The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
State officials seek ban on ecigs, vaping
Recent illnesses, youth market cited
NEW HAVEN — A ban on the sale of ecigarettes and vaping materials is needed as news reports come in of people falling ill and dying as the result of inhaling the chemicalladen substances, according to U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D3, and medical and public health leaders.
“We’re here today to raise the alarm and to raise the pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to exercise its authority to take vapes and ecigarettes off the market,” DeLauro said at a news conference Friday at the Yale New Haven Hospital building at 55 Park St. She said six people have died and 450 have gotten sick from the devices in 33 states. Eleven have been sickened in Connecticut, she said.
Despite the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which restricts tobacco marketing and sales to youths and requires premarket reviews of devices such as ecigarettes, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA “allowed dangerous products to come to the market by exempting ... ecigarettes,” using the FDA’s “enforcement discretion” to delay a decision until 2022.
DeLauro called on the FDA to “remove all ecigarettes from the market”
because of what she called “a lifethreatening crisis. The FDA must immediately exercise it’s authority under existing law.”
Dr. Pnina Weiss, medical director for the Pediatric Pulmonary Function Laboratory at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, said a teenager recently was hospitalized with “respiratory failure from vaping,” which included “shortness of breath, chest pain, difficulty breathing.” At first, doctors thought the teen was suffering from pneumonia but “she deteriorated very quickly and ended up in the ICU” with positive pressure ventilation, and was given steroids and antibiotics. The symptoms “in the olden days would have brought her a breathing tube.”
Weiss said onefourth of teenagers are using ecigarettes, a turnaround from the decrease in smoking cigarettes among youth. “It’s huge ... and if you think they’re getting their information from the media, they’re getting it from their friends right now.”
Weiss added, “We know that our youth are three times more likely to use cigarettes if they use ecigarettes,” and that asthma and other respiratory problems are on the rise.
Renée ColemanMitchell, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, said the department is “conducting an investigation,” working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to find out more about the dangers of vaping. She urged residents to stop using the products, which have hospitalized 11 people in Connecticut as of Friday, according to a health department press release.
“We don’t have a lot of answers right now,” ColemanMitchell said. “We’re just collecting information, but we’re very concerned with the messaging. This is nationwide.” The CDC reports that no specific cause has been found for the illnesses, with specific “substance that is linked to all cases,” according to its website.
Pamela Mautte, director of the Alliance for Prevention and Wellness, said there are 8,000 flavors used in the products, which are heavily marketed to young people, with flavors such as chocolate, creme brulee, Gummi Bear and Sour Patch Kids. Weiss said in some products THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, “can be mixed in there and that can also add to the toxicity.”
“Really there is no safe use of vaping devices,” Mautte said. She praised Connecticut’s “Tobacco 21” law, which will raise the age at which tobacco can be purchased to 21 as of Oct. 1. “The marketing is very targeted at youth, where they were using celebrities, Instagram posts ... in a variety of publications that are targeted to youth,” she said.
The leading company in the ecigarette market is Juul, which is owned by the Altria Group tobacco company, formerly the Philip Morris Cos. Mautte said ecigarettes, in addition to nicotine, contain “severe irritating chemicals like ethylene glycol,” which is found in antifreeze, and propylene glycol, used in laser printer toner.
DeLauro said President Donald Trump has “indicated that the FDA may consider banning flavored products,” which she called “a positive step that is long overdue but in my view it is half the measure.”
She said illness from vaping “is not a new problem. It is one that has been ignored by federal authorities for too long,” going back to the administration of President Barack Obama.
DeLauro said the information about vaping dangers is not new. “The FDA has known what the properties are. When you think of the responsibility that this agency has in protecting the public health, to say it’s OK not to review it, it’s unconscionable.” She said the FDA is putting profits over health.
She also said she has sponsored the Youth Vaping Prevention Act that would bar vaping sales over the internet and ban artificial flavors