In 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) attempted to institute a ban on JUUL pod flavors such as blueberry and mint, but were stymied by industry lobbyists. This is according to a Los Angeles Times review of thousands of pages of documents from the time, including the FDA’s proposed new tobacco rules and records of lobbyists who met with administration officials prior to the decision to stop the ban from going into effect.

The ban, had it been allowed to go into effect, might have saved thousands, perhaps millions of young people from developing nicotine addiction and prevented the hundreds of cases of lung disease that have been attributed to vaping in recent months.

Commerce Given Priority

According to officials interviewed by the LA Times, the decision to strip the ban on JUUL pod flavors from the FDA’s proposal was based on a “cost-benefit analysis,” indicating that the economic burden on retailers having to eliminate JUUL pods and similar products was greater than the potential health risks.

In October 2015, a draft of the proposed rule warned of the “attractiveness of flavors, especially to youth and young adults, and the impact flavored tobacco products may have on youth initiation.” This concern had already been noted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) a year earlier. Since 2011, the CDC had noted that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students had increased by 800 percent. When asked in a survey why they vaped, four-fifths of teens responded, “It comes in flavors I like.”

As it turns out, the e-cigarette industry was taking a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook. FDA documents given to the White House warned that cigarette companies had used flavoring agents identical to those used in artificially-flavored candies – and when heated and concentrated, could be toxic.

Scientific Evidence Pushed Aside

The FDA’s proposed ban was widely supported by the scientific community as well as public health officials when it was submitted to the White House for approval in mid-October 2015. Two weeks later, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) held the first in a series of over 100 meetings with business leaders, pro-industry representatives, and lobbyists, who over the next several months, drowned out public voices.

By the time all was said and done, when the final rule granting the FDA regulatory oversight was published in May 2016, the flavor ban had been stripped – along with all scientific documentation about the possible impact on youth. Instead, there was a vague statement in which the FDA said it was “seeking further data on the role of flavored products in youth initiation.”

Did JUUL Pod Flavors Drive an Epidemic?

Today, it’s apparent that the FDA’s original assessment of JUUL pod flavors and other similar products has created a vaping epidemic of monumental proportions. Within a year of the rule’s publication, nearly 12 percent of high school students were using e-cigarettes, compared to 1.5 percent in 2011, according to truthinitiative.org.

Today, two-thirds of teenagers believe that vape liquids contain only flavorings; only about 13 percent realize that it is a nicotine delivery system. Meanwhile, drugabuse.gov statistics indicate that 70 percent of teens are exposed to e-cigarette advertisements.