Billionaire and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday announced a $160 million campaign to ban flavored e-cigarettes in the United States following a spike in vaping deaths.
"We know Big Tobacco's playbook. We've seen this before. It is targeting kids -- and putting them in serious danger," he added in the New York Times op-ed co-written with Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. E-cigarettes have been available in the US since 2006 and are sometimes used as an aid to quit smoking traditional tobacco products like cigarettes.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that there were now more than 450 possible cases of pulmonary illness associated with vaping in the US, double the figure reported the previous week.