by Sebastian Hughes
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned 55,000 e-cigarette products on Thursday for their failure to prove they didn’t pose a threat to public health.
The FDA announced that thousands of products from three vape companies, JD Nova Group LLC, Great American Vapes, and Vapor Salon, didn’t prove the benefit to adult smokers negated the “well-documented, alarming levels of youth use of such products.”
Any of the banned products not yet on the shelves cannot be introduced, while any products already available must be removed from the market to avoid enforcement by the department, according to the statement. Vape giant Juul, whose chief executive stepped down in 2019 after nine vape-related deaths, remains unaffected by the announcement.
“Congress gave the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products to protect the public from the harmful effects of tobacco use through science-based regulation,” said acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D.
“Ensuring new tobacco products undergo an evaluation by the FDA is a critical part of our aim to reduce tobacco-related disease and death. We know that flavored tobacco products are very appealing to young people, therefore assessing the impact of potential or actual youth use is a critical factor in our decision-making about which products may be marketed,” she added.
FDA bans 55,000 flavored e-cigarette products, crippling three vape companies. FDA claims applicants failed to demonstrate they are a net benefit to public health.
No worries though, people can just switch back to smoking! #publichealth 👍https://t.co/uOIPaWDBsu
— Guy Bentley (@gbentley1) August 26, 2021
The increased popularity of e-cigarettes among children has been a cause for concern among many health experts, CNN reported. According to research published by JAMA Network Open, 27.5% of high schoolers and 10.5% of middle schoolers reported using vape products in 2019.
“Flavored ENDS [electronic nicotine delivery system] products are extremely popular among youth, with over 80 percent of e-cigarette users between ages 12 through 17 using one of these products. Companies who want to continue to market their flavored ENDS products must have robust and reliable evidence showing that their products’ potential benefit for adult smokers outweighs the significant known risk to youth,” said Mitch Zeller, J.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.
Over one million middle and high school students used methanol e-cigarettes in 2020, accounting for 44.5% of all youth flavored vape products, Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, told CNN.
“The FDA’s action covers just a fraction of the more than 6.5 million tobacco products for which the FDA has received marketing applications, and it does not include any e-cigarette brands with a significant market share or that are most popular with kids, such as Juul, the number one youth brand,” Myers said.
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Sebastian Hughes is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
