Vaping: The New Adolescent Epidemic
Post Date: February 17, 2020 | Publish Date:
In just a few years, vaping has surged to become the most popular form of tobacco use among teens. Not only are rising numbers of teens using e-cigarettes, many are using the products more often.
In fact, the rise of vaping has wiped out many years of progress against tobacco use among teens. And despite recent efforts to ban some flavored versions of e-cigarettes, many young users already have found ways around the restrictions.
“It didn’t take much for all that work to be lost,” says Shan Yin, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center.
In a talk presented Feb. 4, 2020, Yin discusses the various dangers of e-cigarettes, including carcinogen content, severe burns from battery explosions, and 60 deaths and 2,711 hospitalizations from electronic cigarette/vaping-associated lung injury (EVALI) as of Jan. 21, 2020.
Yin also reminds the audience that even though a spike in lung injuries that occurred in September has passed, the ongoing number of vaping-related hospital visits continues to rise.
