EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Tom Cotton wants FDA to fast-track American e-cigarettes amidst crackdown on illicit Chinese vapes
Read what Sen. Tom Cotton wants the FDA to do next to continue the Trump administration's successful work against the flood of illicit and dangerous Chinese e-cigarettes.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), one of the Senate’s leading opponents of the illicit flood of Chinese e-cigarettes into America, wants the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to both “further curb distribution of illicit Chinese e-cigarettes” while also “increas[ing] the number of regulated American products available in the U.S. market.”
Cotton’s letter to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, follows a series of Trump-era successes on curbing the flood of dangerous vapes from China. Cotton commends, for example, the “recent Trump administration actions…[including the announcement of] the seizure of more than 2.1 million Chinese e-cigarette products across seven states. FDA also announced the seizure of 4.7 million units valued at $86.5 million, the largest ever seizure of its kind.”
But, Cotton noted, “more must be done.” He wants the FDA to “increase the number of regulated, legal, American products available to consumers…Only when adult consumers have legal, regulated, and satisfactory alternatives available in the American marketplace will the market demand for illicit Chinese products disappear.”
However, the bureaucracy has stymied this, he explains. “To date, FDA has authorized just 39 e-cigarette products, from only five companies, despite receiving over 26 million applications.”
The battle against Chinese vapes, which Cotton has waged for years, is a matter of life or death, he explains.
“The FDA has acknowledged that illicit e-cigarettes manufactured in Communist China contain harmful additives including formaldehyde, lead, and acrolein,” the Arkansas lawmaker writes. “Studies show some illicit disposable e-cigarettes release lead amounting to nearly 20 packs of cigarettes during a single day’s use…As the Attorney General has noted, unregulated illicit Chinese e-cigarettes are also at risk of containing fentanyl, which killed over 48,000 Americans in 2024.”
Read Sen. Tom Cotton’s letter to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary here.
