Select Committee Leaders Question FDA on Vaping Imports
The chairman and ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, joined by a bipartisan group of 10 colleagues, wrote to the FDA commissioner and Brian Boynton at DOJ's consumer protection branch about their concerns about "the extreme proliferation of illicit vaping products from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Once imported illegally from the PRC, these unregulated products can be easily bought online and in brick-and-mortar stores across the United States. We ask you to work with the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to address this urgent problem with all due speed."
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In the Dec. 7 letter, Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and the others said vaping products that haven't been authorized by the FDA and are imported from China are more than half of all vaping products sold in the U.S.
"While we were encouraged to see that FDA in May 2023 issued an import alert for disposable Elf Bar e-cigarettes, which are now the most popular e-cigarettes with youth, recent news reports suggest that Elf Bar is successfully evading this import ban."
They asked: "What steps is FDA taking to more aggressively prevent the importation of illegal vapor products? Specifically: a. Does the FDA plan to issue additional import alerts to address all known illegal products and their manufacturers? b. Has the FDA provided CBP a complete list of vapor products that (a) have received a Marketing Granted Order, and (b) have [pre-market tobacco product applications] pending since September 9, 2020?"