| Section | Link to Section |
|---|---|
| King | King: the gateway is true; there will be no more youth pandemics |
| Unapproved Vape | Every unapproved vape product is considered "illegal." |
| Brian King | Brian King's past opposition to vaping |
Director of the FDA Center for Tobacco Products Brian King met with representatives of the independent vaping industry to discuss the agency's approach to vaping products and users after the release today of the FDA's response to a December report that criticized the agency's tobacco regulators.
The American Vapor Manufacturers Association (AVM) arranged the Zoom event, which was titled "The Future of Vaping in the US: A Conversation with FDA's Dr. Brian King." Director of Legislative & External Affairs Gregory Conley and Vice President Allison Boughner of AVM served as moderators. Nick "Grimm" Green, an advocate for vaping, televised the event live on his YouTube channel.
King: the gateway is true; there will be no more youth pandemics
It was King's first public conversation with proponents of vaping, but he was not at all alarmed. It's nearly hard to imagine King carrying on a regular conversation without interjecting legal disclaimers and repeated promises to "follow the science," in fact, King is so at ease speaking FDA bureaucratese.
You can watch the entire event (above), but unless you consider King's assertion that he never used the phrase "epidemic" to characterize the vaping habits of young people throughout his nearly eight months at the FDA, no new ground was made.
According to him, there is "strong evidence" that some young people who experiment with vaping eventually convert to smoking cigarettes, and even occasional teenage vapers exhibit "signs of dependence."
He defended the agency's youth-oriented anti-vaping advertisements, claiming that its Drug War-style youth messaging was "rigorously evaluated" both before and after they aired and that it was successful in reaching minors.
Every unapproved vape product is considered "illegal.
Millions of adults have made the switch from smoking to vaping, according to King, who also noted that vaping improves overall health. However, he stressed that certain vaping products are far riskier than others. King declined to give names when Conley pressed him to list the vapes that carry hazards comparable to those of cigarettes.
He also deftly sidestepped answering Boughner's query regarding the relationship between the FDA's recent pledge to health equity and the closure of a tiny vape shop in East Harlem, New York, and the return of its patrons to smoking cigarettes.
King asserted that the FDA has researched how to appropriately convey the "continuum of risk" to adult smokers, but that the task had been delayed because of the rise in teen vaping that started in 2018. He noted that in the future, the CTP will be releasing communications explaining the distinctions between various nicotine products for adults.
King responded, "depends what you define as an illicit source," when asked if he would prefer adult vapers to purchase goods from legitimate or illegal sources. King stated that "any product that is on the market without a [FDA] authorization is illegal" in reference to CTP regulation.
Seven unpopular vaping devices and tobacco-flavored refills have been approved by the FDA; however, none have been approved since King assumed leadership of CTP in July 2022.
Brian King's past opposition to vaping
In July of last year, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf appointed King, a former employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to succeed longstanding CTP director Mitch Zeller.
King has only worked for the CDC since earning his PhD in epidemiology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2010—until Califf named him director of the CTP. From Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer to Senior Scientific Advisor, he progressed within the CDC Office on Smoking and Health (OSH), ultimately serving as Deputy Director for Research Translation at OSH in 2015.
King had no management or regulatory background to make him eligible for the FDA position, but he did have a history of opposing vaping and had frequently worked with groups opposed to tobacco, such as Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Truth Initiative.
King is thought to have invented the term used by the CDC to describe the lung damage brought on by the 2019 distribution of tainted THC cartridges. The term "e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI)" implied that the injuries that claimed the lives of over seventy American cannabis users were caused, at least in part, by commercial nicotine vaping products, or e-cigarettes. No instance of "EVALI" was ever linked to a vaping device, and the outbreak of the disease decreased and eventually halted when illegal cannabis processors ceased combining harmful vitamin E acetate with cannabis oil to increase profits.
King was permitted by CDC leadership to speak with the media during that crisis, and he made several odd and speculative remarks. At a press conference, for instance, he suggested that lung ailments such as "EVALI" might have been happening ever before nicotine vaping became popular more than ten years ago, but epidemiologists might have overlooked the evidence.
King is a coauthor of multiple biased articles and academic papers regarding the usage of vaping and other low-risk nicotine products. He either authored or approved of a CDC report claiming that dripping is a vaping technique in which e-liquid is poured directly onto coils that are already hot. He once purposefully misrepresented in a press release the results of his analysis of Juul Labs' product sales, implying that a lot more JUUL devices were in use than there were.
