Judge Orders F.D.A. to Stop Blocking Imports of E-Cigarettes (NY Times and Washington Post) Links provided

[phorbin]

he did but as the NY times article says:


The Food and Drug Administration issued a brief statement: “The public health issues surrounding electronic cigarettes are of serious concern to the F.D.A. The agency is reviewing Judge Leon’s opinion and will decide the appropriate action to take.”

Notice how they referred to his RULING as "opinion" and then went on to say THEY will decide what action to take.I am a democrat and I believe in some regulation but there needs to be a balance.The fda has done the public a lot of good over the years but this is taking things way too far!! it is not democratic. Im a little disenfranchised at the moment.As long as tobacco is out there KILLING people ecigs should be available as the alternative plain and simple.

The FDA seems to think they have an enforcement mandate. They do not. They review, test, make recommendations, but they have no enforcement mandate, they are not a legislative body, and they are not the president. In short they are flexing muscles they don't really have. They have tried on more than one occasion to enlist the aide of the ATF because it would ultimately be the ATF who is responsible for enforcement. The ATF, in the face of judge Leon's ruling stopped seizing ecig products. So have our port authorities for the most part. Yet the FDA continues to insist they have more power on this issue than they actually have.

Someone needs to step in and put the FDA back in its place. Judge Leon attempted to do just that, and as we can see, the FDA has chosen to ignore his RULING (not opinion as they are claiming here)