Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and other government officials have repeatedly asserted that the U.S. is in the midst of a teen vaping epidemic (example here). Their claim is based on last year’s National Youth Tobacco Survey, the full contents of which was finally released six weeks ago by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With that data in hand, I have confirmed some of the assertions made by anti-vapers but easily put the lie to others (here).
Federal officials claim there were over three million high school vapers in 2018. Let’s take a look at the actual numbers. Each table below lists the number of high school students who used e-cigarettes 0, 1-5, 6-19 or 20-30 days in the past month, according to whether they were underage or of legal age (18+ years).
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