Press Announcements > Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on new data demonstrating rising youth use of tobacco products and the agency’s ongoing actions to confront the epidemic of youth e-cigarette use

Press Announcements > Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on new data demonstrating rising youth use of tobacco products and the agency’s ongoing actions to confront the epidemic of youth e-cigarette use





Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on new data demonstrating rising youth use of tobacco products and the agency’s ongoing actions to confront the epidemic of youth e-cigarette use

Today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released additional data from our joint FDA/CDC 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey. These data are a sobering reminder of the initial results we shared last fall indicating a rampant rise of youth e-cigarette use, which has prompted the FDA to take a series of escalating regulatory actions as part of our Youth Tobacco Prevention Plan. We are advancing those actions, and committing to some new steps. The epidemic use of e-cigarettes among children is one of the biggest public health challenges currently facing the FDA.

According to the data released today, approximately 4.9 million middle and high school students were current users (used in the past 30 days) of some type of tobacco product in 2018, up from 3.6 million in 2017. This increase is driven by an alarming surge in e-cigarette use. More than 3.6 million middle and high school students were current (past 30 day) e-cigarette users in 2018, a dramatic increase of more than 1.5 million students in one year. The study authors suggest ...