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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 11, 2019 (HealthDay News) — As concern grows over hundreds of lung illnesses tied to vaping, the Trump administration on Wednesday said it would move to ban flavored versions of electronic cigarettes.<\/p>\n
Vaping is harming young people and “we’re going to have to do something about it,” President Donald Trump said at the Oval Office, The New York Times<\/i> reported. He was flanked by Alex Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and Ned Sharpless, M.D., the acting U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner.<\/p>\n
Azar told reporters that details of a plan to phase out flavored e-cigarettes from the market will be announced during the next few weeks. In a tweet, he added that “new provisional data show that youth use continues to rise rapidly, and we will not stand idly by.”<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has faced mounting political pressure to do something about the vaping issue. Last week, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he would ask for Sharpless to resign his post at the FDA if flavored e-cigarettes were not removed from the market, The Times<\/i> reported. And on Monday, billionaire philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he was donating $160 million to help further a ban on flavored e-cigarettes.<\/p>\n