FDA Holds Hearing on Drug Therapies to Help Youth Quit E-Cigarettes

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a hearing last week to consider the potential role of drug therapies in helping teens quit e-cigarettes, CNN reports.

There are currently no FDA-approved nicotine cessation products for minors who vape, the article notes. Many healthcare providers use smoking cessation aids, such as nicotine gum, to help their young patients quit e-cigarettes. But there is a lack of data on how well they work in teens and how best to use them along with counseling and other resources, experts say.

“These products deliver very high levels of nicotine, meaning that even brief experimentation is likely to put adolescents at risk for long-term dependence,” Dr. Susanne Tanski, former chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium, told the FDA. “Clinicians urgently require new solutions to safely and effectively help stop them using these and all tobacco products for good. There is unfortunately virtually no data on how to treat an adolescent with e-cigarette dependence.”