Number of kids hospitalised by vaping QUADRUPLES in a year - as experts fear ... trends now
The number of British kids being hospitalised by vaping has quadrupled in a year, according to data.
Some 32 instances of under-18s needing medical treatment for e-cigarette-related ailments were recorded in 2022.
This was up from just eight in the year before, NHS statistics show.
Experts have repeated their demands for a crackdown on vaping on the back of the figures, warning the figure will only get higher.
Prevalence of the gadgets — which can contain as much nicotine as 50 cigarettes — has doubled among kids in less than a decade.
Calls for tougher action come amid soaring vaping rates have doubled among children over the past decade
NHS Digital, which quizzed nearly 10,000 students aged 11 to 15 on their smoking, drug and drinking habits last year, found that nine per cent currently vape — the highest rate logged since the survey began in 2014
Just one in eight adults in Britain were frequent smokers in 2021, down by five per cent on last year, according to the Office for National Statistics' Annual Population Survey (blue line). Meanwhile, 4million over-16s now use e-cigarettes — up by a fifth in just 12 months (red line)
Despite it being illegal to sell e-cigarettes to under-18s, one in 10 secondary school pupils are now regular users.
Almost every high street now has a designated vape shop, with e-cigarettes sold for as little as £5.
Unlike tobacco, however, the gadgets don't need to be hidden behind shutters.
Gadgets are often sold in snazzy colours and with child-friendly names and flavours, like bubble-gum and strawberry milkshake.
Marketing of the devices has been likened to that of alcopops.
The figures on hospital admissions among kids came from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by LBC.
It shows that 15 of the incidents were in children aged under 10.
And, among all age groups, vaping-related hospitalisations nearly doubled, hitting 344.
NHS Digital, which supplied the data, did not state whether all the 32 admissions