“Shoddy” and “flawed.” That’s how Trump’s FDA Commissioner, Marty Makary, describes the National Youth Tobacco Survey, the CDC’s flagship youth surveillance system and the very dataset the FDA has relied on for more than a decade to justify vaping crackdowns, public panic, and sweeping prohibitionist policy.
The problem? The NYTS no longer shows an epidemic of teen vaping. It shows a collapse. Teen vaping has fallen by more than 60 percent since 2019. And instead of grappling with that reality, the FDA Commissioner has chosen to discard the data entirely, replacing it with anecdote, rumor, and recycled anti-vaping myths.
In this episode of RegWatch, behavioral scientist Dr. Arielle Selya unpacks the Commissioner’s claims. From “popcorn lung,” to the conflation of nicotine vaping with illicit THC products, to the astonishing assertion that principals and doctors “know better” than national surveillance data, the episode exposes a regulator who has fallen prey to the anti-vaping narrative he was supposed to evaluate objectively.
What happens when America’s top health regulator rejects his own evidence base? And what does it mean for tobacco harm reduction, public trust, and the future of nicotine policy?
Find out, only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com.
Released: February 14, 2026
Produced by: Brent Stafford
This episode is supported by DEMAND VAPE.
CELEBRATE WITH US | RegWatch 10th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign
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