With Students Back in Class, Concern Over Use of E-Cigarettes

Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 -- 10:00 AM

(WMTV) With students going back to in-person learning, there is concern that many will encounter newfound peer pressure to use e-cigarettes.

UW Madison Associate Professor of Pediatric Pulmonology, Dr. Vivek Balasubramaniam (MD), said the teen vaping crisis took a backseat during the pandemic, but it never went away.

“Although there was a decline in the number of children who self-reported that they did use vaping and e-cigarette related products from 27% to 20%, that still includes 1 in 5 high school students that are currently vaping,” said Dr. Balasubramaniam. Flavored e-cigarettes are largely to blame for encouraging children and teens to use these high concentrate nicotine products.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the National Association of Secondary School Principals are calling on the FDA and lawmakers to ban all flavored nicotine vapes. This is ahead of a September 9th deadline for the FDA to approve or deny future production of all flavored e-cigarette products.

Dr. Balasubramaniam encourages parents, “to talk to their local representatives, to send messages directly to the FDA to tell them that they need to regulate and ban these flavored e-cigarettes which are really utilized by the kids, because they’re fruity flavored and they’re nice to taste, but it also hooks them on nicotine.

"An alarming number of children and teens continue to be hospitalized with severe lung injury from vaping, which presents as shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.

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