The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned six flavored Vuse Alto e-cigarette products on Thursday amid a nationwide crackdown on vape and e-cigarette sales in the U.S. The FDA cited concerns that Vuse Alto applied targeted marketing to children as it became the top-selling vape product, surpassing Juul.
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Reynolds American sells Vuse Alto and is a major producer of flavored e-cigarettes, but now the FDA has banned three of its menthol and mixed berry-flavored products. Reynolds is also the producer of Camel and Newport cigarettes.
The FDA said in a news release that it looks at whether a product meets the necessary health requirements when considering to approve or ban a product and says Vuse didn’t meet those standards.
“We review each application on its own merits, and it’s the responsibility of the applicant to provide sufficient science to support the product they’re seeking to market,” Matthew Farrelly, the director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Product’s Office of Science, said in the news release. “If an application contained sufficient scientific evidence to meet the necessary public health standard, including a non-tobacco-flavored product, we’d authorize the product. But such evidence was lacking in this case.”
The ban comes as Vuse Alto vapes surged in popularity among underage users bringing in $2.2 billion in sales over the last 12 months. That number accounts for 40% of e-cigarette sales in the U.S., according to a report from the Financial Times. This is compared to Juul which brought in $1.4 billion, making up 25% of all e-cigarette sales during the same time period.
A separate federal survey conducted last year revealed roughly 12.5% of middle and high school students reported to have vaped in the previous 30 days. Vuse was their choice product, according to the survey.
PubMed Central reported that Reynolds’ advertising methods were likely targeting young users through social media marketing and using models and influencers to promote the product.
“Not only is this copy concerning because it leverages a popular user-generated meme and, therefore, is likely appealing to youth, but by doing so, it likely perpetuates the related cultural narratives of addiction apathy and performance that we describe in this genre,” PMC reported.
Reynolds’ parent company, British American Tobacco, denies influencing young people and told The Wall Street Journal that under the FDA’s ban, cigarette smokers will no longer have access to less harmful products. The company says it plans to challenge the FDA’s decision in court.
“This decision flies in the face of proven science and is contrary to the FDA’s stated goal of reducing the health effects of tobacco use,” Kingsley Wheaton, BAT’s chief strategy and growth officer, told The Journal.
The FDA has been working to curb nicotine use and ensure all tobacco products undergo a science-based review since 2020 when it required all e-cigarette manufacturers in the U.S. to submit their vaping products for authorization by the FDA. Last year, Juul Labs was briefly ordered to stop selling its product over unspecified technical issues. Juul appealed the FDA’s decision leading to a federal court holding off the ban.
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