FDA Investigates Possible Illegal Electronic Cigarette Sales

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has written letters to 21 e-cig manufacturers asking for information that would help the regulator to determine whether some of the products marketed by the companies in question are on the market illegally. The FDA ruled that any electronic cigarette product which was to be introduced on the market after August 8, 2016 needed to get clearance (premarket approval) from the FDA while those already on the market could continue as the makers prepared to undergo the premarket approval process come 2022. However, the media had reports of new products on sale yet such products aren’t approved by the FDA as required by law. The call for information is therefore designed to identify those products which could have been rebranded (due to the sale of their parent companies and other factors) and those which are new (and therefore non-compliant). We await the outcome of that investigation.