FDA Reveals First Wave of E-Cigarette PATH Studies

The Society for Research on nicotine and Tobacco Conference had several tobacco and nicotine-related presentations, most noteworthy is data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institute of Health’s Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study. 

“E-cigs were a big topic in the PATH study, along with many other presentations, as the regulatory and scientific communities try to get a better grasp of the implications of this innovation" Vivien Azer tobacco researcher at the New York-based Cowen Group stated in his research notes.

Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health is a longitudinal research presented in 2011 for the FDA to develop an improved knowledge of tobacco-use. The initial wave of the research started in 2013 and was introduced in the seminar. The information indicated routine usage of e-cigarettes is nevertheless quite low, with only 5.5% of adults and 3.1% of 12 to 17-year old’s having used a cigarette in the previous month. Azer included that day-to-day Electronic cigarette customers constitute a tiny portion of the 30 day Electronic cigarette customers. “In fact, among current adult e-cig users, more than 40% had only used an e-cig less than three times in the past 30 days,” she said. “We believe [this] points to the continued lack of consumer adoption of the products.”
“Overall, 15.9% of adult current e-cig users were nicotine-naive,” Azer said. “While a smaller 8.5% of daily e-cig users had not previously used tobacco.

” When it comes to flavors in electronic cigarettes along with other tobacco goods, PATH researchers identified using flavors was most notable in Electronic cigarette consumers across-the-board. Azer mentioned the Wave 1 database is just available for limited use, but complete dataset will likely be available after in 2013. PATH researchers declared a week ago, the research is likely to be expanded four years and can now contain seven waves, using the ultimate trend set to be finished in 2022. “We view the extension of the study as a positive (given the agency will take the time to evaluate findings from the study and could potentially push back any incremental regulations),” Azer said.