The Biden administration said it is delaying regulations to ban menthol cigarettes in a stunning announcement Friday after the proposal garnered significant opposition.
The Biden administration abruptly announced Friday that it will delay regulations banning menthol cigarettes amid widespread opposition to the proposal.
In a statement, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said his agency would not move to finalize the regulations and pointed to opposition from civil rights activists. Since they were first proposed by the HHS‘ Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the regulations have sparked a contentious debate between health advocates and civil liberties and business groups.
„This rule has garnered historic attention and the public comment period has yielded an immense amount of feedback, including from various elements of the civil rights and criminal justice movement,“ Becerra said in a statement. „It’s clear that there are still more conversations to have, and that will take significantly more time.“Initiated 2 years ago
The announcement comes exactly two years after FDA initially proposed the regulations, paving the way for an historic ban on menthol cigarettes that the administration said would be a „critical“ piece of President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative. FDA also argued at the time that the ban would broadly „reduce the appeal of cigarettes“ and have substantial health impacts.
FDA ultimately handed the regulations off to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for final approval months ago after a lengthy public comment period. However, officials dragged their feet in moving forward with the regulations and missed multiple self-imposed deadlines to finalize them, igniting concerns among health advocates that the administration may change course.
„Unfortunately, the possibility of this administration making these rules a reality is shrinking with the passage of time, and ACS CAN is calling on the administration to not miss the opportunity to make a historic gain in the fight against cancer,“ American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network CEO Karen Knudsen said in a statement on Friday ahead of Becerra’s announcement.
