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OScott Gottlieb, Commissioner for Food and Drug Administration, warned Friday that pod-based electronic cigarettes could be banned altogether if the teenage vaping rate continues to rise.
"If we can not start to reverse these trends this year and we do not see rates start to go down, we will have to take more dramatic measures," Gottlieb told Fox News. "We will have to look at the tobacco-based cigarettes module as a category and potentially remove them from the market."
Gottlieb said the 2019 National Youth Smoking Survey, released in August, would help determine whether such dramatic action is needed. Gottlieb announced that he would leave the agency next month.
[[[[Related: FDA Calls Walgreens, Walmart, 7/11 and Others for Selling Electronic Cigarettes to Minors]
"If this shows an additional increase of 30, 40, 50% in the use of the electronic cigarette in children … I think we will have to look at the actions that deal with this as a category," he said. Gottlieb.
Leader of the tobacco industry Altria recently announced a $ 12.8 billion investment in electronic cigarette maker Juul, whose electronic cigarette pods dominate the market. Juul announced in November that he would stop selling most of his flavored pods, at least temporarily, under pressure from the FDA.
Just two days ago, the FDA has announced new regulations and closer scrutiny for tobacco retailers selling electronic cigarettes and flavored products. The new policies will make it much more difficult for convenience stores to sell vaping products.
Gottlieb has described the teen as an epidemic vape and has devoted much of his mandate to the FDA to crack down on electronic cigarettes.
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