The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posed the question of if drug therapy is a possible solution in the quest to help teens quit vaping during a public hearing held in mid-January. The FDA currently has no approved nicotine cessation products for e-cigarette users under 18. Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, previously 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.” The urgency in finding a solution for these nicotine-dependent teens is due to the potentially greatly differing methods of cessation when comparing e-cigarettes to traditional cigarettes, and comes from the fact that data is still lacking concerning e-cigarettes, especially data in cessation treatment.
The FDA was criticized by some over this hearing, however, as critics believed the focus in adolescents should be on prevention and not treatment. Dr. Susanne Tanski, former chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium, said: “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.”
To read more from the article, click here.