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E-cigarettes might get vaporized. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted yesterday to outright ban the sale and importing of electronic tobacco products in the city. The controversial decision comes on the heels of a 36 percent rise from last year in the number of U.S. teenagers admitting to tobacco usage. One in five senior highschoolers reported vaping in a single month! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blames the upsurge of tobacco use on E-cigarette manufacturers like Juul Labs, which owns 70 percent of the vaping market and once used fruit flavors and social media to peddle products to youths. Juul, which operates out of Pier 70 in San Francisco, argues that their products actually provide a safer alternative to traditional smoking, which still kills 40,000 Californians annually. There's no conclusive evidence to support that defense. Though Mayor London Breed has yet to sign off on the ban, she has indicated that she will. In response, Juul is gathering a petition to override the Board of Supervisors' decision. curious.com/curios/2019-06-27/up-in-smoke?daily_email=true#date

The FDA has the power right now to issue an Administrative Detention Order to prevent contaminated electronic cigarette and e-liquid tobacco products from reaching consumers until they can be seized by U.S. Marshals. "The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by ... regulating tobacco products." Tobacco products officially regulated by the FDA now include electronic cigarettes and e-liquids. www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/federal-officials-seize-adulterated-dietary-supplemen... "...looking at 75 e-cigarette cartridges and e-liquid products from the top-selling brands in 2013...found that 23% contained traces of endotoxin and that that 81% contained traces of glucan. Endotoxins are found on Gram-negative bacteria [for example, E. coli, which causes food poisoning] and glucan is found on most fungi [e.g. molds, which cause allergies]. Exposure to them has been associated with health problems like asthma, reduced lung function, and inflammation, the researchers say. "Airborne Gram-negative bacterial endotoxin and fungal-derived glucans have been shown to cause acute and chronic respiratory effects in occupational and environmental settings," David Christiani, a professor at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and senior author of the study said..." www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/04/24/popular-e-cigarette-vape-products-tainted-toxins-ha...