This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched a new initiative designed to tackle “the growing spread of rumors, misinformation and disinformation about science, medicine, and the FDA.”
Describing this move as “rumor control,” it is primarily aimed at myths and false information about COVID-19 vaccines, but in the tobacco and nicotine policy area, the FDA itself has been guilty of providing very damaging misinformation of its own.
Announcing the initiative, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf declared that the “distortions and half-truths of misinformation and disinformation pose enormous dangers to the effectiveness of science and to public health itself, through the negative impact it has on individual behavior.” And he promised to make “combating misinformation one of [his] priorities.”
If he is to be true to his vow, he could begin by reviewing the misinformation about vaping products currently being displayed on the FDA website. On a page detailing the results of the latest annual National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), one graphic decries “about 1 in 4 [U.S. youth] use e-cigs daily.” This is simply untrue. In reality, the NYTS survey found that only 3.1 percent of youths vaped on more than 20 days per month, a vast difference from the claimed 25 percent.
Martin Cullip – The Center Square – 2022-08-17.
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