House Tells FDA to Ban E-Cigarettes During COVID-19
On April 1, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy asked (https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2020-04-01.RK%20to%20Hahn-FDA%20re%20Vaping%20and%20Coronavirus.pdf) the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to clear the market of e-cigarettes because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. It was responding to FDA’s request (https://www.journalnow.com/business/fda-requests-federal-court-extend-premarket-application-deadline-on-e-cigarettes-to-september/article_155febfe-bca6-54ed-b68d-3bf443d18ac7.html) to give e-cigarette manufacturers four additional months to submit applications to stay on the market before enforcing a ban.
“Allowing e-cigarettes to remain on the market during this period would harm children and adults throughout the country and exacerbate the coronavirus crisis in critical ways,” subcommittee chair Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) said.
Krishnamoorthi, a speaker at ONS’s March 2020 congressional briefing (https://voice.ons.org/advocacy/vaping-ban-bipartisan-drug-plan-tobacco-regulation-agency) on vaping and youth smoking rates, is championing antivaping work in Congress as a cofounder of the Congressional Caucus to End the Youth Vaping Epidemic (https://raskin.house.gov/media/press-releases/50-members-launch-bipartisan-congressional-caucus-end-youth-vaping-epidemic).
Launched in September 2019, the bipartisan group of 52 congressional representatives was created to (http://dearcolleague.us/2019/09/join-the-congressional-caucus-to-end-the-youth-vaping-epidemic-3/) “serve as a forum in Congress to discuss needed solutions to better protect American youth from the dangers of vaping and nicotine addiction.”