01.26.23
In a speech on the Senate floor, Durbin chastises FDA for latest delay, leaving kids at risk as agency will be two years past a court-mandated review of all e-cigarettes
WASHINGTON – In a speech on the Senate floor today, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) rebuked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its unacceptable failure to protect children from the dangers of vaping. The agency, which has failed for 16 months to meet a court-ordered deadline of September 9, 2021, to review e-cigarettes, submitted a filing this week disclosing that there will be another six-month delay before FDA completes the premarket review process for the most popular vapes used by children, until December 31, 2023.
Based upon an investigation conducted by Durbin last year, an estimated one million children may now be at risk of picking up vaping before FDA will finish its review. The only reason such unauthorized e-cigarettes are on the market today is because FDA has exercised enforcement discretion, giving vaping companies a free pass to peddle their addictive products. Durbin called upon the agency to use its pre-market authority and remove all unauthorized e-cigarettes from store shelves, as required by law.
“The decade-long delay of the Food and Drug Administration to properly regulate e-cigarettes is in a league of its own. Under the law known as premarket review, no tobacco product… is permitted on store shelves unless the manufacturer proves to the Food and Drug Administration in advance…that it is ‘appropriate for the protection of public health.’ For years, the Food and Drug Administration, despite this charge under the law, has ignored it. Instead, they sat back as millions of e-cigarettes in fruit, mint, and candy flavors were illegally flooding the market and addicting America’s children,” Durbin continued. “In that time [since the court-ordered deadline], while the FDA has dithered, dallied, and delayed, more than one million of America’s kids have started vaping.”
“On Tuesday, in a stunning filing to the federal judge, the Food and Drug Administration disclosed that it will take another six-month delay in fulfilling the public health duty announced by the court years ago. That the Food and Drug Administration will not finish reviewing applications for the most popular e-cigarettes until the end of 2023, is another outrageous delay,” said Durbin. “How can this federal agency knowingly, willingly ignore this court order to protect America’s children?”
Durbin, who has repeatedly urged FDA to complete the premarket review of e-cigarettes, called on FDA to use its authority to swiftly remove any and all unreviewed vaping products from store shelves for the safety of American consumers.
“The Food and Drug Administration has one choice, three words – follow the law. Immediately halt the unauthorized sale of these e-cigarettes on the market. Not next year. Not next month. Immediately, today,” Durbin urged.
“Otherwise, this agency, and the people who guide it, bear responsibility for the result. That result is the addiction of children to a product which will harm their health… An agency created over a century ago to protect American consumers is, in fact, failing to protect the most vulnerable American consumers, children. The Food and Drug Administration has the authority today, before the end of this business day, to order vaping products off the market, period. Do it,” Durbin concluded.
Durbin also shared his own family’s experience with the harms of nicotine addiction. Impacted personally by his father’s battle with lung cancer, Durbin described is motivation to challenge the tobacco industry, which has long been a priority for him.
“I lost my father to lung cancer when I was 14 years old. He was 53. Two packs of Camels a day, and he died of lung cancer… When I was elected to the House of Representatives, I decided to ask a few questions about tobacco and government subsidies… I introduced an amendment to ban smoking on airplanes. It was opposed by not only my own party leadership, but the leadership of the Republican Party. Yet, we prevailed… To my surprise, this measure to make clean air more prevalent on airplanes ended up being a tipping point in American history on tobacco policy,”Durbin said.
Durbin explained that Big Tobacco took advantage of the addictive quality of nicotine, enticing kids and young adults into smoking in order to maintain a steady stream of profits at the expense of their customers own health. After Durbin raised repeated challenges to Big Tobacco’s tactics, the industry pivoted to e-cigarettes, marketing them with the unjustified and misleading claims that these products are a safer alternative to cigarettes. Today, these companies unabashedly target children by offering kid-friendly flavors of e-cigarettes like cotton candy or blue raspberry.
“The tobacco companies made big investments in these vape companies, selling them as new marketable products as if it was safe and although it wasn’t. They are creating addictions among children by advertising and selling fruit-flavored, bubblegum-flavored vaping devices,” said Durbin. “You would be shocked to learn that kids think it is harmless, yet they are extremely addictive.”
Video of Durbin’s floor speech is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s floor speech is available here.
Footage of Durbin’s floor speech is available here for TV Stations.
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