DeLauro Demands E‑Cig Ban

E‑cigarettes are not regulated, not safe, and must be taken off the market immediately.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and a handful of medical professionals and public health advocates delivered that message at a Friday morning conference calling for a nationwide ban on all vaping products.

The presser was held in the second-floor auditorium of the Yale New Haven Hospital building at 55 Park St. at the heart of the city’s medical campus.

DeLauro, an outspoken critic of the dangers that e‑cigarettes and vaping pose to middle school kids, which companies like JUUL have been accused of marketing directly to, called on the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take all e‑cigarette products off the market entirely.

She accused the FDA of skirting the authority that Congress gave it in 2009 to require that manufacturers of new tobacco products, including e‑cigarettes, conduct ​“pre-market reviews” to prove that a product is safe before making it available for purchase. The FDA made a specific exemption for e‑cigarettes, she said, citing ​“enforcement discretion,” and thereby allowing a vaping industry to boom in recent years without any kind of substantive scientific research into the ingredients of e‑cigarette products and their affects on public health.

“E‑cigarettes that are on the market today are on the market illegally,” she said.

She was joined by YNHH Medical Director for the Pediatric Pulmonary Function Laboratory Pnina Weiss, state Department of Public Health Commissioner Renée D. Coleman-Mitchell, Director of the Alliance for Prevention and Wellness Pamela Mautte

The most immediate catalyst for Friday’s press conference appeared to be the announcement from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that, nationwide, six people have died and 450 have developed illnesses related to vaping or smoking e‑cigarette products. Eleven of those vaping victims have fallen ill in Connecticut. [Late this week, the CDC subsequently revised down the number of vaping-related illness to 380, noting that the 450 number included cases possibly, and not just definitely, related to vaping.]

President Donald Trump followed up on the release of those numbers by stating earlier this week that his administration is considering banning all flavored e‑cigarettes.

Such a ban would be a step in the right direction, DeLauro said. ​“But in my view, it is half the measure.” The safest route the FDA could take, she said, would be to pull all e‑cigarette products from the market now, do the necessary investigations into their health impact, and then figure out whether or not they should be allowed for sale.

Weiss agreed, and said that she witnessed the dangers of vaping firsthand two weeks ago when she treated a teenage patient in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit who suffered from respiratory failure due to vaping.

That patient, like all victims of vaping-related illnesses, suffered from shortness of breath, coughing, chest pain, and difficulty breathing, Weiss said.

At first, medical providers thought that she had pneumonia. But that should have gone away within 24 to 48 hours of receiving antibiotics, she said. Instead, the patient ​“deteriorated very quickly and ended up in the ICU.” A treatment consisting of both antibiotics and steroids rescured the patient from needing to be intubated, she said.

The way that e‑cigarettes work, Weiss said, is that a liquid that has chemicals in it is heated up and inhalted. Some of those chemicals include ethylene glycol, which is used in anti-freeze; propylene glycol, which is used in laser printers; and nicotine, the addictive chemical in tobacco cigarettes. One JUUL pod, she said, has as much nicotine as an entire pack of combustible cigarettes.

“E‑cigarette use is never safe for youth,” she said, ​“young adults, pregnant or breastfeeding women.”

Coleman-Mitchell said that the state public health department is currently working with the CDC to investigate the exact health consequences of vaping. She said she is most concerned about the the way that e‑cigarette companies market themselves to youth as safer alternatives to combustible smoking.

“People should consider not to use e‑cigarettes or vaping products until we at least know what we are dealing with,” she said.

DeLauro said that there is a simple explanation for why the FDA has so far failed to regulate e‑cigarettes: Money. Billions of dollars, to be precise, that companies like JUUL are making every year with the help of potentially deceptive marketing campaigns.

“It’s unconscionable,” she said.

In a written statement sent to the Independent, JUUL spokesperson Austin Finan pushed back on the congresswoman’s call for a ban.

“Full prohibition will drive former adult smokers who successfully switched to vapor products back to deadly cigarettes,”he wrote, ​“deny the opportunity to switch for current adult smokers, and create a thriving black market instead of addressing the actual causes of underage access and use. We strongly agree with the need for aggressive category-wide action on flavored products, which is why we have already taken the most aggressive actions in the industry to keep our products out of the hands of those underage and will fully comply with the final FDA policy when effective.”

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full press conference.