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The American Academy of Pediatrics has made calls to ban sales of vape products to under-21s.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) loves vaping. It loves electronic cigarettes like foxes love rabbits and seeks out any opportunity to slam the technology. On one hand they purport to value the interests of children above anything else while taking large wedges of cash from Merck and Mead Johnson Pharmaceuticals in the other. Unsurprisingly, they have announced a desire for legislation to remove 18-21 year olds from being able to benefit from ecigs.

The AAP have previously been exposed as taking multimillion-pound sums from Procter & Gamble, Gerber, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, Schering Corp., Rhone-Poulenc Rorer and others. Their ties to Big Pharma are even indicated on their website although they do not provide details.

In the past the AAP has used its influence and financial clout to obstruct American legislators from acting on a range of child-related matters to the benefit of their funders. This included them raising obstacles to the Senate, who wanted to investigate child vaccines that contained mercury. It is an odious organisation.

They have funded paid-by-results research designed to attack the electronic cigarette market. Last year they pushed the ridiculous notion that young people are susceptible to and inundated by bad ecig advertising. It is part of their long-term strategy to throw up clouds of controversy about vaping at the behest of their paymasters.

Their policy document on electronic cigarettes begins with their warning that they have “a dangerous appeal to youth”. Apparently it is because of flavours like “peach schnapps, java jolt and piña colada”. You may wonder what children are at risk from vaping if they are already drinking peach schnapps!

In their latest press release they: “urge strong regulations of e-cigarettes, noting increasing popularity among teens; AAP recommends restricting age of sale for all tobacco products to 21”. The measure of the recommendation is by the lies it perpetuates: “e-cigarettes are threatening to addict a new generation to nicotine.”

It’s nonsense, utter piffle. When presenting evidence to Simon (the vape troll) Chapman, she pointed out:

  • Three of the four UK studies failed to find any long-term use of electronic cigarettes in young people in anything like a statistically acceptable number
  • While young people are experimenting with e-cigarettes and the proportion who say they’ve tried them is rising, only very small numbers of young non-smokers are attracted to these products on any regular basis

We know the AAP’s claims are nonsense because not even Mark Drakeford could product evidence to support the notion of a gateway effect hooking kids into nicotine products. When they go on to state: “There is no scientific evidence that supports the efficacy or safety of e-cigarettes,” it is difficult not to laugh.

In fact the only thing they say that has any grounding in fact is: “Protecting children from tobacco products is one of the most important things that a society can do to protect children's health.” When the AAP signs up to that instead of being nothing more than a corporate mouthpiece maybe they’ll accept that vaping is a means to that end.

Dave Cross avatar

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV
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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.

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