Trump Stalls Action on e-Cigarettes/Vaping
President Donald Trump apparently is pulling back administration plans to issue new rules on e-cigarettes/vaping to curb youth access. After a 9/11 White House meeting between then-FDA acting commissioner Ned Sharpless, HHS secretary Alex Azar and President Donald Trump, the agency was reportedly moving forward to ban non-tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, including mint and menthol. “We will not stand idly by as these products become an on-ramp to combustible cigarettes or nicotine addiction for a generation of youth,” Azar said then.
But now, two months later and under pressure from his political advisers and lobbyists reminding the administration about potential pushback from the president’s supporters, Trump is resisting, saying he still wants to study the issue, the New York Times reports. “Those political concerns were not without merit: E-cigarette users have held protests outside the White House and outside Trump rallies that they may have attended under other circumstances,” the article says. “Protesters have also raised concerns about the potential closing of thousands of vape shops, which they said would hurt the economy and cost jobs across the country.”
Meanwhile, House Energy and Commerce chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) sent a letter to FDA acting commissioner Brett Giroir urging the agency to investigate allegations that Juul Labs “knowingly distributed approximately one million contaminated mint-flavored e-cigarette pods for consumer use.” According to news reports cited by Pallone, Juul company executives pressured their suppliers to produce more mint-flavored pods to make up for sales losses resulting from the company’s earlier decision to pull most of its other flavored pods from retail stores.
Pallone also expressed his concern that Juul may now attempt to promote menthol-flavored pods to compensate for anticipated sales losses due to the company’s decision to remove mint-flavored pods from the market recently. He noted that these concerns are yet another reason for the administration to move quickly to finalize its proposal to remove all flavored e-cigarette products from the market, which Pallone urged in a letter to president Trump last month.
Additionally, Pallone’s letter requested a briefing from FDA on the contamination allegations as well as a status update on the agency’s preparation for its 5/2020 deadline for premarket review of tobacco products.
Addressing reports about the administration delaying e-cigarette/vaping actions, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on Twitter: “Delays on regulatory steps to combat youth vaping may be a Pyrrhic victory for outside vaping groups fighting reasonable action to stop kid use of the products; putting the entire opportunity at risk and making bipartisan legislation to impose restrictions increasingly inevitable.” He also urged Congress to act to ban flavors in all tobacco products, give FDA user fees to regulate e-cigarettess, and raise the tobacco age to 21. “These steps can combat youth tobacco use, preserve harm reduction, and further reduce tobacco death and disease,” he said.