In October, the agency submitted a proposal to oversee the industry to the White House s Office of Management and Budget that authorizes all regulations. The proposal is still under review at the budget office, according to the office s website.

This report we re issuing today should be a prod for them to act, Waxman said.

The use of e cigarettes by middle school and high school students in the U.S. doubled to 10 percent in 2012 from 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in September. The agency has also said e cigarette related calls to poison centers rose to 215 a month in February, compared with one a month in September 2010.

Waxman and Sen. Dick Durbin, a Illinois Democrat, led the investigation. Durbin called e cigarettes a gateway to smoking rather than a cessation tool as some studies have asserted.

The congressional report calls on the FDA to assert its authority over e cigarettes and companies to immediately prevent the sale of the products to anyone younger than 18 and refrain from television and radio advertising. The FDA should ban flavored e cigarettes that appeal to youth and companies should stop selling them as well, the report said.

Altria has expressed support for FDA regulation, David Sutton, a spokesman for the Richmond, Va. based company, said by telephone.

Obviously, we think that the agency should include an appropriate set of marketing regulations, Sutton said. Those regulations should allow the companies to communicate to adult vapers.

Sutton declined to specify the type of marketing regulation the FDA should impose.

NJOY has long supported sensible regulations, Whit Clay, a spokesman for the company at Sloane & Co., said in an email.

Reynolds American backs strengthening and updating state youth tobacco control laws to prohibit youth purchase of tobacco products, Jane Seccombe, a spokeswoman for the Winston Salem, N.C. based company said.

Bloomberg Industries estimates global e cigarette sales may reach $7.5 billion in 2015, compared with $3.5 billion last year. The sales projection almost cuts in half an October estimate of $14 billion in 2015 sales based in part on expected advertising restrictions.

Six e cigarette companies spent $59 million in 2013 to market their products, double the amount spent the year before. Seven of the manufacturers including NJOY and Reynolds have used radio or television advertisements, some featuring celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy. Seven companies also used social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to market their products.

Twenty eight states have prohibited the sale of e cigarettes to minors while most companies had some type of restriction on youth sales.

Given the varied scope and company oversight of these policies, their effectiveness at restricting sales to minors is unclear, according to the congressional report.

Liquid nicotine in e-cigarettes rising cause of poisonings: cdc – webmd

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 3, 2014 (HealthDay News) The number of calls to poison control centers for nicotine poisoning from e cigarettes has risen dramatically in recent years, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

Calls related to poisoning from the liquid nicotine used in these devices were running at a rate of roughly one a month in 2010, but jumped to 215 in February of this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Even more troubling, more than half (51 percent) of the poison calls involved children aged 5 and younger, while 42 percent involved people aged 20 and older.

«The time has come to start thinking about what we can do to keep this from turning into an even worse public health problem,» said Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.

He added that many people are not aware that liquid nicotine is toxic. «We need to make sure we can avert the possibility of an unintended death from nicotine poisoning,» he said.

«We have not had an unintentional poisoning death from e cigarettes yet in the United States that we know of, but the potential is there given the amount of concentrated nicotine in these solutions it would not take a lot for a child death to occur,» McAfee noted.

CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden noted in a news release that e cigarettes are particularly attractive to kids because they come in candy and fruit flavors.

Dr. Vincenzo Maniaci, an emergency medicine specialist at Miami Children’s Hospital, agreed that the danger to children is real.

«The concentration of nicotine in these solutions is significant and they need to be made childproof and regulated,» Maniaci said. «Especially for kids under the age of 5, this amount of nicotine can be fatal.»

McAfee noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to propose regulations for e cigarettes. He added that he hopes these regulations will include how the product is packaged, including childproof caps and warning labels.

«These things can be hardwired into these products, rather than being left to the whim of the manufacturer,» he said.

In the meantime, McAfee advised keeping these devices, and their refills, out of the reach of children.

«These should be treated with the same caution one would use for bleach. In some ways, this is more toxic than bleach,» he said.

Poisoning from the liquid nicotine in e cigarettes can happen in one of three ways by swallowing it inhaling it or absorbing it through the skin or membranes in the mouth and lips or eyes, McAfee said. Once it is in a person’s system, nicotine can cause nausea, vomiting or seizures.

If those symptoms are occurring, the patient will typically be told to go straight to the emergency room, said Amy Hanoian Fontana, from the Connecticut Poison Control Center.