‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ Senators grill FDA, DOJ about lack of action on youth vaping epidemic

Republicans and Democrats on the US Senate Judiciary Committee showed rare agreement Wednesday as they took to task the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Justice for what they described as inaction on the country’s youth vaping epidemic.

Republicans and Democrats on the US Senate Judiciary Committee showed rare agreement Wednesday as they took to task the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Justice for what they described as inaction on the country’s youth vaping epidemic. Nearly three years ago, a federal court ruled that the FDA was violating the Tobacco Control Act by allowing e-cigarette products that did not have FDA pre-authorization to stay on the market. An FDA official testified Wednesday that the topic was a “top priority,” but the agency has missed the September 2021 deadline that the court set to for the agency to complete its review of e-cigarette makers’ applications to sell their products. Since that time, one study found, an estimated 2.1 million children have used e-cigarettes regularly, and the majority use flavored products. “After the court-ordered deadline passed on September 9, 2021, the FDA could have ordered every single unauthorized e-cigarette off the market, and that’s what it should have done,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, told Dr. Brian King, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, at Wednesday’s hearing. “Instead, thousands of unauthorized e-cigarettes flooded the market.” In fact, Durbin said, his staffers found vapes in flavors like Red Bull, strawberry, dragonfruit and watermelon bubble gum at a shop just a mile from FDA headquarters.