Myth Over Metrics | FDA Commissioner Rejects CDC Data on Teen Vaping | RegWatch
February 16, 2026 by regulatorwatch.com
Myth Over Metrics | FDA Commissioner Rejects CDC Data on Teen Vaping | RegWatch
“Shoddy” and “flawed.” That’s how Trump’s FDA Commissioner, Marty Makary, describes the National Youth Tobacco Survey, the CDC’s flagship youth surveillance system and the very dataset the FDA has relied on for more than a decade to justify vaping crackdowns, public panic, and sweeping prohibitionist policy. In this episode of RegWatch, behavioral scientist Dr. Arielle Selya unpacks the Commissioner’s claims. From “popcorn lung,” to the conflation of nicotine vaping with illicit THC products, to the astonishing assertion that principals and doctors “know better” than national surveillance data, the episode exposes a regulator who has fallen prey to the anti-vaping narrative he was supposed to evaluate objectively.
