Nearly half a million Americans still die prematurely from tobacco use each year despite the fact that it is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the U.S.1, 2. So what can be done to prevent the toll of smoking in the U.S.? The workplace is an important setting for implementing tobacco control interventions. 3, 4

A new warning about the skyrocketing rates of e-cigarette use among young people, a film crew member killed in New York City and 2017 work-related fatality statistics from the BLS were among the week’s top occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com.

An advisory by U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams prompted by the skyrocketing rates of e-cigarette use among teens warns parents that any use of e-cigarettes is dangerous. “E-cigarette aerosol is not harmless,” said the Surgeon General. “Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine – the addictive drug in regular cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products. Nicotine exposure during adolescence can harm the developing brain – which continues to develop until about age 25.”

Sales of JUUL, an e-cigarette shaped like a USB flash drive, grew more than seven-fold from 2016 to 2017, and held the greatest share of the U.S. e-cigarette market by December 2017. The findings, from an analysis of retail sales data from 2013-2017, were released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in JAMA.

Don’t count on the tobacco companies to reverse the sharp rise in e-cigarette use among teens. That’s the message the American Heart Association (AHA) is sending to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who promised last week that the federal government would act to curtail youthful e-cigarette use.

New research estimates that 4.5 percent of adults in the U.S. currently use e-cigarettes. That equates to more than 10.8 million e-cigarette users, most of them — 51.2 percent — under the age of 35 and about 60 percent are men. Those data come from an analysis of national self-reported health behaviors.

Six leading public health and medical organizations today urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to stop the sale of new electronic cigarette products that have been illegally introduced in recent months without the agency’s prior review and authorization. These include numerous products similar to the Juul e-cigarettes that have become wildly popular with teens across the United States.

Fewer U.S. middle and high school students are using tobacco products – but too many still do, according to a new survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products.

The adult smoking rate is at a historically low level, according to the 2017 National Health Interview Survey released recently by the CDC. The figures show that adult smoking rates decreased from 15.5 percent in 2016 to 13.9 percent in 2017 – numbers that “reflect enormous progress in fighting tobacco use and will yield tremendous benefit to lung health in this country,” according to Harold P. Wimmer, National President and CEO of the American Lung Association (ALA).

Teenagers from local high schools flock to Brooklyn Vape in downtown Brooklyn. The store is small – a single room with vape paraphernalia stacked to the ceiling in glass cabinets. Many of the teens walk awkwardly through the shop and ask the clerk, a man who goes by Ali and wouldn’t give his last name, if they can buy an e-cigarette.