When e-cigarette makers insist they don’t market to kids, consider the source

Illinois has reached a frightening milestone: Five deaths from vaping-related lung disease have now been reported here, more than in any other state,

Those five deaths are among 47 nationwide, with nearly 2,300 cases of the illness reported since March, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Researchers have now linked many — but not all — of those illnesses to Vitamin E acetate, a compound often added to black market vaping devices laced with THC.

But the e-cigarette industry is not off the hook for its role in creating the vaping crisis.

The industry’s biggest manufacturer, Juul, has gotten millions of teens hooked on vaping by means of flavored products and aggressive marketing, as a New York Times report this weekend revealed.

So the next time you hear any e-cigarette executive say the industry has never ever tried to lure young people into vaping — while pushing e-cigarette flavors like bubble gum and candy — don’t believe a word of it.

The credibility of the e-cigarette industry, as well as any studies the industry produces or financially supports, is from here on, highly suspect. It’s probably best that we should ignore the industry’s claims and look to the Food and Drug Administration for the real and objective proof — one way or another.

The Times investigation reveals how Juul, under pressure from profit-hungry investors, began in 2015 to push its product to young people. Juul blitzed social media platforms with ads designed to make e-cigarette use seem cool and hip, a strategy that left some salespeople confused.

Why wasn’t the company marketing its products “where the smokers were, say, NASCAR races, which had long been sponsored by tobacco companies?” the Times wrote. “Why was the campaign so youthful?”

Meanwhile, “juuling,” as it came to be called, took off. And underage teens, not just young adults, responded to the campaign and began using a product that has a higher nicotine content than a pack of cigarettes.

“From the beginning, there was plenty of evidence of teenage use on social media that should have been apparent to a company that had made social media the core of its marketing strategy,” the Times wrote. “A sampling of tweets from Juul’s first 18 months of sales showed that juuling had quickly become a fad among high school students, long before the company acknowledged that there was a problem.”

Tweets, for example, like this, from December 2015: “petition to make our school mascot a juul.” And like this, from January 2016: “horizon highschool, where every1 is juuling in the bathroom.”

Sales skyrocketed. Juul is now worth $38 billion, controlling 75% of the e-cigarette market.

Under pressure from public health officials and others who saw teen vaping reach epidemic levels, Juul recently quit selling most of its flavored products and dropped all of its broadcast, print and digital advertising.

But the epidemic rages on. More than 5 million young people, including one in four high school students and one in 10 middle school children, now vape, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and the FDA.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Juul last week, accusing the company of intentionally targeting teens. California, North Carolina and school districts in several states have sued the company, too.

Some lawmakers, including Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, want to take even more drastic measures. Maybe it’s time.

A bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Durbin would take all pod-based e-cigarettes, such as Juul, off the market until the devices pass FDA scrutiny, something the industry has fought. Manufacturers would have to show the FDA’s scientists that e-cigarettes are safe, effective at helping smokers quit and do not cause underage youth to take up addictive nicotine products.

Whatever action lawmakers take, it’s clear that they should pay little heed to the industry’s own in-house-generated claims.

Yes, many adult smokers have said that vaping helped them kick a nasty cigarette habit. And that might be the beginning of an excellent argument in defense of e-cigarettes, if produced and marketed responsibly.

But anecdotes are not hard evidence. They are stories, not scientific research. Far more independent research is called for.

In the meantime, listening to the makers of e-cigarettes is like listening to Big Tobacco.

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com