The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that millions of vaping products will be taken off the market. However, the FDA didn’t decide on products made by Juul, the largest e-cigarette maker.
The decision covered about 93% of 6.5 million applications submitted to the agency for review. Nearly 1 million products were rejected because they came in flavors like “apple crumble” or “cinnamon toast cereal.”
Another 4.5 million products from one company were rejected — at least for now — because their applications weren’t filed correctly. The FDA hasn’t said when to expect the rest of its decisions but said the applications are in the “final stages of review.”
The FDA reviewed the products to determine whether they would provide a net gain in helping adult smokers quit rather than attracting teens who hadn’t smoked before. Read more about the decision here.
Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called the FDA announcement “a significant step in the right direction.”
But he added that “the FDA will leave our kids at risk unless it acts quickly on the remaining applications, including for products like Juul that have driven the youth e-cigarette epidemic, and eliminates all flavored e-cigarettes, including menthol-flavored products that are widely used by kids. Every day these products remain on the market, our kids remain in jeopardy.”