Jan. 24, 2020, 4:04 AM CST

By Rosemary Guerguerian, M.D.

E-cigarettes are often promoted as a tool to help smokers quit, but there’s still not enough scientific evidence to back up this claim. There is evidence, however, that many young people are introduced to tobacco through e-cigarettes.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams cited that earlier evidence on Thursday, when he spoke about the 2020 Surgeon General report on tobacco. This year’s report — the 34th overall — was the first in three decades to address smoking cessation specifically.

The report comes in the midst of a heated debate about flavored e-cigarettes, which public health officials say hook kids. In early January, the Food and Drug Administration announced a ban on nearly all flavored e-cigarette products, except for menthol and tobacco-flavored pods.

a news conference Thursday, Adams urged people to focus on what the research has shown about e-cigarettes.

A lot of the available studies on whether e-cigarettes can help people quit tobacco, however, involve specific products, so these findings can’t be applied to e-cigarettes as a whole, Adams said, adding that many of the products that were studied have since changed, and that there are countless others on the market.

While the research is ultimately insufficient to draw conclusions about whether e-cigarettes are an effective tool for quitting, Adams said that he encourages companies to submit applications to the FDA for e-cigarettes as a cessation aid.