{"id":23783,"date":"2025-04-08T08:56:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T08:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=23783"},"modified":"2025-04-08T08:56:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T08:56:26","slug":"u-s-supreme-court-sides-with-fda-on-banning-sweet-flavoured-vapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/u-s-supreme-court-sides-with-fda-on-banning-sweet-flavoured-vapes\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S Supreme Court sides with FDA on banning sweet flavoured vapes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The U.S Supreme Court has ruled for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on its right to block applications from makers of sweet-flavoured vapes<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crux of the lengthy legal battle has been whether the FDA failed to correctly consider the requests of two manufacturers – Triton Distribution and Vapetasia – to sell flavoured e-liquids, putting it in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FDA was appealing a decision by the U.S Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that its denial of the applications was \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court justices have now unanimously ruled that the FDA did not in fact violate federal law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the final word with Trump in office<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

However, the decision to throw out the ruling of the federal appeals court is not the final word on the case, and the FDA could be forced to change its approach now that president Donald Trump \u2013 who pledged to \u201csave vaping\u201d<\/a> \u2013 has taken office again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FDA has rejected applications for more than a million nicotine products designed to taste like fruit, dessert or candy on the basis that their makers failed to show flavoured vapes have a net benefit to public health as required by law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Triton and Vapetasia argued that the FDA \u201cmoved the goalposts\u201d late in the application process by adding a requirement for long-term studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They said this \u201cregulatory switcheroos\u201d meant the agency unfairly denied their applications to sell sweet or fruit-flavored e-liquids, which are an important aid in helping adult smokers to quit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Triton and Vapetasia, agreeing that the FDA changed its standards with little warning in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FDA did not consider Triton\u2019s marketing plan<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The U.S Supreme Court heard both sides of the argument<\/a> in December and seemed mostly sympathetic to the agency\u2019s position, with many of the justices appearing baffled by the suggestion that it had changed its position during the approval process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While ruling in favour of the FDA on Wednesday, the court noted that the agency had said the company’s marketing plan would be an important factor in evaluating its application, but then ultimately didn\u2019t consider it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorney Eric Heyer, who represented Triton, expressed disappointment with the ruling but said the company believes “in the great harm reduction potential\u201d of the products and plans to continue litigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FDA has to date approved some tobacco-flavoured vapes, and recently allowed its first menthol-flavoured vapes<\/a> after the company provided data showing the product helps adults quit smoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency has not yet brought in any changes to its vaping polices in response to Trump\u2019s new tenure as president. But last week, the FDA\u2019s top tobacco regulator Brian King was removed from his post amid sweeping cuts to the federal health workforce that have cleared out many of the nation\u2019s leading health experts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

King oversaw hundreds of warning letters issued to companies that make, sell and distribute flavoured vapes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S Supreme Court has ruled for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on its right to block applications from makers of sweet-flavoured vapes.\u00a0 The crux of the lengthy legal battle has been whether the FDA failed to correctly consider the requests…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990002,"featured_media":23784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,258],"tags":[186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-23783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-legislation","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23790,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23783\/revisions\/23790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23783"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=23783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}