FDA claims challenged

Industry representatives and public health advocates are challenging some of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s claims in relation to its final deeming rule:

• On the FDA’s press release statement that “there was no federal law prohibiting retailers from selling e-cigarettes, hookah tobacco or cigars to people under age 18” before the final rule was released, Stogie Guys’ co-founder and publisher Patrick Semmens countered that the sale of cigars to minors was already banned under federal law before the deeming regulations, as confirmed by the CDC.
• Regarding a CTP spokeswoman’s claim that “we’re talking about products that kill people,” Boston University’s Michael Siegel said the “products that kill people … are not called e-cigarettes; they’re called real tobacco cigarettes.”
• On CTP Director Mitch Zeller’s explanation during an FDA media briefing that the U.K. Royal College of Physicians’ findings of the harm reduction benefits of vaping did not apply in the U.S. because of “skyrocketing use of e-cigarettes by kids,” University of Ottawa adjunct law professor David Sweanor said the difference is not in youth vaping, but in how the data are tracked. According to Sweanor, nearly 80 percent of youth who have tried vaping say they used a non-nicotine variety. Stogie Guys’ Semmens added the FDA repeatedly referred to “youth and young adult(s),” which included “youth” as old as age 29 in some studies, yet the FDA said the rules are necessary “for the children.”