This op-ed originally appeared in the Washington Examiner
Editor’s Note: This column was authored by David Safavian.
The Food and Drug Administration is hoping to take a page out of John Kerry’s flip-flopping playbook. While running for president in 2004, Kerry tried to explain his blatant inconsistency on a spending bill by saying he was for it before he was against it. Kerry’s attempt at rhetorical origami didn’t work then, and it won’t work for the FDA now.
Under federal law, tobacco and vaping products are not to be sold until they have been reviewed and authorized by the FDA. That requirement isn’t unreasonable, especially since Congress directed — not asked — the FDA to act on applications within 180 days. But during the Biden administration, the FDA essentially stopped reviewing tobacco and vape products, ballooning the average review to nearly 1,000 days from the date an application is submitted. The Trump administration inherited that backlog, and the president is trying to fix it.
However, the FDA is going about it the wrong way. Instead of simply enforcing the law and accelerating reviews, the agency has adopted a risky workaround. As scientists work through product applications, the FDA has said that companies are free to sell their products, even though Congress required products to receive authorization before entering the market. Not only does this approach flout a congressional directive, it also puts public safety at risk by ignoring the threat posed by illicit vapes, which are flooding the United States.
Read the full article in the Washington Examiner
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