Week of March 31 Regulatory Intelligence Recap

Trade Press and Regulatory Summary:

• FDA’s top tobacco official is removed from post in latest blow to health agency’s leadership - AP

  • The Food and Drug Administration’s chief tobacco regulator has been removed from his post amid sweeping cuts at the agency and across the federal health workforce handed down Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter. In an email to staff, FDA tobacco director Brian King said: “It is with a heavy heart and profound disappointment that I share I have been placed on administrative leave.” King was removed from his position and offered reassignment to the Indian Health Service, according to a person familiar with the matter who did not have permission to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Dozens of staffers in FDA’s tobacco center also received notices of dismissal Tuesday morning, including the entire office responsible for enforcing tobacco regulations.

• Big Tobacco targets Trump in hope - and fear - of change - Reuters

  • BAT's U.S. subsidiary Reynolds American wrote to the Office of the United States Trade Representative on March 11 to call for the government to ban imports of all disposable vapes from China and consider additional tariffs on any other Chinese-made e-cigarettes and smoking alternatives. "The Chinese companies' unfair and illegal trading practices harm Reynolds and other law-abiding U.S. companies," Reynolds wrote in the letter, published by the USTR. The letter has not previously been reported. Tobacco companies, as well as vape makers, are battling to get the ear of relevant U.S. leaders or officials to make the case for changes they would support, a total of three industry consultants said. They asked not to be identified in order to speak freely. "It's no secret that everyone with a stake in this issue is trying to access the White House," said one of the consultants, who works for a tobacco company.

• ‘Deep ties to the CCP’: Meet the vaping lobbyist ramping up pressure on Trump to save 'illicit' vape industry - Fox News

  • A top vaping lobbyist, whose group worked closely with the Trump campaign last year and is now ramping up pressure on the Trump administration to "uphold their promise to save the flavored vaping industry," has extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party, a Fox News Digital review found. Tony Abboud, the Illinois-based executive director of the Vapor Technology Association, made several smaller donations to pro-Trump GOP Senate candidates ahead of the 2024 election and met with then-candidate Donald Trump weeks before the election in a push to protect the vaping industry. Abboud’s VTA and the ECCC previously had an informal relationship but officially inked an official partnership together in late 2023, forming the Global Vape Alliance, which includes the UK Vaping Industry Association and the Independent European Vape Alliance. This alliance led to cooperation between the different entities, which entails sharing "information and strategies for best practices to educate and guide member companies on existing laws, regulations and industry standards."

• US Supreme Court tosses ruling faulting FDA for denying flavored vape products - Reuters (see analysis below)

  • The U.S. Supreme Court threw out on Wednesday a judicial decision that found the U.S. Food and Drug Administration acted unlawfully in refusing to let two e-cigarette companies sell flavored vape products that regulators consider a health risk to youths. The justices in a unanimous ruling threw out a lower court's ruling that the FDA had failed to follow proper legal procedures under a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act when it rejected the applications by the companies, Triton Distribution and Vapetasia, to sell these nicotine-containing products. During arguments in the case, a Justice Department lawyer arguing for the FDA said the companies knew throughout the application process that the agency was concerned about the fact that flavors are attractive to youth and about the addictive nature of nicotine, a chemical dangerous to developing brains. In order to win regulatory approval, e-cigarette companies must demonstrate that a product would be "appropriate for the protection of the public health." That means that any health benefits - such as helping traditional cigarette smokers transition to generally less-harmful vaping - must outweigh the risks of bringing the new product to market.