A quintet of Supreme Court justices appeared sympathetic on Monday to claims that the Food and Drug Administration rightly moved the goalposts on its standards for some flavored vapes appealing to minors when it blocked two companies from selling the popular nicotine products.
A quintet of Supreme Court justices appeared sympathetic on Monday to claims that the Food and Drug Administration rightly moved the goalposts on its standards for some flavored vapes appealing to minors when it blocked two companies from selling the popular nicotine products.
While the court may still find a flaw in the FDA’s handling of the matter, the three liberal members of the high court as well as Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, seemingly sided with the agency.
“I want to figure out what the legal error is there,” Kavanaugh told attorney Eric Heyer who represented the vape companies Wages and White Lion Investments. “You agree that at the end of the day, the agency has to make a choice, and it’s going to be a choice with uncertainty.”
Heyer argued that the FDA had shifted its standards in the middle of its approval process and did not adequately communicate that to the companies.
Back in 2016, under the Obama administration, the FDA passed a rule subjecting e-cigarettes to the Tobacco Control Act, which requires companies to get authorization to sell their products.
