Today’s announcement by the FDA that JUUL’s vaping products will be ordered off the market is another stark reminder of the agency’s forgotten mission to protect the health of American consumers.
The scientific evidence clearly shows that e-cigarettes and vaping products, while not totally safe, are 95% safer than combustible tobacco products and twice as effective in helping smokers quit tobacco products altogether. By ignoring the science, the FDA is endangering the lives of millions of Americans.
JUUL, like a handful of other popular e-cigarette and vaping products, followed the FDA’s guidelines by submitting detailed scientific data from over 110 studies totaling over 125,000 pages evaluating the product’s impact on both current users of tobacco products and nonusers in its application to the agency, which FDA still deemed insufficient.
Today’s decision by the FDA is questionable in many ways, especially when many products, including synthetic products, remain on store shelves despite having ignored the FDA’s deadlines and not applying for approval at the agency. It would appear that ignoring the FDA’s approval process would have been a far better strategy than complying with their guidelines, as evidenced by the many unapproved products available on store shelves.
Following the FDA’s many debacles and misstatements during the pandemic, it is clear that the FDA has lost sight of its mission to protect the health of American consumers, instead choosing to follow an ideology of prohibitionism rather than relying on scientific evidence. This is the most pro-smoking action we have seen taken in years by the agency.