Ashley Moody presses Marty Makary on Chinese vapes during FDA confirmation hearing

The Attorney General has bestowed more than 50 Back the Blue awards over the past four years.

Speaking during the confirmation hearing for Dr. Marty Makary, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody honed in on a problem she tackled in her previous job as Florida’s Attorney General: dangerous, and illegal, Chinese vapes.

Makary, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, is widely expected to be confirmed to the role, and is one of the less controversial picks coming out of the new Trump administration.

He faced a lot of tough questions on things like abortion pill access and vaccines during his hearing, but Moody took a different approach during her questioning.

“First, I want to talk to you about what is going on with the FDA and its burying its head in the sand about illegal, chemically ridden, extraordinarily high amounts of nicotine, Chinese vapes that are flooding the United States market,” she said, pointing to flavored vapes found in convenience stores throughout the U.S. despite lack of regulatory oversight and, in at least some cases, the products being outright illegal.

“All of the manufacturers there of these chemically ridden vapes have now flooded our market and now are addicting our children, much like we’re seeing this in, in many other ways … in harmful substance coming from China and they’re not doing much about it, fentanyl, etc.,” Moody added.

Making nice, Makary nodded to Moody’s status as a proud baseball mom, prompting her to say it was “on the bleachers at a baseball game” where she first heard about the problem with Chinese vapes, before getting more serious on the issue.

“I think there are four new vaping stores that have popped up in my neighborhood all in the last few years,” Makary began, acknowledging the problem.

Makary admitted that he hasn’t gone into any of them, but said she was right about products from China flooding the market.

“We have no idea what’s in these products, and public health is not even going to be able to study them because it takes so long for public health research to catch up, but it’s very concerning and it’s not right that they’re banned,” he said.

Makary offered one suggestion: using the Office of Inspections and Investigations, in collaboration with the Department of Justice and other law enforcement, to target illegal products.

The issue is big in Florida, with Republican lawmakers state Sen. Keith Perry and state Rep. Toby Overdorf sponsoring legislation (SB 1006, HB 1007) this year to crack down on illicit vape products.

The Florida Retail Federation has reported that at least $363 million in illegal vape products were sold in Florida just last year, ranking Florida No. 1 in illegal vape sales. Florida sits at 20% above the national average in illegal vape sales, making up a whopping 58% of overall vape sales in the state.

And Julio Fuentes, President and CEO of the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has focused on the issue too, with an op-ed in The Floridian noting Trump’s opportunity through Makary on tobacco policy.

Instead of focusing on “prohibitionist” policies, Fuente wrote that Makary could establish “scientific consensus around tobacco harm reduction,” meaning alternatives to things like cigarettes.

“Research has well established that vapor and heat-not-burn technologies are far less harmful than traditional cigarettes. And, new products like nicotine pouches are even less harmful, in some cases on par with traditional cessation products like nicotine gum,” he wrote.

His point was aligned with many in the smoking alternative camp, that by adequately regulating things like vapes, consumers could have access to safer alternatives to smoking, including by removing unregulated and harmful vape products from shelves.