This new post by Wendy Parmet appears on the Health Affairs Blog, as part of a series stemming from the Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event held at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 30, 2015.
Sometime in the next few months, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to issue the so-called deeming regulations, which will open the door to the federal regulation of e-cigarettes. In considering whether to issue the regulations, which were first published for notice and comment rulemaking last April, the FDA faces a formidable challenge: it must decide whether and how to regulate in the midst of scientific uncertainty and limited statutory flexibility.
By subjecting e-cigarettes to its regulatory regime, the FDA risks retarding the growth of what may prove to be a powerful new tool for harm reduction. But by failing to act, the agency risks undermining decades of progress in tobacco control. In either case, the public health impact is apt to be significant.
Read the full post here.
