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Tag: e-cigs

  • Michigan Becomes First State To Ban Flavored E-Cigarette Products

    Michigan Becomes First State To Ban Flavored E-Cigarette Products

    The ban will also affect the marketing of flavored e-cig products in the state.

    Michigan just became the first state to ban flavored e-cigarette products, including menthol.

    Governor Gretchen Whitmer said the move will protect young people from the potential harmful effects of vaping. E-cigarette companies have been accused by health officials of targeting young people, enticing them with colorful packaging and candy flavored e-juice like “Sour Double Rainbow” and “Cinnamon Roll.”

    “My number one priority is keeping our kids safe and protecting the health of the people of Michigan,” said Whitmer on Tuesday (Sept. 3).

    Michigan is the first state to issue a ban on certain e-cigarette products, but in June San Francisco became the first city in the U.S. to ban the sale, distribution and manufacturing of all vaping products, CBS News reported at the time.

    Rising Number of Vaping-Related Illnesses

    Authorities are investigating a growing number of lung illnesses that have been tied to vaping both nicotine and THC products. The Washington Post reported last Friday (Aug. 30) that there are now up to 354 possible cases being investigated across 29 states.

    The sudden onset of “mysterious” cases that have cropped up this summer have led some health experts to suspect that adulterants are the common denominator.

    The CDC and FDA issued a statement last Friday warning e-cigarette users against purchasing these products “off the street,” and to avoid modifying e-cigarette products in a way not intended by the manufacturer.

    Young people like Maddie Nelson have become the face of these sudden and severe illnesses. The 18-year-old from Utah was healthy until she began experiencing nausea, vomiting and chest pain in July. Then, it was severe back and kidney pain.

    “My temperature was so high, my brain just totally shut off,” she told Fox 13.

    X-rays revealed severe lung damage, and she was placed in a medically-induced coma.

    She was diagnosed with acute eosinophilic pneumonia, a rare lung illness. “I had fat particles growing inside my lungs that were related to the glycerin in vape juice,” she said. “My lungs were full of fluid and they said that my chest x-rays were some of the worst that they’d ever seen.”

    Nelson said she had vaped every day for three years.

    Nelson is not the only such case in Utah, which has reported at least 21 possible cases of these illnesses.

    Sean Bills, 31, was also placed in a medically-induced coma this summer after falling ill with lipoid pneumonia, which doctors also suspect is tied to vaping. His wife, Tiffani Bills, said the couple had vaped every day for two years.

    Discouraging New Users

    Even the CEO of Juul, Kevin Burns, who has faced a barrage of criticisms regarding his company’s marketing of e-cigarette products to young people, warned people against picking up the habit in August.

    Addressing people who “don’t have a preexisting relationship with nicotine,” Burns said, “Don’t vape. Don’t use Juul… You’re not our target customer.” Burns also acknowledged that the long-term health impact of vaping is unknown.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • FDA To Investigate Whether Vaping Causes Seizures

    FDA To Investigate Whether Vaping Causes Seizures

    The FDA will investigate cases of seizures possibly related to vaping—but no links have been made yet.

    The Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it will be looking into 35 individual cases of people having seizures after vaping between 2010 and 2019.

    Most of these cases have happened to young adults or underage kids, and the FDA is concerned about the implications, according to CNBC.

    “While 35 cases may not seem like much compared to the total number of people using e-cigarettes, we are nonetheless concerned by these reported cases,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy.

    Vaping with e-cigarettes has grown in popularity, sparking concern among health experts who stress that even without the additives found in normal cigarettes, nicotine can still have negative health effects that get worse the younger the user is.

    It’s currently unclear whether the seizures in these 35 cases were caused by vaping, but these alarming and potentially dangerous neurological events can be caused by nicotine poisoning.

    “We’re sharing this early information with the public because as a public health agency, it’s our job to communicate about potential safety concerns associated with the products we regulate that are under scientific investigation by the agency,” Gottlieb and Abernethy said in their joint statement.

    Last December, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams officially declared e-cigarette use among young people to be a national epidemic. E-cigarettes are often marketed as being safe alternatives to regular cigarettes and surveys have found that young people believe the hype.

    Vaping is no less addictive than combustible smoking, and according to an article in Yale Medicine, studies are finding that “vaping increases the risk a teen will smoke regular cigarettes later.”

    Health experts are also concerned about the high concentration of nicotine in each e-cigarette “pod”—the replaceable cartridges that contain the liquid form of the drug—compared to a combustible cigarette. Some of these pods contain higher concentrations than others, and some, called “pod mods,” are made from nicotine salts that have an even higher concentration of nicotine than the traditional e-cigarette pod.

    According to the Surgeon General Advisory on e-cigarettes, they can also contain heavy metals, chemical flavorants linked to lung disease, and “volatile organic compounds.” The FDA has had difficulty keeping up with the rapid development of the vaping industry, meaning that users may be unknowingly inhaling unsafe materials.

    The National Institute on Drug Abuse also found that a full two-thirds of teens who vape believe that their e-cigarettes only contain flavoring. Only 13.2% knew that they were inhaling nicotine.

    Still, the FDA acknowledges that there are many other factors that could have led to the seizures, including other drugs taken and prior histories of seizures. 

    “We want to be clear that we don’t yet know if there’s a direct relationship between the use of e-cigarettes and a risk of seizure,” they said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • FDA Discusses Using Drug Therapy To Help Teens Quit Vaping

    FDA Discusses Using Drug Therapy To Help Teens Quit Vaping

    The FDA recently held a public hearing to discuss the vaping epidemic among teens. 

    Many consider vaping to be a big problem, and many still don’t realize its potential harm. Now the FDA is so concerned about the popularity of vaping, they’re even considering drug therapy to help wean young people off vaping.

    Matthew L. Myers, who is the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, told CNN, “The FDA has concluded that the level of addiction it is seeing among youthful e-cigarette users is so disturbing and so unprecedented that it needs to at least ask whether we need a solution that goes beyond what we ever did with cigarettes.”

    Even with the partial government shutdown in effect, the FDA held a public hearing on Friday, January 18, to address the problem. One of the biggest problems with the vaping epidemic among young people is that more research needs to be done. There’s a different kind of chemistry that goes into vaping, and previous research on teens and cigarette addiction clearly doesn’t apply the same way.

    As Dr. Susanne Tanski, who is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine, explained, “Clinicians urgently require new solutions to safely and effectively help stop [adolescents] using these and all tobacco products for good. There is unfortunately virtually no data on how to treat an adolescent with e-cigarette dependence.”

    But then the conversation switched to a different tactic, which is trying to keep young people from starting vaping at all. Tanski conceded that “preventing youth use in the first place should be FDA’s primary goal. We must all recognize that if an adolescent has developed a nicotine addiction as a result of vaping, we’ve already failed.”

    Several teens who got hooked on vaping also spoke at the public hearing. One teen first started Juuling in eighth grade, and he stated, “I see so many of my friends who had the same problem I did … and have no idea how to stop it.”

    One possible solution that was proposed at this meeting was having the FDA conduct a “pre-market review” of e-cigarettes, which would include a ban on flavors, one of the most appealing factors of e-cigarettes to young people.

    And while medication is being considered to help wean adolescents off vaping, non-drug therapy was strongly urged at this public hearing as well.

    Nonprofit tobacco control group Truth Initiative has a program that helps young people quit through text messaging. An executive for Truth Initiative said in a statement, “E-cigarette users don’t identify as smokers. They have different barriers to quitting, and, especially in the case of teens and young adults, many want an anonymous way to go about quitting without involving their parents or friends, which texting provides.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Vaping Rates Double Among Teens, While Opioid Use Declines

    Vaping Rates Double Among Teens, While Opioid Use Declines

    Results from the 2018 Monitoring The Future survey show that teens have turned to vaping nicotine and marijuana and away from binge drinking and opioid use. 

    The percentage of teens who reported vaping nicotine nearly doubled this year, representing the largest increase in use of a substance since the national Monitoring the Future study began. 

    “To put the nicotine vaping increase in context, it is the largest out of more than one thousand reported year-to-year changes since 1975 for use of substances within the 30 days prior to the survey,” according to a press release from the University of Michigan, which conducts the annual survey of about 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th graders. 

    About 20% of high school seniors reported vaping nicotine in the past 30 days. In addition, more than a quarter of teens reported vaping “just flavoring,” but researchers believe these students may be confused or ill-informed about what they’re consuming, since many popular vaping devices don’t have nicotine-free options. Marijuana vaping also increased. 

    “Teens are clearly attracted to the marketable technology and flavorings seen in vaping devices; however, it is urgent that teens understand the possible effects of vaping on overall health; the development of the teen brain; and the potential for addiction,” Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said. “Research tells us that teens who vape may be at risk for transitioning to regular cigarettes, so while we have celebrated our success in lowering their rates of tobacco use in recent years, we must continue aggressive educational efforts on all products containing nicotine.”

    Overall, 28.5% of high school seniors reported using nicotine of some variety in the past 30 days. Tobacco use was down slightly in 2018 but not a statistically significant amount. This shows that prevention efforts need to target teens who may see vaping as a safe alternative to smoking. 

    “Vaping is reversing hard-fought declines in the number of adolescents who use nicotine,” said Richard Miech, the lead author and investigator of the study. “These results suggest that vaping is leading youth into nicotine use and nicotine addiction, not away from it.”

    He said vaping is popular because it is easy to conceal. 

    “If we want to prevent youth from using drugs, including nicotine, vaping will warrant special attention in terms of policy, education campaigns, and prevention programs in the coming years,” Miech said.

    The survey found that binge drinking and use of opioids and tranquilizers decreased significantly, while use of other drugs, including meth, marijuana and molly remained stable. 

    “With illicit opioid use at generally the lowest in the history of the survey, it is possible that being in high school offers a protective effect against opioid misuse and addiction,” Volkow said. “We will be focusing much of our new prevention research on the period of time when teens transition out of school into the adult world and become exposed to the dangerous use of these drugs.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • FDA Wants To Ban Menthol Cigarettes

    FDA Wants To Ban Menthol Cigarettes

    The Food and Drug Administration believes that flavored products are too appealing to teens.

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving to restrict the sale of flavored e-cigs and cigars as well as ban menthol cigarettes outright.

    Last Thursday, the FDA released a detailed proposal for its proposed policies. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the move is meant to stop teens from picking up smoking. These three flavored products are popular with young people, making it too easy to start smoking thanks the sweet or cool flavors.

    “Today, I’m pursuing actions aimed at addressing the disturbing trend of youth nicotine use and continuing to advance the historic declines we’ve achieved in recent years in the rates of combustible cigarette use among kids,” explained Gottlieb.

    Cigarette smoking rates are lower than ever in the United States, but thanks to vaping being massively popular, nicotine addiction remains an imminent threat to youths today.

    Particularly concerning to the FDA is a 78% increase in e-cigarette use among high schoolers and, alarmingly, a 48% increase in e-cigarette use among middle schoolers between 2017 and 2018.

    “These data shock my conscience,” said Gottlieb.

    Menthol has long been a target of the FDA. Public health officials believe that thanks to the menthol counteracting the harshness of the smoke, menthol cigarettes make it easier to start smoking.

    “I believe these menthol-flavored products represent one of the most common and pernicious routes by which kids initiate on combustible cigarettes,” Gottlieb said.

    The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) supported the FDA’s endeavor to ban menthol cigarettes as they are popular among black Americans.

    “For decades, data have shown that the tobacco industry has successfully and intentionally marketed mentholated cigarettes to African Americans and particularly African American women as ‘replacement smokers,’” an NAACP statement read.

    Cigarette manufacturers predictably did not warm up to the idea.

    “We continue to believe that a total ban on menthol cigarettes or flavored cigars would be an extreme measure not supported by the science and evidence,” the Altria Group Inc., which produces Marlboro Menthol, wrote in a statement.

    Anti-smoking advocates like Matthew Meyers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, welcome the move but believe a total ban on flavored e-cigs would do much more to stop teens from getting hooked on nicotine.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • E-Cig Maker Called Out For Putting Erectile Dysfunction Meds In Vape Juice

    E-Cig Maker Called Out For Putting Erectile Dysfunction Meds In Vape Juice

    The FDA issued a warning to one e-cig maker that reportedly violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

    The FDA is casting a closer eye on HelloCig Electronic Technology, an e-cigarette manufacturer, after FDA researchers discovered that not only were the fruit-flavored products found to impair lung function in trials on mice, but the liquids contained prescription erectile dysfunction drugs as well.

    While e-cigarettes, vapes, and their ilk have been touted as a healthier alternatives to smoking for years, the truth is that the products were simply too new to allow any deep understanding about the possible adverse risks they carry as well as what product regulations should be put in place to protect consumers.

    This lack of regulation may have contributed to HelloCig’s inclusion of tadafil and sildenafil, usually used as the active ingredient to treat erectile dysfunction, in their e-cigarette liquids.

    “There are no e-liquids that contain prescription drugs that have been proven safe or effective through this route of administration,” said Scott Gottleib, FDA Commissioner.

    The FDA also undertook a surprise inspection of popular San Francisco e-cig manufacturer Juul, snatching up their marketing documents to ensure the company is not marketing to minors. Juul has been a runaway success, seeing a massive increase in sales from 2.2 million devices in 2016 to 16.2 million devices in 2017.

    Considering that 2 million high schoolers reported using e-cigarettes in a National Youth Tobacco Survey study, a significant portion of these sales made their way to the hands of minors.

    That’s why last September, the FDA warned and fined any e-cig manufacturers found to have sold products to minors and gave them 60 days to prove they had mechanisms in place to prevent minors from purchasing their products.

    The fruity flavors that are most attractive to teens have been linked to impaired lung function in mice. While this does not necessarily mean that the same effects will be seen in humans, it’s an important first step to determining the risks the products present.

    “Our findings suggest that exposure to e-cig vapor can trigger inflammatory responses and adversely affect respiratory system mechanics,” wrote the study’s authors. “We conclude that both e-cig vaping and conventional cigarette smoking negatively impact lung biology.”

    Groups of mice were exposed to cigarette smoke as well as different formulations of e-cigarette vapor. After three days, all the mice were found to have problems with inflammation, mucous production, and lung function.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Juul Faces Criticism, Concerns Amid Rising Success

    Juul Faces Criticism, Concerns Amid Rising Success

    The company is accused of marketing its product to teens. 

    Arguably the most well-known e-cigarette on the market, Juul has seen skyrocketing sales in the past year, increasing 800%. But the success of the company isn’t without concern.

    According to CNBC, Juul founders James Monsees and Adam Bowen, both former smokers, initially started a company called Ploom, which later became known as Pax Labs. In 2015, they introduced Juul, a type of e-cigarette. Two years later, it broke off into its own company called Juul Labs.

    The team that initially created Juul was made up of about 20 people on a $2 million budget, CNBC states. Since then, the product has seen exponential growth. Today, the company is valued at $15 billion and makes up about 75% of the e-cigarette market.

    “What we realized is people don’t want a safer cigarette, they want to move past cigarettes,” Monsees told CNBC. “It’s hard to imagine an area that can be more powerful to public health in particular than to eliminate cigarettes from the face of the earth. It is one of the most successful consumer products of all time, if not the most successful, and yet it kills more than half of all people that use them long term. We always intended to build this company around the idea of making cigarettes obsolete. We knew Juul would be the way to do that.” 

    Juul contains about 40 milligrams of nicotine per cartridge. It works by vaporizing a liquid containing nicotine salts which is then inhaled by the user.

    “There’s a lot of misunderstanding about this category and about nicotine,” Bowen told CNBC. “Many people think that it’s deadly, a serious disease agent—when really alone, nicotine is quite benign. It’s a mild stimulant, and is habit-forming and can lead to dependence, and for that reason alone, no non-smoker should ever touch this product.”

    While Juul’s growth has been widely successful, it hasn’t been without obstacles. The company has faced various lawsuits, as well as new FDA regulations. 

    “If you’d have interviewed me two years ago, I’d have said they’re maybe 25% as dangerous as a cigarette,” Stanton Glantz, UCSF Center for Tobacco Control and Education Director, told CNBC. “Now, I think they’re somewhere between three-quarters as dangerous as a cigarette and as dangerous.” 

    A main criticism of the product is that it appeals to youth. One reason for this is that Juul comes in a variety of flavors. Additionally, it appears as compact as a flash drive, making it possible for kids to bring into schools without raising suspicions.

    “Kids who use them have more asthma, more days off school,” Glantz told CNBC. “There is evidence linking them with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other diseases. Addiction is not a phase, it’s not something kids grow out of.”

    Juul’s early marketing was also accused of being problematic due to making the product appealing to youth with its social media-based campaigns. Now, the company has shifted to marketing by using testimonials from adult users of the product.

    Both founders Monsees and Bowen say it’s important to focus on tobacco use prevention among youth, and have invested $30 million into that cause.

    Juul must submit its product to the FDA for review by August 2022.

    “We estimate we switched over a million smokers to Juul in just three years, but there are about 38 million left in the U.S. so there’s still a lot of room to grow,” Bowen told CNBC.

    Juul Labs released the following statement to The Fix: 

    JUUL Labs’ mission is to eliminate cigarette smoking by offering existing adult smokers with a better alternative to combustible cigarettes. JUUL is not intended for anyone else. We strongly condemn the use of our product by minors, and it is in fact illegal to sell our product to minors. No minor should be in possession of a JUUL product.

    Our goal is to further reduce the number of minors who possess or use tobacco products, including vapor products, and to find ways to keep young people from ever trying these products. We approach this with a combination of education, enforcement, technology and partnership with others who are focused on this issue, including lawmakers, educators and our business partners.

    Nicotine is addictive. An individual who has not previously used nicotine products should not start, particularly youth. Recent science raises serious concerns about the adverse effect of nicotine on adolescent neurodevelopment.

    We encourage parents to talk with their children about the dangers of nicotine. As a company we also continuously seek ways to contribute to this dialogue and knowledge base.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • FDA Cracks Down On Top E-Cig Brands To Curb Teen Vaping Epidemic

    FDA Cracks Down On Top E-Cig Brands To Curb Teen Vaping Epidemic

    Around 1,300 warning letters have been sent to retailers of e-cigarettes found to be illegally selling e-cigarette products to minors.

    The Food and Drug Administration, concerned about the rising numbers of teenagers who “vape,” is cracking down on major e-cigarette brands to try and stop this trend.

    In a press release issued on Wednesday (Sept. 12), the FDA announced that it is requesting major brands—JUUL, Vuse, MarkTen, Blu, and Logic—to submit plans to “immediately and substantially reverse these trends” of young people vaping.

    If they do not comply within 60 days, the agency “may require the companies to revise their sales and marketing practices, to stop distributing products to retailers who sell to kids and to stop selling some or all of their flavored e-cigarette products until they clear the application process,” according to CNBC.

    The latest crackdown is the result of a nationwide undercover sweep over the summer. Since then, 1,300 warning letters have been sent to retailers of e-cigarettes found to be illegally selling e-cigarette products to minors.

    The vast majority of the violations were for the illegal sale of JUUL, Vuse, MarkTen, Blu and Logic—which account for over 97% of the U.S. e-cigarette market.

    Initially, e-cigarettes were touted as a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes for people who want to quit. But growing use among young people is now a concern for the FDA.

    “In enabling a path for e-cigarettes to offer a potentially lower-risk alternative for adult smokers, we won’t allow the current trends in youth access and use to continue, even if it means putting limits in place that reduce adult uptake of these products,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in the press release.

    “We see clear signs that youth use of electronic cigarettes has reached an epidemic proportion, and we must adjust certain aspects of our comprehensive strategy to stem this clear and present danger,” Gottlieb declared, going on to say that promoting smoking cessation can’t come “at the expense of kids.”

    “We cannot allow a whole new generation to become addicted to nicotine,” he added.

    In the coming weeks, the FDA said it will take additional action under its Youth Tobacco Prevention Plan, and ramp up enforcement of the illegal sale of these products to kids.

    View the original article at thefix.com