).
The latest Synar data shows that 9.6% of
retailers were noncompliant in 2013. The
FDA also conducts compliance checks of tobacco retailers. In 2016, the FDA reported a noncompliance
rate of 11% (here). The FDA should focus on this far more
dangerous illegal cigarette sales issue, rather than obsessing over e-cigarettes.
Bad actors – that small percentage of retailers who sell e-cigarettes
to children – should be punished, but their infractions should not cause the
entire vaping industry to suffer undue, overly broad sanctions.
Were government officials to truly prioritize teen safety
issues, alcohol would be their number one target. One-third of high school seniors drank in the
past 30 days last year, and nearly 1 out of 5 were drunk (here),
even though the legal age for alcohol purchase is 21.
Demonizing e-cigarettes and their marketers and retailers
may generate easy headlines, but real public health gains require data-based
prioritization of threats, and for teens, those are alcohol and cigarettes.
0 Comments