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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/193494
NATONEWS CDC Claim of E-Cigarette Use by Youth is Misleading Many unanswered questions remain O September 5, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a press release claiming that electronic cigarette use among high school students doubled from 2011 to 2012 based on data from the 2011 and 2012 National Youth Tobacco Surveys (NYTS). In response to this press release, NATO issued a statement indicating that the data relied on by the CDC raises too many unanswered questions to be used as a basis to make this claim or for proposing significant regulatory restrictions on electronic cigarettes. Specifically, NATO's statement focused on how the CDC interpreted the responses from high school students to the questions in the youth tobacco surveys to claim that electronic cigarette use has more than doubled. To arrive at this conclusion, the CDC included those high Thomas Briant is executive director of the National school students who are either current Association of Tobacco users of electronic cigarettes and those Outlets. NATO's toll-free number is (866) 869-8888 who have used an e-cigarette just once. and the association's Web This means that the CDC's claim that site address is electronic cigarette use has doubled www.natocentral.org. among underage youth is likely overstated since students who used the product one time may no longer be using e-cigarettes. For example, in the 2011 National Youth Tobacco Survey, only 3 percent or 558 out of 18,262 students responded that they have "ever tried" an electronic cigarette. The question is how many of these 558 students tried an e-cigarette just once and no longer use the product? Without acknowledging that a portion of the students surveyed used an e-cigarette just one time and no longer use e-cigarettes, the CDC cannot make the general conclusion claim that youth use of e-cigarettes has doubled from 2011 to 2012. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) echoed this same conclusion about the misleading nature of the CDC claim. In a September 5 article published by ACSH, the organization stated the following: "The CDC's reporting here is, without doubt, intentionally misleading. Three descriptors are examined when surveying about tobacco or drug use— A) Ever n www.npnweb.com n NPN Magazine use, B) Past 30 days use, and C) daily use. In the context of addictive products like nicotine, it is daily use that is correlated with youth continuing to use these products rather than just experimenting a few times. Conveniently, the CDC failed to report data on daily use of e-cigarettes by youth, presumably because daily use is so rare that it would not support their findings that smoke-free nicotine products are equally addicting and just as harmful as smoking, as well as target marketed to children." Without acknowledging that a portion of the students surveyed used an e-cigarette just one time and no longer use e-cigarettes, the CDC cannot make the general conclusion claim that youth use of e-cigarettes has doubled from 2011 to 2012. Moreover, the CDC's website contains the 2011 NYTS study including the questions asked students and the number of students responding to each question. However, as of September 10th, five days after the CDC press release was issued, the CDC website still does not have the actual 2012 NYTS study including the questions and the number of student responses to each question. That is, the CDC is relying on data from both the 2011and 2012 NYTS surveys to make claims about youth use of electronic cigarettes, but it appears that only the 2011 NYTS study data has been made public. The inability to examine the 2012 NYTS data is one reason why NATO has raised questions about the CDC's claim about youth use of electronic cigarettes. NATO and its retail members do not support the sale of electronic cigarettes to underage youth. At the same time, NATO and its members support the right of adults to purchase and use electronic cigarettes. OCTOBER 2013 9