In December of 2019, Mitch Zeller, who at the time ran the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, got an urgent phone call from a fellow staffer at the agency.
A few months earlier, President Donald Trump and his administration had vowed to take e-cigarettes in every flavor except tobacco off the market to quash a youth vaping epidemic that, at the time, saw almost 30 percent of American teens using nicotine.
By the time Zeller received that December call, he says, the White House had different instructions for the FDA: Limit the ban to pod-based vapes, like Juuls, and leave menthol flavors alone.
Almost seven years later and well into his second term, Trump is vice-signaling even more aggressively to the pro-vape crowd and the industry that supplies it. …
Earlier this month, reportedly under pressure from Trump, the agency authorized the sale of blueberry- and mango-flavored vape juices made by the company Glas, the first time the agency has given its stamp of approval to e-cigarette flavors other than tobacco and menthol.
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