Local health group issues warning about kids and vaping

BOSTON — For the first time in eight years, the American Academy of Pediatrics is formally addressing childhood nicotine and tobacco use. Its new policy paper, which appears in the latest edition of Pediatrics, recommends, among other things, that pediatricians actively screen adolescents for tobacco and nicotine use.

Why the update?

“The AAP’s last tobacco statement was in 2015,” said Pediatrician and paper Co-Author Susan Walley, MD. “And at that time we were seeing just, really, the emergence of e-cigarettes and vaping, as well as other new tobacco products.”

AAP now sees vaping and other tobacco derivatives as a full threat to the health of American children.

“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in that interim period is that e-cigarettes and vaping devices are the most common tobacco product used by adolescents today,” Walley said. “One in six high school students are current tobacco users, and one in twenty middle school students.”

While Walley uses the term ‘tobacco’ it’s more a reference to anything containing nicotine. And it’s clear from national figures adolescents preferred form of nicotine. The CDC reports that about two to three percent of U.S. high schoolers use cigarettes and cigars -- but more than 14 percent use e-cigarettes.

Overall, the CDC found about 16.5 percent of high school kids use nicotine products, with use by girls edging out boys.

Walley said nicotine product manufacturers continue to use deceptive marketing to lure young users in -- including the offering of flavors.

“They’re addicting a whole new generation of our youth,” she said. “We have teenagers who are so addicted to these products that they can’t go a school day without using them covertly.”

Walley said doctors are especially concerned about the possible long-term effects of e-cigarettes -- something they don’t yet know because the products haven’t been around long enough. But in the short term, Walley said they’re seeing serious, even fatal, lung injuries from vaping.

Could vaping be as harmful as cigarette smoking? Walley said that while some e-cigarettes contain synthetic nicotine, others use nicotine from tobacco plants.

“We see some of the same toxicants as in cigarettes,” she said. “Nitrosamines, microscopic heavy metals, aldehydes.”

Whether synthetic or natural, nicotine is nicotine in one respect: it’s highly addictive -- perhaps especially for kids.

" Adolescent brains are not mature and so they’re able to become addicted to even intermittent use of these products,” Walley said.

The new policy paper recommends pediatricians not only screen for nicotine use in adolescents -- but also check for use by parents and caregivers. If a child is having an issue with nicotine addiction, the paper also recommends treatment -- but not with e-cigarettes.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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