by Vi Thuy Nguyen MD
October 26, 2020
To the San Diego County Board of Supervisors,
We are a group of community outpatient general pediatricians who practice throughout San Diego. We take care of pediatric asthma patients and have become increasingly concerned about the health of all our pediatric patients but especially those with asthma. We have taken it upon ourselves as private citizens and a group of concerned colleagues to advocate on behalf of our patients regarding local laws that will affect our patients’ health.
It is very important that the Board of Supervisors enact a stronger policy than the recently passed state flavors bill to end the sale of all flavored tobacco products without exemptions. A comprehensive policy that includes all flavored products is considered best practice for reducing youth tobacco access and use. All tobacco products are alluring to kids, highly addicting, and deadly. As San Diego county pediatricians and community members and parents ourselves, we hope the Supervisors put pediatric health over tobacco company profits.
We increasingly see vaping addiction in our pediatric patients and have begun referring children including young teens to addiction services. We have had children as young as 10 tell us commonly that flavored e-cigs are present at their schools and used by their friends. Older teens are very blasé when we discuss with them vaping, as vaping is now common amongst their peers. Vaping presents dangers to all patients in particular to the growing number of pediatric asthma patients. It is crystal clear to us as pediatricians that flavored tobacco products especially e-cigarettes are a threat to pediatric public health, as flavored ecigs are marketed to teens with flavors such as “Gummy Bear,” “Strawberry Ice,” and even “Cucumber.” We know that this epidemic encompasses children throughout San Diego County from our upper middle class suburban schools to underserved communities, public schools and private schools, it is affecting all our children.
We urge the County Board of Supervisors to support the bill.
Respectfully Yours,
San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air
